# Coupla football Qs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695 "2005-11-05T20:56:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voluble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/4af34b/32.png) [@Voluble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voluble)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/21 "2005-11-07T01:41:13Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > What are red shirt freshmen? Did they attend Star Fleet Academy? Players in college have 5 years in which to play 4 years of ball at the college level. Often players who are just out of highschool are not big enough or skilled enough to contribute right away so they can be “redshirted” their first year in college to allow them time to develop. This also helps a lot of them academically since they can get acclimated to a new environment and concentrate on their studies. So when a guy sits out his first year as a “redshirt” he will be a sophomore academically when he actually plays his first game but he has his whole four years of athletic eligibility left. To denote that these players aren’t fresh out of highschool they will be referred to as redshirt freshmen as opposed to true freshmen. Knowing whether a player has his redshirt year left or not is very important. If one of your better players gets injured later in his career it is often possible for him to take a redshirt year to give himself time to recover. If he has already taken a redshirt year then this option may not be available to him. It gets more complicated than this but I think I have covered what the phrase means and why it is used. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/22 "2005-11-07T02:34:52Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > OK, so there’s other design considerations. Fair enough. I just figured that those hard shell helmets have to be responsible for a fair amount of knee injuries – would nailing someone on the knees with the helmet be considered spearing? It could be considered spearing. It’s also really poor tackling form and it’s much more likely to hurt the guy making the hit than the guy receiving it. One of the big things you hear high school coaches say is “Don’t lower your head!” ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/23 "2005-11-07T21:27:06Z")
Mark Kelso of the Buffalo Bills wore a helmet with exterior padding during the early '90’s (when the Bills were in all those Super Bowls). I did a quick Google search and found [this page](http://www.helmethut.com/012202.html) which appears to be some kind of Q&A forum about helmets. One question is interesting (scroll down a bit): > [@](#): > > **Q:** Back in the late 80’s / early 90’s there was a player on the Bills whose helmet was covered with what appeared to be exterior padding. His helmet looked HUGE! Who was that and what was the story with this helmet? Hadn’t exterior helmet padding already been known to cause neck injury by that time? > > \*\*A:\*\*You are referring to a product called the “Procap Eliminator” and it is manufactured by Protection Sports Equipment which is located in Edinburg, PA. The product is basically a protective cap that attaches over a conventional helmet with six Velcro strips. … The cap has a center layer of softer padding surrounded by a top and bottom layer of harder, slick surface plastic material (similar to a modern flexible car bumper). The harder slick outer surface helps to deflect a collision similar to a conventional helmet shell and the harder slick inner surface is designed to break free of the helmet shell in the event of an extreme collision while absorbing the force of the collision as it becomes dislodged. … Mark Kelso (Bills) and Steve Wallace (49ers) were the only two NFL players known to have worn the “Procap Eliminator” during actual league games. … This product is not endorsed by Riddell and Schutt has not taken an official position regarding its use. NFL trainers are reluctant to recommend its use without endorsement from the helmet industry. It is apparently taken as a given by some (based on the question) that exterior padding is risky; I believe for the reasons somebody upthread mentioned - soft padding can “grab” and twist the head in grazing impacts where a hard shell would simply slide by. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/24 "2005-11-07T23:41:16Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > Former football ref here. > > This would be an illegal contact penalty, Grumbing State retains possession and Weevil is penalized 10 yards from the previous line of scrimmage. Plus Grumbing State gets an automatic first down. Unless there is a misunderstanding, I believe that this is incorrect. If the hit occured after the ball was dead (which seems to be the case), then Grumbling State would _not_ get the ball back. They would get the ball back (as **racer72** indicated above) if a Weevil player committed a foul _during_ the play, but not after. ---
**Author:** ![vinniepaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@vinniepaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vinniepaz)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/25 "2005-11-07T23:59:56Z")
Also, in the case of unneccesary roughness penalties that have little to no actual bearing on the game, the player is often ejected. This happened in an NFL game this year when a player on a team i forget punched another player while they were all tangled up trying to block a field goal at the end of a half. ---
**Author:** ![Ottoerotic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/6de8d8/32.png) [@Ottoerotic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ottoerotic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/26 "2005-11-08T01:03:25Z")
I saw almost this exact situation this season. I beleive it was an Eagles game. The other team punted to the Eagles and then managed to down the ball on the 1. After the other team downed it, one of the Eagles players took a cheap shot at his blocker and knocked him down and out of bounds. After they annonunced the personal foul followed by a 1/2 yard penalty (they didn’t eject him) I wondered why this kind of thing didn’t happen more often cuz hey, free shot. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/27 "2005-11-08T15:44:37Z")
> [@PeterWiggen](#): > > You know they don’t use it as much as they do in baseball, but refs can eject somebody for a particularly egregious violation. Also, if egregious enough, the local police have the option to investigate/charge/prosecute/whatever. Right? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695/28 "2005-11-08T17:01:08Z")
> [@vinniepaz](#): > > This happened in an NFL game this year when a player on a team i forget punched another player while they were all tangled up trying to block a field goal at the end of a half. That was Patriots rookie guard Logan Mankins, who punched Denver’s Ebenezer Ekuban right in the (becupped) jewels, right in front of an official. Getting ejected had to hurt much less than hearing about it from his coaches and teammates afterward, of course. **vetbridge** , the rare cases of athletes getting arrested have AFAIK all involved actions that could not even charitably be considered part of the game. Hitting someone unnecessarily would normally be assault but never attracts police attention. Obvious and inarguable intent to injure severely, as when Todd Bertuzzi broke that guy Moore’s neck with a stick swing in an NHL game, seems to be the standard. Brad Kelso’s helmet was called the “Gazoo Helmet”, after the Flintstones character. > [@voluble](#): > > Players in college have 5 years in which to play 4 years of ball at the college level. Once in a while, the NCAA will grant a petition for a 6th year, if the player gets injured twice. They also are susceptible to sob stories from guys who get hurt in the first game of the season and want to get redshirt credit for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coupla-football-qs/329695.md?page=1)