# 2007 AD - America invents Rugby Football **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 10, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902 "2007-11-10T12:43:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/1 "2007-11-10T12:43:51Z")
You might have seen [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7oF4ZDigjM) hilarious clip of the final play of a college football game, in which a team needing a touchdown executed a sequence of 15 desperate lateral passes before finally scoring. To those of us watching from this side of te Atlantic, it resembles very bad rugby, with some shockingly poor passing technique 😃 . But my question is, what about that 15th pass, which clearly bounces before it is picked up? Shouldn’t that be an incomplete pass or something? My knowledge of American Football is patchy, so enlighten me. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/2 "2007-11-10T12:55:41Z")
A pass is only a legal “pass” if it’s thrown forward (which, incidentally, can only be done from behind the line of scrimmage). Otherwise it’s a “lateral”. A lateral is not a pass in the same sense. A dropped lateral is a fumble, not an incomplete pass, which means it can be picked up and advanced (by either team). ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/3 "2007-11-10T14:03:54Z")
That’s brilliant - even the touchdown looks more like a try! ---
**Author:** ![Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tool_of_the_Conspiracy)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/4 "2007-11-10T20:27:13Z")
Are you familiar with the end of the 1982 California-Stanford game? It’s known as “_The_ Play”–it’s even listed as that in Wikipedia. Not as many laterals, and I don’t think any of them bounced, but it’s interesting for another reason… This clip shows a lot more than it needs to. You can skip ahead to about the five-minute mark. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wozEF0bORxQ) ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2007, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/5 "2007-11-11T18:27:56Z")
[Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VGBxfAdDM) a more concise clip of The Play. (There was one that had my comments on it, but I can’t find it now.) As for the 15-lateral one, IMO the only weird thing about it was that it ended in a touchdown. I’ve seen lots of these final play hot potato sequences, but they generally end up with someone finally getting tackled or turning it over. On a normal play, this would just be a case of sloppy defending. Here, it’s a play for the ages. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2007, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/6 "2007-11-11T18:35:36Z")
> [@m1o1n1k1e1y101](#): > > You stupid European mother fuckers are so stupid. You obviously don’t know anything about football since it has completely different rules than rugby. If people went around pitching it all the time in football then there would be to many turnovers. So why don’t you just stick with your rugby and shut your fucking mouths? **U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!** :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/7 "2007-11-12T02:01:04Z")
Wow, that’s right, posts can be deleted. I’d completely forgotten. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/8 "2007-11-12T02:06:41Z")
What happens if you drop the ball rugby? In football, you have to recover it or lose posession of it. Is it different in rugby? Perhaps that’s the reason it’s so cool in american football to see this play but not to you. ETA: Also, half the fun of watching this clip is that it worked. It’s such a long shot to score by lateralling it so much…that’s really why it’s so cool. Just like a hole in 1 in golf- it’s hard. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/9 "2007-11-12T06:10:18Z")
[QUOTE=IntelSoldier] What happens if you drop the ball rugby? In football, you have to recover it or lose posession of it. Is it different in rugby? Perhaps that’s the reason it’s so cool in american football to see this play but not to you. ETA: Also, half the fun of watching this clip is that it worked. It’s such a long shot to score by lateralling it so much…that’s really why it’s so cool. Just like a hole in 1 in golf- it’s hard. [/QUOTE] In rugby, if you drop the ball forward (i.e., towards the opponent’s try-line), it’s called a “knock-on.” If you knock on, and the other team picks the ball up, then play can continue. If, however, they don’t make any progress with the ball, then the referee can call the play back and set a scrum. The team that did NOT knock the ball on gets to feed the ball into the scrum, which also means that they’re likely to gain possession. If you knock the ball on, and then recover it yourself, the referee will halt play and set a scrum, with the feed going to the opposite team. If you drop the back backwards (i.e., towards your own try-line), then it’s a “knock-back” (amazing, huh?), and the ball is still live. You can pick it up and continue, and the opposition can also attempt to recover the ball, as long as they are coming from an on-side position.\* Basically, the rule about dropping the ball in rugby mirrors the rules about passing—if it goes backwards, then it’s “play on”; if it goes forwards, the team that propels it forward loses the ball. - Explaining the intricacies of rugby’s rules about on-side and off-side would take more energy than i have right now. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/10 "2007-11-12T07:05:09Z")
