re: Everyone I talked still involved in the game, from officials to replay officials said TD

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Mine is based on the letter of the rule.

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Your interpretation of the letter of the rule would make it an incomplete pass if a player goes to ground 20 yards downfield from making the catch and has a slight bobble when he hits the ground. You aren’t wrong that the way it is worded makes it appear that way, but clearly that is not the intent.

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You're posting blogs for terms the NCAA doesn't even use anymore within the catch rule (ie Football Move).

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They call it an act common to the game. It’s the same concept. You were using that in your own argument, so I’m confused by what you are trying to say here. And the rule states they just need to have control long enough to perform such an act, not that they actually have to legally perform such an act. You are trying to employ a technicality that is not written into the rule. The movements that would typically constitute an act common to the game need not occur in bounds. He just needed to have control of the ball long enough to perform those actions in bounds or not.

He took one unquestionable stride across the plane which does not need to land in bounds, but truthfully, he really doesnt need to take any. Last night a TE caught a pass in the air and simply turned his head slightly before he was hammered in mid air before touching the ground. The ball immediately came out. It was ruled a catch.

No he didn't, the ball moved but those big hands were wrapped around and never let go! He had possession before pylon and I completely disagree with your super slo mo vision! Geaux to eye doc today ?? You are just living up to your "fun bunch" title

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No he didn't, the ball moved but those big hands were wrapped around and never let go!

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respectfully having watched this play many times, I very much disagree.

But we can agree to disagree.

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He caught it on like the two yard line and landed 3 yards deep in the end zone!

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AND

Satisfies subsection B


(I also disagree with your categorization of the events of the play)

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he did advance the ball. WTF are you talking about?

He caught it on like the two yard line and landed 3 yards deep in the end zone!

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He caught the ball clean, with control, took a step across the goal line, with a foot inbounds. In my opinion and many others, including rules officials, that was a TD.

I can promise you this, if had dropped it and fumbled it out of the endzone...without the fall to the ground, it would have been Clemson ball.


The refs did this a few times last year in games I watched, it seems the ruling of controlling thru the ground is open to a pretty broad interpretation. My opinion is, once a player makes a step, with the ball, it is a catch.

the video you posted shows it best, he even secures the ball with the second hand on the ground as he rolls. sure the ball touched the ground, but that alone does not eliminate a catch. The ball never left his hands and was never clearly and irrefutably out of his control at any point.

That being said, he made a football move, so its a moot point.

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If the catch is made while falling - and the way they define it, it was - then you have to survive the ground.

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Simply not correct. A catch MADE while falling is irrelevant. The only thing that triggers "surviving the ground" is if the player "goes to the ground while in the act of making a catch". Not "falling", not "stumbling", not "inevitably ending up on the ground"; "goes to the ground". And it has to be "while in the act of making the catch". Once the catch is made, the receiver is a runner and the rule is the same as any other ball carrier.

The rules clearly define the process of making a catch. It is described in the first three paragraphs and includes the infamous football move concept (though that term isn't actually used). Then they had to add a paragraph to account for players making diving catches where there is no opportunity to make the football move (i.e., when the player goes to the ground while in the process of making a catch). That -- and only THAT -- is when the whole surviving the ground notion comes into play. That clearly wasn't the case with Brown because by the time he went to the ground he had clearly completed the process of making a catch.

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However, the last word of subsection A:3 applies: "And" He must satisfy B: he went to the ground. So now its a matter of did he maintain control when he did

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This gets back to what I said before. That interpretation of the AND in the rule would mean that the player losing control going to ground would invalidate the catch no matter how long after he established control and no matter how many acts to common to the game he completed after establishing that control. I agree with you 100% that the wording is confusing, at best, and grammatically incorrect, at worst. Regardless of that, I think we can agree that the AND doesn’t mean both have to be met in all circumstances regardless of the time that elapses in between.

I think the issue here is that 3.a.3 has multiple components to it. The parts that establish control with a body part touching down in bounds must be fulfilled AND the requirements of b., c., and d., but the part after the AND only applies if the player has not had control long enough to complete an act common to the game. So, in this case, b., c., d. should only be applicable if you don’t believe Brown had control long enough to complete an act common to the game. I would argue that the time to take 2 steps and put a knee down was sufficiently long enough to make b., c., and d. not applicable.

Yeah - I just heard him. He said the ruling was correct applying the letter of the rule. He said said - the rule needs to be changed. But it was the correct call.