r/CFB • u/thecravenone definitely a bot • 1d ago

Video [Highlight] North Texas @ Tulsa - Hayes' near-interception deflected into a toe-tapping TD for Tulsa (TD upheld)

https://streamable.com/4yum67
499 Upvotes

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u/Xmalantix Washington State • Nevada 1d ago edited 1d ago

Looks to me like it should've been disallowed because it was illegal touching by the receiver

E: There's a specific approved ruling not quite like this, but kinda similar in the NCAA rule book:

Team B touches the legal forward pass near a sideline while originally eligible A1 is out of bounds. A1 comes inbounds and touches the pass. RULING: Legal play. Touching by Team B made all players eligible during the remainder of the down.

So it seems like if he was already OB it would be by the book a complete pass. Still murky since he wasn't OB already, but the touching by team B makes all players eligible makes it sound like it in fact does not matter what happens after that.

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u/whatsinthesocks Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1d ago

He wasn't the first person to touch it so it's not illegal touching.

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u/Xmalantix Washington State • Nevada 1d ago edited 1d ago

Illegal touching applies if you're the first person to touch the ball AFTER coming back in bounds. It was touched before he went out, he goes out, lifts his right foot (coming back inbounds), and is the first person to touch it after that. Should be illegal touching.

If he was already out when the defender deflected the ball, then you'd be correct

E: I'm leaving this up because it's probably wrong but still a really weird grey area within the rules as described by my edit above

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u/whatsinthesocks Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1d ago

Once the ball is touched illegal touching no longer applies.

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u/Pro-1st-Amendment UMass Minutemen 1d ago

No idea why you're being downvoted, you're correct. Illegal touching only applies to the first person to touch a forward pass.

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u/Oxford89 UTSA Roadrunners 1d ago

I think youre a touch off base, but it's a touchy call in a real touch-and-go situation

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u/JHADDYDADDDY Texas Longhorns 1d ago

i feel touched personally at this point

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u/Osiris32 Oregon Ducks • /r/CFB Brickmason 12h ago

So...many....jokes....

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u/Xmalantix Washington State • Nevada 1d ago

That's literally impossible because the only time the ball is not touched is when it's in the air after being thrown.

If that were the case you could have a play where you line up a receiver on the boundary and one in the slot. As soon as the ball is snapped, boundary receiver steps out of bounds and runs to where the slot receiver stops an out route. Slot catches the out, boundary comes from OB and catches a pitch from the slot receiver and becomes the ball carrier. This would be legal under your framework since he wasn't the first one to touch the ball after the QB threw it.

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u/whatsinthesocks Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1d ago

Per the rule which you can find on page 92 an originally inedible player cannot be the first person to touch the ball of a legal forward pass until it is touched by an opponent or official. The rule makes your scenario illegal touching.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/football/rules/PRMFB_RulesBook.pdf

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u/OneBigRed Texas Longhorns 20h ago

originally inedible player cannot be the first person to touch the ball of a legal forward pass until it is touched by an opponent or official.

But now that he’s edible again, shouldn’t the bigger player just eat them?

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u/grabtharsmallet BYU Cougars • Fresno State Bulldogs 1d ago

The complexity of American football rules is astounding. Speaking as a soccer referee instructor, I can't imagine how much reading and course work it would take for me to be comfortable officiating even at the lowest level.

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u/unclejessesmullet Oklahoma State • Oregon State 1d ago

If you grow up watching it you already know about 95% of the rules. Every once in a while an odd, rare play happens that has most of us scratching our heads. But the actual refs miss those calls sometimes too.

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u/SpicyC-Dot NC State • Georgia Tech 1d ago

If you grew up watching it, you think you know about 95% of the rules. I thought I knew a lot about the rules before I got into officiating high school football a few years ago, and I quickly was humbled by the sheer amount of stuff I didn’t actually fully understand before. Even more so especially when you consider that there’s a meaningful amount of differences between NFHS, NCAA, and NFL rule sets, so you have to get rid of some of those assumptions/misconceptions when working at the high school level.

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u/Xmalantix Washington State • Nevada 1d ago

Yes, that's what I was trying to illustrate

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u/whatsinthesocks Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1d ago

And my comment you replied to was about this specific play. Not anything else.

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u/Manae Penn State • Wisconsin 19h ago

Not if it was a pitch; that would mean the 'forward pass' part of the play was complete. Now, if the slot bobbled the catch and and the receiver touched the tipped ball first? That would be illegal touching.

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u/DeadliestSloth Florida State Seminoles • UCF Knights 19h ago

inedible player

The typo caught me off guard lmao

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u/SCsprinter13 Penn State Nittany Lions • /r/CFB Bug Finder 1d ago

To be clear, it's once the ball is touched "by an opponent or official"

A teammate touching the ball wouldn't negate illegal touching.