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Pass Interference


MDAlum82

Question

Bob Ref:

IMO, the one rule in high school football most in need of “fixing” is pass interference.  As it stands, with a maximum penalty of 15 yds, this is one of the most abused areas of the current high school game.  It potentially subjects offensive players to unnecessary aggression, especially when it benefits the defense.  Coaches even teach DBs and defensive players to foul instead of giving up a long pass or a touchdown.  I have routinely seen WR & RBs, get shoved, pushed, kicked, knocked down, and worse, often well beyond the 15 yd penalty area just to avoid an otherwise big play or TD.  This limit on the amount of penalty yardage gives an major advantage to the Defense.  Why is this rule still in place and what would it take to fix it?

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7 minutes ago, MDAlum82 said:

Bob Ref:

IMO, the one rule in high school football most in need of “fixing” is pass interference.  As it stands, with a maximum penalty of 15 yds, this is one of the most abused areas of the current high school game.  It potentially subjects offensive players to unnecessary aggression, especially when it benefits the defense.  Coaches even teach DBs and defensive players to foul instead of giving up a long pass or a touchdown.  I have routinely seen WR & RBs, get shoved, pushed, kicked, knocked down, and worse, often well beyond the 15 yd penalty area just to avoid an otherwise big play or TD.  This limit on the amount of penalty yardage gives an major advantage to the Defense.  Why is this rule still in place and what would it take to fix it?

To be fair, that was just an inter squad scrimmage play, on Last Chance U.

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6 hours ago, MDAlum82 said:

Bob Ref:

IMO, the one rule in high school football most in need of “fixing” is pass interference.  As it stands, with a maximum penalty of 15 yds, this is one of the most abused areas of the current high school game.  It potentially subjects offensive players to unnecessary aggression, especially when it benefits the defense.  Coaches even teach DBs and defensive players to foul instead of giving up a long pass or a touchdown.  I have routinely seen WR & RBs, get shoved, pushed, kicked, knocked down, and worse, often well beyond the 15 yd penalty area just to avoid an otherwise big play or TD.  This limit on the amount of penalty yardage gives an major advantage to the Defense.  Why is this rule still in place and what would it take to fix it?

If the official calling this deems it to be blatant enough, there is technically a NFHS rule stating there can be another 15 yards tacked on. Have fun explaining that to the coach..

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To answer the original question, the way to change it is to submit a rule change to the NFHS via the IHSAA rep, Robert Faulkens. These rule changes are all due to the NFHS prior to November 1 so you would need to get started now. You'll need to include justification, include all impacted rule references as well as all impacted case book plays.

I'm pretty confident your rule change proposal will not have much success with the rules committee though. I believe similar rule changes have been proposed in the past and rarely make it out of committee or get much support from the full rules committee. 15 yards is a pretty serious penalty already and usually results in a first down even though not automatic. Looking over the past 2 seasons, my crew has had a total of 14 DPI fouls in 22 games. I don't know how many of those would match your description of a receiver getting abused well beyond 15 yards, but I don't remember any meeting that description. NCAA doesn't feel this needs to be more than 15 yards so I doubt NFHS will seriously consider it. We had one recently where the DPI took place 2 yards beyond the LOS but the penalty was 15 yards. I think that's a bigger issue with the current DPI rule. I also think it should be an automatic first down.

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8 hours ago, JustRules said:

To answer the original question, the way to change it is to submit a rule change to the NFHS via the IHSAA rep, Robert Faulkens. These rule changes are all due to the NFHS prior to November 1 so you would need to get started now. You'll need to include justification, include all impacted rule references as well as all impacted case book plays.

