Listening to the KW interview in the previous post (thanks KiYi-Ute) they mentioned that players can now fair catch a kickoff. And it sounds like IF they fair catch the kickoff the ball will be placed at the 25. Is this correct?
You could always fair catch a kick off but the ball would be spotted where it was caught. The new rule is if a player signals a fair catch inside the 25 then it’s considered a touchback.
One thing this does is reduce the effectiveness of an accurate kickoff specialist. Not a big part of the game but I always thought it’d be good if the kicker could kick high so the ball would land inside the 10 and off to one side of the field. The returner would want to return it but the kick being high it would give time for the coverage guys to get down there, being near the sideline would help bottle him up to one side.
Right. But kickoff is pretty dangerous. Then again, football is dangerous.
All comes down to lots of injuries occurring on kickoffs (where players running at full speed in opposite directions meet up with each other). One of the more thrilling plays in football is when a player returns a kickoff all the way, but it does lead to a lot of banged up players.
I like the Greg Schiano solution to kickoffs. The kicking team gets the ball on their own 30 in a 4th and 15 situation. They have the option to punt, fake punt, or run a play. If they convert then they keep the ball with a fresh set of downs.
In most situations they’ll opt to punt, but when down with little time left on the clock, you still get the excitement of a long play attempt or a fake punt. You also keep the possibility of a long return for a TD by the receiving team.
Statistically the kicking team is more likely to convert a 4th and 15 than it is to recover an onside kick. More important, it’s less risk of injury to the players.
Knocking it out of bounds to be placed at the forty is too risky. I say back of the end zone especially with our coverages lately.
Right. I used to know that.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Welcome to Ute Hub › Forums › Utah Utes Sports › Football › New kickoff fair catch rule?
Rate your excitement level for Utah Men's Basketball playing in the NIT
Total Voters: 127
© Copyright 2015-2024
Website and Mobile App by Tony Korologos