The Rule That Ruined College Football

Your post is exhibit A to that effect.

I thought the rule change occurred later, and only applied to passes that were thrown out of bounds. I'm not sure it "ruined" CFB. I think it gives the QB a nice safety valve if he's being chased, and probably prevents scrambling QBs from getting big hits and injuries while they are running away.

The NFL changed it to protect quarterbacks from the ferocious pass rushers the game had bred. College changed when the Purdue-style offenses got big. With QBs being so mobile in college today, I don't think the original purpose of the rule really exists so much.

The rule changes that have ruined football in my mind are the ones liberalizing use of the hands by offensive linemen, and the gradual erosion of enforcing the rules that are left. Exhibit A: Notre Dame holds everyone on every play. They know they'll only get called if it's egregious, and that the refs will never call it twice in a row even if it's obvious they're doing it intentionally.

Relaxing the holding rules have led to the proliferated passing games, which are entertaining but rely on unspoken cheating and turned the playing field against the defenses so the game is unbalanced. It's very difficult to play good pass defense without getting multiple flags for ticky-tack PI.

In the NFL, pass defense is a joke - it's hold on and hope the QB makes an unforced error, because the defense is not allowed to touch the receivers for all intents and purposes.

Absolutely hate this college football rule. Why bother giving a team time-outs at that point since every team can easily go down the field in less than 2 minutes due to all of the clock stoppages

I also hate the replay at the discretion of the officials. I prefer the NFL rule where if the coach really feels a challenge is warranted, challenge the play and you can only due this twice. I hate how some plays get replayed, but others which should do not. Also, I thought the point was that offense could snap the ball quickly if they thought they got away with one. Now the officials hold up play until they make a decision about going to replay.

Both of these rules make college so choppy in my opinion

I don't think it ruined it, but it sure is a bad rule. But I think replay has also messed things up. They have to review every little thing and 50% of the time they don't get it right.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the old intentional-grounding rules even more tilted in favor of QBs? IIRC, before the change was instituted, they didn't even have to get out of the tackle box before they threw it away.

While we're talking penalties, does anyone else feel like ten yards for holding is excessive? I don't know why, but I've started to feel like it should be five. I'm not really knowledgeable about the origins of penalties, though, so maybe there's a great reason I'm unaware of.