The ol' hook-and-ladder

Factual Questions
1

In the course of assembling coverage of some high school football games last Friday night, one of my stringers asked me a question I wasn’t really sure how to answer. He wanted to know how the statistics were distributed on the ol’ hook and ladder play. I called the San Francisco Chronicle, and they didn’t know. After much dithering, I finally decided that the receiver who initially catches the pass is, sadly, completely cut out of the any credit for receiving yards or even a catch, and the receiver who takes the lateral gets all the credit.

Anybody have the definitive answer?

2

I ran into the same problem. So I e-mailed the head of statistics for the NCAA. The guy got back to me rather quickly.

Here’s how you figure it in this situation: QB A completes a pass to receiver B 20 yards down the field, B then laterals to C who runs 30 more yards for a touchdown.

Credit:
QB A with a 50 yards passing and a TD
Receiver B gets credit for one reception and 20 yards
Receiver C gets credit for thirty yards receiving and a touchdown.

As weird as it sounds, you can be credited with a receiving touchdown and receiving yardage, but not be credited with a reception.

In a running play if the lateral is behind the line of scrimmage only the last ball carrier gets credit for the yardage. If it’s past the line of scrimmage then you divide it up like you would the pass play.

3

Is it the same for high school sports? And what’s that e-mail address, while you’re at it? It could prove handy.

4

There really is no standard for high school statistics. College stats are usually the closest you can get.

The NCAA has finally put its statistical recordkeeping manual online in a .pdf file.

http://www.ncaa.org/stats/football/stats_manual.pdf

Now, I can doublecheck to see if the guy from the NCAA was right.

I’ll warn you that it’s not exciting reading.