MetEdDawg
10-05-2013, 09:27 AM
I teach and coach (not football) at a 5A school in Alabama. So we have a big regional game last night and I saw something I had never seen or heard of before until last night. So my school has 4th and goal from the 9 yard line. We throw a pass to a guy that gets interfered with around the 3 yard line. Ref throws the flag and the defense gets called for pass interference. Should be half the distance to the goal and a new set of downs correct? Well according to our coaches, AHSAA implemented a new rule this year (which they had completely forgotten about) that says that pass interference on any goal to go situation would not result in a new set of downs. Instead they will mark the half the distance as usual, but the down will be replayed. So we had to run a 4th and goal from the 4 play instead of having a new set of downs. Has anyone ever heard of that before? Do they have a similar rule in Mississippi?
To me it's absolutely insane not to give a new set of downs on a pass interference call, especially in a goal to go situation. You can just pass interfere all day until you finally get one play where the refs don't call it or you play good enough defense to stop the other team. We ended up missing the 4th down, but we came back and scored 13 points in the last 4 minutes of the game with a fumble recovery that led to a TD, an onside kick recovery that let to a TD and a pick on a hail mary to end the game, so it ended up not hurting us. But damn that just seems like a really stupid rule. Anyone agree?
To me it's absolutely insane not to give a new set of downs on a pass interference call, especially in a goal to go situation. You can just pass interfere all day until you finally get one play where the refs don't call it or you play good enough defense to stop the other team. We ended up missing the 4th down, but we came back and scored 13 points in the last 4 minutes of the game with a fumble recovery that led to a TD, an onside kick recovery that let to a TD and a pick on a hail mary to end the game, so it ended up not hurting us. But damn that just seems like a really stupid rule. Anyone agree?