Why doesn't college adopt NFL-style Down By Contact rule?
- Thread starter 93hawkeye
- Start date
Good question. A player catches a pass with a knee down, he's down in college, and so even if he's WIDE open, he cannot advance the ball. Makes no sense to me. Make the defense do its job. Down by contact in college gets my vote.
BTW: If it's all about player safety, WHY hasn't jumping over a tackler been banned? That's a tremendously dangerous thing. If you try it, you're down at the spot, like when a QB slides. And a five-yard penalty might be appropriate too. IMHO, of course.
BTW: If it's all about player safety, WHY hasn't jumping over a tackler been banned? That's a tremendously dangerous thing. If you try it, you're down at the spot, like when a QB slides. And a five-yard penalty might be appropriate too. IMHO, of course.
Likely a classic case of, "this is how we've always done it and we're stubborn"
MLB deeply suffers from this mentality, but are getting better of late.
MLB deeply suffers from this mentality, but are getting better of late.
MLB has made dramatic changes in the last few years, finally shaking that stupid mantra of "we've always done it this way." College football, in the midst of fundamental chaos, should have no problem making a couple of common sense rule changes.
I'm surprised the NFL hasn't adopted the college rule to eliminate hitting players that are already down.
I think historically, at least, it's been a similar argument to "one-hand touch vs two-hand touch" in backyard football -- there's less uncertainty (less arguing) that you got touched at all than you got touched by two hands. I think similarly, in CFB where there are lower-quality referees than the NFL (NFL only had to have ~10-15 teams of refs per week, if you consider all divisions of CFB... there's a lot more) it lent itself to having "easier-to-call" rulings: one-foot down for a catch, down by any means, etc.
As for why they don't change, my guess would be the need to maintain consistent rules for every FBS game / every FBS + FCS game / every FBS + FCS + DII + DIII game / etc. Maybe if we get the BIG + SEC separation into its own league you might see different rules.
As for why they don't change, my guess would be the need to maintain consistent rules for every FBS game / every FBS + FCS game / every FBS + FCS + DII + DIII game / etc. Maybe if we get the BIG + SEC separation into its own league you might see different rules.
