NCAA Under Review Questions

[RickKY]

I watched the Cincinnati at West Virginia game last Saturday.  After a 3 and out on the first possession of the game WVU punted the ball.  The kick was shorter than the return man was positioned, and the kick contacted either a WVU or UC player who were engaged with each other blocking.  TV replays from 2 different angles were inconclusive as to which player was hit by the kicked ball.  It may have hit the arm of the R player, or the back of the K player.  The ball was awarded to WVU without review.  Obviosuly, possession is determined by this call, first touching versus a muff.

What is the threshhold for determining if a review is necessary or not?  Is it solely the judgement of the replay official, or are there some written guidleines for stopping play to perform a review?  I'm not complaining about the call becasue it was a difficult call to make.  I'm trying to understand the review process from teh reviewer's point of view.

[cmathews]

it is at the discretion of the replay official as to whether or not to review...This particular play may have been that the touching would be disregarded in either case as there is the issue of being blocked into the touching, which is not reviewable.  There is also the possibility that the booth looked at the play were satisfied that it was correct, and did all this in a time frame that didn't require them to shut down the game for further review...

[Atlanta Blue]

EVERY play is reviewed.  The issue is at what point is the game stopped for additional review.  The answer is a simple one: at the point where the next play is imminent, and the replay official has yet to see enough angles or conclusive evidence in order to support the call.

If the replay official saw an angle that supported the on field call within the first few seconds, there is no reason to stop the game.  But just because the game wasn't halted and the R didn't get on the headphones doesn't mean it wasn't reviewed.  EVERY play is reviewed.

Play gets halted when the replay official sees evidence he will overturn the call, or when he hasn't had enough time to come to a conclusion of supporting the call.

[RickKY]

In Fed rules touching by R is ignored if caused by K blocking R into the ball.  Is that the rule in NCAA also?  Assuming the ball struck one of them engaged in blocking, possession would go to R not K.  Yet they gave possession to K, no other R player touched the ball.  So further review would have been in order I think.

[Osric Pureheart]

In Fed rules touching by R is ignored if caused by K blocking R into the ball.  Is that the rule in NCAA also?  Assuming the ball struck one of them engaged in blocking, possession would go to R not K.  Yet they gave possession to K, no other R player touched the ball.  So further review would have been in order I think.

Forced touching is no touching, but I do remember seeing a training document a while back that talked about "the dance" in relation to this rule; the principle established was that the player in control of the blocking contest ("leading the dance") can't get the benefit of the forced touching rule because he's winning the block and therefore isn't being "forced" to do anything, whereas the player who's losing out does get the benefit of the rule because he's the one being forced.

Of course, we don't know for sure whether this would apply unless we can actually see the play...

[RickKY]

Forced touching is no touching, but I do remember seeing a training document a while back that talked about "the dance" in relation to this rule; the principle established was that the player in control of the blocking contest ("leading the dance") can't get the benefit of the forced touching rule because he's winning the block and therefore isn't being "forced" to do anything, whereas the player who's losing out does get the benefit of the rule because he's the one being forced.

Of course, we don't know for sure whether this would apply unless we can actually see the play...

OP, that sounds like officiating phylosophy, and I can understand if that is the case.  I only work FED rules games so I was not sure how or why this call happened the way it did.  The crew took no extra time and had no discussion.  There was a media timeout so there was ample opportunity to review the play.  It just did not look right to my FED eyes.