New Football rule

[hifigator]

I'm listening to the afternoon call-in show and a caller was commenting on a change that he heard about. I haven't heard/read anything about it, but he said that he heard one of the commissioners state that "leading with the helmet" is going to be a point of emphasis this year and that not only will the more vicious shots cost the team 15 yards, but the player will also be ejected.

He insisted that this was a change and point of emphasis for this upcoming season. Has anyone else heard this disucussed?

[kchoya]

That's for all players but Tim Tebow. If he runs over a tackler by leading with his helmet, he gets an extra five yards.

Actually, this may be what you're referring to:

Flagrant Personal Fouls (Rule 9-6). For 2009-10 the rules committee has added a new section that calls for conferences in the days following a game to review certain particularly dangerous plays. This new rule says that if a player is ejected for any flagrant personal foul the conference must review the game video for possible further action. In addition, if the officials call fouls for targeting defenseless players or using the crown of the helmet and the player is not ejected, the rules mandate a conference review. Furthermore, if the review by the conference reveals actions that should have resulted in a personal foul but were not called, the conference may impose sanctions.

[hifigator]

Thank you sir ... for both the humorous and sarcastic start of your post, as well as the quite-clear and straight-forward finish.

In all seriousness, I didn't hear/see the interview that the original caller on our local show referenced. I know him well enough to not expect him to make something up out of thin air though. The key to me is that "point of emphasis" is often used when it isn't so much a "rule change" as much as it is an attention to broadening the interpretation of a rule that we have had all along.

In either case, the "rule change," at least as I understand your quote, seems to deal with a secondary review -- that is to say, a video review after the game. If so, then that is better ... at least in my opinion, to what I understood the caller to suggest, which was that the player stood a really good chance of being ejected from the game in question.

[hifigator]

I just heard an interview with one of the NCAA guys and he made the point that there were fewer changes this year than any other. That's a good thing, in my opinion. He mentioned that the facemaksing penalty has been ammended to include any part of the headgear, specifically mentioning the chinstrap as well as any opening in the helmet. He also said that they were changing the "6 men on the line of scrimmage" to be "too many men in the backfield." That's not a rule change, but rather a descriptive change. There was also some change on alignment for an onside kick. All in all, there's not much happening to the rules. I consider that a good thing. He also said that they put in some provision that any future rule changes be reconsidered after a 2 year period. In other words, any changes will be with us for at least 2 seasons.