OT: The Punt-Pass!

Submitted by superstringer on

I'm closer to 50 than 40 and never seen this, nor even realized the rule existed.

Question:  If the punter's punt is caught by the punting team behind the line of scrimmage, what's the rule?  And -- can you use this to your advantage?

Answer:  Yeshttp://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/film-study-rare-look-legal-kick-pass-first-223417840--ncaaf.html

So there's hope for Wile's crappy, short, misdirected punts!

Space Coyote

September 24th, 2013 at 9:02 AM ^

Though all they did was run normal tunnel screen action off of it, so unless your punter has a noodle arm then I don't see a huge advantage to it. But interesting nonetheless. Thanks for posting.

UMichYank11

September 24th, 2013 at 3:09 PM ^

Graduated 2011 after losing a year after transferring from Georgia Southern but got my degree in Environmental Health Science. My parents actually live in Richmond but I have since moved out to Bowling Green and working out of Nashville Lexington Louisville and BG. Never lived in the dorms but campus has definitely changed even since I left.

itauditbill

September 24th, 2013 at 9:15 AM ^

In the article the writer notes that it was the wrong time to do this and now everyone will be wise.

Let's be honest here, this is really not the highest percentage fake out there. So here's my theory. On many punts going foward, the other team will spy on this. They will be looking at the gunner who doesn't gun as it were. They will be splitting their attention from the return a bit to defending the fake.

They pulled off this play at a time where if it fails nothing is lost.

I think that is some quality coaching and knowledge of the rules there. Plus one more thing: The rest of the teams they face will probably be trying to figure out when and what this team will pull out of the obsure rules hat in the future.

 

LSAClassOf2000

September 24th, 2013 at 9:17 AM ^

One of the relevant passages, I think, from the rulebook - this is in the section on Scrimmage Kicks:

"ARTICLE 1. a. A scrimmage kick that fails to cross the neutral zone continues in play. All players may catch or recover the ball behind the neutral zone and advance it (A.R. 6-3-1-I-III)."

MGoManBall

September 24th, 2013 at 9:19 AM ^

The only advange is making it look like a rugby style rollout punt which would draw the rush. Accuracy wise, I'm not sure how easy it is to aim that kind of a kick. It's cool but not all that advantageous. 

 

It's like kicking a field goal by dropkicking it off the ground.. Cool but ineffective. 

 

Space Coyote

September 24th, 2013 at 9:37 AM ^

The problem is that with the shape of a football and the ground, it is very, very difficult to do it consistently. But there is a really so many soccer keepers use a drop kick to drive the ball into the wind. It's basically a free tee to gain distance on a kick. Just very difficult to do correctly in football, especially with any sort of distance.

Wolfman

September 24th, 2013 at 5:34 PM ^

I didn't have to open the link because I had already had it forwarded to me. However, in h.s., our top RB also had an uncanny gift of being able to lift the gall off the tee without hitting the ground for about 10-12 yds. Of course we used this simply by lining him up next to our regular kicker and having him do this for onside kicks. I was also good at it, but I could only kick the ball about ten yards max, so I'm not sure if that counts, and I couldn't place it where I wanted to either.  I do like it when teams utilize little known rules to take advantage of lack of knowledge, merely because other teams, including most coaches have never seen it. I do know the NFL has a crazy rule I've neve seen use about the receiving team being able to receive the ball and punting it back to the kickof team on the same play with a bizarre result should they do it effectively.  Thanks for the inspiration. Think I'll google that and find out what that rule is.

gwkrlghl

September 24th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^

It's an interesting rule but it seems fairly insane to try it. Your kicker will have to be really accurate with his kick (or really noodle-armed as noted above) to make the risk worth it. I can't say your odds of executing a punt-pass are very high, just throw the ball