If the ball hits the ground before anyone gains possession of it, then it’s incomplete. Once somebody’s already had possession (which the first guy who caught the forward pass did), that play can’t be incomplete anymore, and if the ball hits the ground it’s just a fumble. Whoever dropped it looks a little worse on their stat sheet (Fumble) and whoever picked it up looks a little better on theirs (Fumble Recovered). I think every American lad who’s ever loved football has scored on a crazy play like this once, at least in touch football. On my high school’s parking lot, I was often teammates with one fellow who was known for his Crazy Sports Antics. Tyler, being as good a quarterback as he was a receiver, would have rather thrown a lateral than been tackled on any given play. When his brother was on his team, they were unstoppable. Entire defensive strategies had to be invented so that Tyler’s would-be receivers were covered adequately, even after Tyler himself had caught the ball. Of course, when someone else on his team caught a forward pass, he was right behind them to take a well-timed lateral. Ah, those glory days… BTW, I thought I’d translate some things in the concise clip of “The Play”. Squib (“he’ll probably try to squib it”) - Normally, when you kick off to the other team, you want to boot the damn thing as far as you can (as long as it doesn’t go in the endzone or out of bounds) to pin the other team back. The major disadvantage of this is that, since your guys can’t advance down the field to tackle him until the moment the ball has been kicked, the kick returner generally gets at least 5-10 yards for free, and since your coverage team will be so spread out, it’s possible for a really good return man to break out completely and score. In a squib kick, you intentionally kick the ball for a short distance, hopefully with enough hangtime that your boys can be breathing down the kick returner’s neck by the time the ball gets there. Doesn’t always work, apparently. 😃 “The Bears have to get out of bounds” - They apparently had precious little time left in the game to make their comeback. Going out of bounds, throwing an incomplete pass, or changing possession stops the clock automatically. (I think the clock stops on first downs in college football now, too. I don’t really keep up with it.) A kickoff results in a change of possession, so the clock stops as soon as the return itself is over–the guy with the ball gets tackled or runs out of bounds. The traditional strategy for a team losing very late in the game, like Cal in this situation, is to get out of bounds quickly and take bad field position in exchange for more time; then, once the ball is yours, try for a long forward pass to a guy very close to the sideline who can then run out of bounds before anyone gets a chance to tackle him–if they do tackle him, the clock will keep running and you have to resort to other, more difficult tricks. If you’re down by 1 or 2 points (or 3, if you’re willing to go into overtime), you do this for a couple of plays until (ideally) you’re close enough to try a field goal–and there are about eight seconds or less left, so that the game will pretty much end with the field goal attempt. If you have to score a touchdown to win, it’s much harder–unless you’re Tyler or you played for Cal in 1982. “The 30”/“The 20” - the line that marks 30 yards/20 yards “to go” for a touchdown, respectively. Flags (“there are flags all over the place”) - Referees throw yellow flags on the field when they see a penalty occur. It doesn’t automatically mean that a penalty _has_ occurred; sometimes they’ll confer and decide that, no, there really wasn’t anything untoward, it just looked like it. Yellow flags inspire fear and loathing in a team that’s just scored; if the penalty was on them, the touchdown doesn’t count and they may lose yardage as well. If the penalty was on the other team, it won’t have any effect; when a penalty happens, usually the play keeps right on going and then the referee will go over to the team that didn’t break the rules and ask if they want to assess the penalty. If the defense were penalized on a touchdown-scoring play, the touchdown would be taken back and the offense would just have the ball a few yards forward of where the penalty took place (generally), so of course they’ll decline to press charges in those situations. I don’t know what the penalty was on this play, if there was one–obviously, it wasn’t against Cal. These days, BTW, head coaches (managers) also have flags–those ones are red, and they throw them when they want to challenge a call with instant replay. The timing of that throw is crucial; a split second too late and he blows his chance to challenge the call. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/11 "2007-11-12T07:11:04Z")
They’re also now saying that at 46 seconds, it’s probably also the longest play in college football history in terms of [time](http://www.nbcsports.com/portal/site/nbcsports/menuitem.6f806e473b4cb158fb00ec22493c2d04/?vgnextoid=46f6c3bd7cbe5110VgnVCM10000075c1d240RCRD&cpsextcurrchannel=1). Props also to the announcer, who is, amazingly, only a sophomore. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/12 "2007-11-12T07:12:32Z")