I'm pretty confident your rule change proposal will not have much success with the rules committee though. I believe similar rule changes have been proposed in the past and rarely make it out of committee or get much support from the full rules committee. 15 yards is a pretty serious penalty already and usually results in a first down even though not automatic. Looking over the past 2 seasons, my crew has had a total of 14 DPI fouls in 22 games. I don't know how many of those would match your description of a receiver getting abused well beyond 15 yards, but I don't remember any meeting that description. NCAA doesn't feel this needs to be more than 15 yards so I doubt NFHS will seriously consider it. We had one recently where the DPI took place 2 yards beyond the LOS but the penalty was 15 yards. I think that's a bigger issue with the current DPI rule. I also think it should be an automatic first down.

I may not have written this clearly enough in my original post but my suggestion would be to make it an automatic first down, not more yardage.  That would deter much of the abuse, imho.

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If I were king, DPI would be an automatic 1st down, and yardage enforcement would be according to what we jokingly called the “umpire rule.” The umpire gets the ball at the previous spot, and starts walking toward the Team B goal line. He stops when he gets to the spot of the foul, half the distance to the goal, or 15 yds., whichever comes first.

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10 hours ago, Bobref said:

If I were king, DPI would be an automatic 1st down, and yardage enforcement would be according to what we jokingly called the “umpire rule.” The umpire gets the ball at the previous spot, and starts walking toward the Team B goal line. He stops when he gets to the spot of the foul, half the distance to the goal, or 15 yds., whichever comes first.

This makes too much common sense to have any chance whatsoever...

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14 hours ago, Bobref said:

If I were king, DPI would be an automatic 1st down, and yardage enforcement would be according to what we jokingly called the “umpire rule.” The umpire gets the ball at the previous spot, and starts walking toward the Team B goal line. He stops when he gets to the spot of the foul, half the distance to the goal, or 15 yds., whichever comes first.

That would match the NCAA rule. The rules committee is often very adamant to not adopt NCAA rules. Unless they do. A good example was the number of players on either side of the kicker or the pop up kick. But even then they had to come up with a less logical enforcement because they don't want to copy NCAA.

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On 9/9/2021 at 8:34 AM, JustRules said:

To answer the original question, the way to change it is to submit a rule change to the NFHS via the IHSAA rep, Robert Faulkens. These rule changes are all due to the NFHS prior to November 1 so you would need to get started now. You'll need to include justification, include all impacted rule references as well as all impacted case book plays.

I'm pretty confident your rule change proposal will not have much success with the rules committee though. I believe similar rule changes have been proposed in the past and rarely make it out of committee or get much support from the full rules committee. 15 yards is a pretty serious penalty already and usually results in a first down even though not automatic. Looking over the past 2 seasons, my crew has had a total of 14 DPI fouls in 22 games. I don't know how many of those would match your description of a receiver getting abused well beyond 15 yards, but I don't remember any meeting that description. NCAA doesn't feel this needs to be more than 15 yards so I doubt NFHS will seriously consider it. We had one recently where the DPI took place 2 yards beyond the LOS but the penalty was 15 yards. I think that's a bigger issue with the current DPI rule. I also think it should be an automatic first down.

 

On 9/9/2021 at 4:42 PM, MDAlum82 said:

I may not have written this clearly enough in my original post but my suggestion would be to make it an automatic first down, not more yardage.  That would deter much of the abuse, imho.

 

On 9/9/2021 at 4:54 PM, Wildcat1992 said:

Agreed.  It should be an automatic 1st down.  You could have 3rd and 25, have a guy beat his defender and then get molested on the catch in order to avoid a big play.  Now you've still got 3rd and long.

This ends up making a lot of sense.  You don't see too many of the issues of bodily abuse with shorter yardage situations because of the probability of first down.  The other big one is "bomb molestation" where you give up 15 to avoid 6. 

 

On 9/8/2021 at 10:04 PM, miner_35 said:

If the official calling this deems it to be blatant enough, there is technically a NFHS rule stating there can be another 15 yards tacked on. Have fun explaining that to the coach..

Offensive holding is traditionally a 10-yard penalty from the spot of the foul.  I'd like to see a DPI penalty addendum like the holding penalty rule in the endzone.  Maybe this "technicality rule" ends up being enforced when DPI occurs in the endszone.

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