Re: Thinking back to the ND & FSU games,

Inside the shoulders is not really holding...at least you will never get a call unless the holding is outside the shoulder pads. As soon as that jersey gets stretched outside the width of the body, it becomes holding.

As a high school o-lineman, I was taught to grab up under the shoulder pads right under the armpit, and then pull the defender close. I was also taught to let go as soon as they start to get away from you. Maybe it was technically holding, but I never got called for it.

The following link explains it well.

http://www.cornnation.com/2010/9/3/1666922/understanding-college-football
"The defender must make an attempt to move away from his blocker, to go after the ball, fight off the block, and demonstrate that the offensive player is getting an advantage. "

mrmatt

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That's not a very helpful link . . .

Dec 4, 2015, 10:26 AM

I'm not criticizing you, b/c you didn't write it, but that link doesn't really address any distinctions in the rule that clarifies why situations like the picture in this thread (CU-FSU/Dalvin running) are supposedly not holding. All the piece does (at least the holding section) is offer some sophistry on the philosophy of officiating and WHY they call things they way they do. But that doesn't justify it, necessarily.

Are you saying that grabbing the jersey inside the shoulders is not holding, or merely that it's not usually called? I understand the logic of the latter (not that I agree with it), but is it not really holding according to the rules?

This issue about whether the jersey gets tugged outside the shoulders, as well as the language of the piece in the link, seem to me to highlight part of the problem with officiating and the training they get from conferences - which is to say that they have all these "conventions" outside of the actual rules themselves, that they apply to make decisions, and sometimes the conventions and assumptions behind them are at odds with the rules themselves. They seem to think that if they identify certain touchstones of particular infractions, then they can call them "by proxy," by identifying said touchstones (or NOT call them if they don't observe or identify them).

This is really an "indirect" and somewhat lazy method of officiating. I know the game moves at a fast pace and I can see how such observations could help serve as red flags that can be used to draw and focus the attention of an official, but if they end up displacing the rule itself - that is, if the ref can see a touchstone that is typical of an infraction, but the infraction is technically absent, and they still call the penalty (or vice versa, the touchstone is absent so they don't call a legit penalty), then we are putting the cart of the "touchstones," before the horse of the rules. Bad practice.

Again, I'm not so much criticizing you b/c I know you were just explaining the lay of the land here, but I think there's some philosophical sloppiness in their standard practices that deserves to be revisited.

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Ron Cherry

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Re: Ron Cherry

Thinking back to the ND & FSU games,

That's not a very helpful link . . .