I should note, BTW, that the rules don’t care whether or not a ball is dropped forwards, backwards, sideways, with or without centrifugal force, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/13 "2007-11-12T07:19:22Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] I don’t know what the penalty was on this play, if there was one–obviously, it wasn’t against Cal. [/QUOTE] The flags on The Play were for illegal players on the field, i.e., the Stanford band. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/14 "2007-11-12T07:35:03Z")
[QUOTE=Randy Seltzer] They’re also now saying that at 46 seconds, it’s probably also the longest play in college football history in terms of [time](http://www.nbcsports.com/portal/site/nbcsports/menuitem.6f806e473b4cb158fb00ec22493c2d04/?vgnextoid=46f6c3bd7cbe5110VgnVCM10000075c1d240RCRD&cpsextcurrchannel=1). Props also to the announcer, who is, amazingly, only a sophomore. [/QUOTE] In which clip? ETA: **Terminus Est** , that’s what I figured, but in a frenzy like that you can’t be too–aw, who am I kidding? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/15 "2007-11-12T07:59:42Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] In which clip? [/QUOTE] In which clip is the announcer a sophomore? Well, I’ve seen the play from two camera angles, and both clips played the same audio. From my linked article: > [@](#): > > Finally, someone at a radio/TV outlet somewhere should offer Trinity sophomore Jonathan Wiener a job immediately. Wiener made the internet webcast call, and on the game’s final play he identified every player pitched to immediately with the exception of the two O-linemen. Moreover, his voice rises in pitch and intensity in perfect synchronicity with the extraordinary events unfolding before him. My first thought upon viewing the clip was “this school should look into hiring a different annoncer. This guy is a little on the weak side.” But upon reflection, I realized that this is a division III school, and the announcer is probably a student. With that in mind, this guy was pretty impressive, even if he did repeat “THIS GAME IS OVER!” about fifteen times. My link streams a video with the announcer in question as the audio. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/16 "2007-11-12T08:47:20Z")
I meant “which play”. Of course, when you said the guy “is” a sophomore, not “was” a sophomore, that should have tipped me off. Personally, I thought it ranked among the worst football announcing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen it pretty bad here in San Diego. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/17 "2007-11-12T10:44:05Z")
I guess what puzzles me a bit about American football compared to Rubgy Football (and yes, I realise that this is probably down to ignorance on my part) is why they don’t try rugby-style chains of backwards passes more often. When they get to the fourth down, they so often punt. Wouldn’t it be worth trying a fancy passing move sometimes? Too risky, maybe. OTOH, American football fans watching rugby are perhaps shocked at the relatively casual way the teams give away possession. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/18 "2007-11-12T11:09:57Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] Wow, that’s right, posts can be deleted. I’d completely forgotten. 🙂 [/QUOTE] That’s a message in the YouTube comments, not one that appeared here. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/19 "2007-11-12T14:04:22Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] I guess what puzzles me a bit about American football compared to Rubgy Football (and yes, I realise that this is probably down to ignorance on my part) is why they don’t try rugby-style chains of backwards passes more often. When they get to the fourth down, they so often punt. Wouldn’t it be worth trying a fancy passing move sometimes? Too risky, maybe. [/QUOTE] The stats say that it’s worth going for it more often than you see it done. Of course, most of the times you should go for it is inside your opponents 40 on 4th and short and then the best play is something like a running play to get the few yards needed to convert. As was said earlier, such lateral chains so rarely work at all that I can’t ever see using one except as an absolutely desperate last-second trick play. Heck, if you’re going to go for it on 4th down with a fancy passing play you might as well try a flea-flicker or something and bomb it out and hope for the completion, the pass interference/hold, or the interception that’s no worse than a punt. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902/20 "2007-11-12T14:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] The stats say that it’s worth going for it more often than you see it done. Of course, most of the times you should go for it is inside your opponents 40 on 4th and short and then the best play is something like a running play to get the few yards needed to convert. As was said earlier, such lateral chains so rarely work at all that I can’t ever see using one except as an absolutely desperate last-second trick play. Heck, if you’re going to go for it on 4th down with a fancy passing play you might as well try a flea-flicker or something and bomb it out and hope for the completion, the pass interference/hold, or the interception that’s no worse than a punt. [/QUOTE] If a defender intercepts a pass on 4th down he’ll get chewed out. Perhaps if he’s surrounded by offensive players and swatting it down is really difficult. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2007-ad-america-invents-rugby-football/425902.md?page=2)