High School (in 48 states) does (did?) have an “Intentional Pass Interference” rule where the penalty could be up to 30 yards (technically, a Pass Interference and then a Personal Foul, I think), which sort of works as a middle ground between the NFL and NCAA rules.
Hashmarks: college rules are better. Why the hell should every play start from the middle of the field, anyway? Why should the extra point or field goal be from the middle of the field?
ETA: The NFL’s overtime, timekeeping and catch-in-bounds rules are vastly superior.
Hashmarks- College is better but they should be wider. Why doesn’t the NFL just have one row of hashmarks down the center of the field so that every snap is dead center? They aren’t that far from it now.
PAT- college is better. The 15 yard spot in NFL was a pathetic attempt to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.
OT- College, barely. I prefer the old rule where a game could end in a tie. Yes, the NFL can in the regular season but I’m old school and hate OTs.
One foot in for a catch vs two: I prefer two, minus the Calvin Johnson rule.
Clock: I dislike the 2 minute warning. It made sense when time was kept in the ref’s hands and there was no scoreboard clock, but no longer. I like the time stopping to move the chains, but I don’t think QBs should be allowed to spike the ball. Make them at least overthrow or underthrow an eligible receiver.
Kickoff Touchback: Prefer the 20 and not 25.
Pass Interference: College with the 15 yard max.
Still does - pass interference plus unsportsmanlike conduct. The distinction is important only in that, technically, if the defense commits pass interference and a personal foul on the same play, only one is enforced.
Note that, as of two years ago, in high school (except in Texas and Massachusetts, where they use pretty much “NCAA rules with 12-minute quarters, kickoffs from the 40, and the wider goal posts”), defensive pass interference is no longer an automatic first down. The rules committee wanted to get rid of the automatic loss of down for offensive pass interference, but too many members thought that keeping the automatic first down for DPI wouldn’t be fair, so they got rid of both.
Technically, they are underthrowing eligible receivers when they spike the ball.
Both NCAA and NFL should move to the high school rule on intentional grounding.
Incomplete forward passes must be to the area of an eligible receiver. No exceptions for being out of the pocket or anything like that. If you’re under duress, you need to put it near somebody who can legally catch it. That doesn’t mean it can’t go over their head or bounce to them, but I hate seeing QBs just chuck it into the stands with nobody remotely close. I also prefer the 5 yards and a loss of down penalty to just the spot of the foul and a loss of down.
(That said, the NFHS should adopt the college rule and allow an intentional clock stopping spike out of the shotgun)
A spiked ball is thrown to the ground between the tackles with no eligible receiver in the area. It also fails to cross the line of scrimmage. In any other circumstances it would be flagged as intentional grounding.
Not so. There is always going to be someone lined up within 10 yards of the QB, even in a normal formation. That is especially true in a spike scenario since the offense lines up in a bunch formation.
Kind of interesting. The theory of “spot of foul” on PI in the NFL is that the receiver probably would have caught the ball at the spot of the foul, and, usually, that would have produced a 1st down. So, what about PI on a 12-yard pass on 3rd and 25? Allowing the catch does not produce a first down. Does the offence deserve a FD in that scenario? IMO, they don’t even deserve another 3rd down try as their attempted play would not have produced a 1st down even allowing usual YAC. But then you’d also have to reevaluate things like automatic 1st down on defensive holding (a 5-yard penalty). Auto FD should remain on personal fouls to discourage dirty, dangerous play.
It’s no more unfair than the home team in baseball batting second in extra inings. We had a thread about that recently where statistics showed that it was not unfair at all. I expect statistics would show the same for college overtime.
I like the college overtime better than the pro, by the way.
As someone else said, yes. In fact, it’s a very old rule, probably inherited from rugby. It may not make sense to keep it anymore, but that discussion should probably get its own thread.
The spot-of-the-foul/loss-of-down rule is what would happen if the QB hadn’t thrown the pass but had been sacked at that point. It makes sense to me to keep it.
This is where I’m at. Play a full fifth quarter, and if the game is still tied, it’s a tie. A tie is a perfectly valid outcome of a football game.
I agree there seems to be way too many long commercial breaks in the college game, but claiming the pro game doesn’t have the same issue is silly. I have only seen the infamous “touchdown-commercial break-extra point-commercial break-kickoff-commercial break” series during NFL games.
If it ever had a real purpose originally, it’s only reason to exist now is for an additional advertising break in each half. You can’t seriously claim the teams and coaching staffs aren’t aware of how much time is left.
IIRC, the team playing offense second in college overtime wins about 55% of the time, and among games that end after the first overtime, the winner is the second offense about 61% of the time.
Don’t even play a fifth quarter. In a regular season game, there’s no need.
A problem with this is that there’s no incentive for the defense to avoid committing pass interference. They can just tackle the receiver before the pass arrives, take the penalty, and force a punt. I think an argument can be made that it shouldn’t be an automatic first down, but I think you have to at least allow the offense to not lose a down.
I don’t really see why overtime should suddenly become unfair with regards to giving equal chances. Possession in football is HUGE (in the NFL the team that wins the turnover margin battle has something like a ~80% win rate) so settling that with a coin flip seems incredibly lame.
I agree that sudden death can be good… but I don’t think it’s worth so much to go with the unfair system that exists now. If you started off overtime with some sort of tip-off, for example (place the ball at midfield, have three members from each team run at it to gain possession?) that’d be fine. But the current coin flip system is terrible.
If anything, the fact that you want a system that “emphasizes stopping the other team just as much as it does scoring” should make you want the college rule - because both teams need to do both (score on offense and play defense). In the NFL, if you win the coin flip, you only need to score and not play defense at all.
Obviously the team going second has the advantage, but it’s less than the NFL’s coin flip. One article I read put the advantage of winning the coin flip in college at 52% and winning it in the NFL at 60% (and half of those won on the first possession without the other team ever touching the ball).
I think playing a full fifth quarter would be fair, but the NFL wouldn’t go for it, for TV scheduling reasons if nothing else. Heck, I’d even agree with Really Not All That Bright that they game could just go to a tie in the regular season.