Did He Complete the Process of the Catch?

[bctgp]

In the Mich St vs Ohio St game the following was ruled a TD catch and upheld by replay.  Did he complete the process of the catch? Video below.

ESPN Video http://fb.me/7uVLJb2na or also here but scroll down to "T. O'Connor pass,to T. Pendleton for 12 yds for a TD", http://fansided.com/2015/11/21/michigan-state-ohio-state-final-score-results-recap-highlights/

[Kalle]

He has control, completes the catch and extends the ball to gain yardage. I'd uphold this.

[bctgp]

So no issue with control lost as he contacts the ground?

[Kalle]

So no issue with control lost as he contacts the ground?

No, as he has already established himself as a runner.

[bctgp]

ok, but we all remember the Dez Bryant catch/no-catch last year.  Don't see much difference.

[NVFOA_Ump]

Lots of difference.  Player catches and clearly secures the ball in close to his body and complete 4 steps inbounds before he then dives while extending the ball toward the pylon while still holding the ball in both hands.  Don't see any issues here at all.

[bctgp]

Respectfully disagree. Definitely not 4 steps in this case for MSU receiver. In Dez Bryant case you had foot -knee - elbow - body down before control lost. I see these are strikingly similar but with different final calls. If this play was made in middle of field I think we all would expect incomplete pass ruling.

[NVFOA_Ump]

Receiver catches the ball while airborne, pulls the ball into his chest with both hands as his left foot comes down, then right, left, right and reach to the pylon with the ball extended. As he reaches out to the pylon he is a runner, he was not "going to the ground" as he caught the ball.  Big difference under the applicable rules between the two plays.

[Kalle]

I didn't count the steps, but in the Bryant case there was no "football related move" after the catch and before losing possession.

[Aussie-Zebra]

 

Did he complete the process of the catch?

 

 

[The Roamin' Umpire]

In the Mich St vs Ohio St game the following was ruled a TD catch and upheld by replay.  Did he complete the process of the catch? Video below.

ESPN Video http://fb.me/7uVLJb2na or also here but scroll down to "T. O'Connor pass,to T. Pendleton for 12 yds for a TD", http://fansided.com/2015/11/21/michigan-state-ohio-state-final-score-results-recap-highlights/

I was looking at that and thought "By the current (muddled) NFL standard, that's incomplete." The college standard appears to be different.

In any game I'm working (i.e. HS or youth), his feet are down and he's controlled the ball well enough to extend it and hit the pylon with it. What happens after that is irrelevant, it's already a TD.

[BC 23]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rikn30H9osI&feature=youtu.be

So is this a catch, 2 steps, knee touching, then elbows hit before ball comes out in the end zone.

[NVFOA_Ump]

So is this a catch ......

In my opinion - no.  He's is already on his way to the ground as he catches the ball, never tucks it away, and loses it with the ball still out in his fingertips when he lands.  In this one I believe that he is required to maintain possession when he hits the ground since he never completed the catch and established himself as a runner.  That being said this is another judgment call and it looks like the crew got together, discussed the play, and stayed with the TD call.

[Aussie-Zebra]

The simplest way to look at it is this, while in the process of catching the ball the catch has to survive contact with the ground.

[Kalle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rikn30H9osI&feature=youtu.be

So is this a catch, 2 steps, knee touching, then elbows hit before ball comes out in the end zone.

Tough one, I'd say this is an incomplete pass. But like NVFOA_Ump said, a judgement call, which was discussed on the field, so if the replay didn't overturn the call, I guess I need to calibrate my judgement

[The Roamin' Umpire]

Tough one, I'd say this is an incomplete pass. But like NVFOA_Ump said, a judgement call, which was discussed on the field, so if the replay didn't overturn the call, I guess I need to calibrate my judgement

Pretty sure that was a HS game, so replay wasn't overturning anything.

That said, I also have an incomplete pass on this. If pressed for a difference between the two, in the MSU play, the receiver had the ball tucked with clear control and then separately extends the ball to the pylon. In the Navasota play, the ball is basically still moving in the same direction as it was passed - it seems to me the receiver doesn't have clear control.

But really, the honest answer is that this is a judgment call, and I'm sitting in my office comfortably looking at these plays on a monitor. I believe that my judgment on the field would be a catch in the first instance and incomplete in the second (regardless of whether or not the end zone was involved), but (a) I can't be certain of that because I'm NOT on the field, and (b) I'm certainly not going to substitute my judgment for that of the guy at the pylon. So,  it is.

[bkdow]

When reviewing the Catch/No Catch CFO training tape from 07/06/2015, I would say incomplete.  I think it was the third example is very similar to the Michigan State play in question and the trainer says it should be incomplete.

[Osric Pureheart]

Is there any hope that some supervisors might get together over the summer with some film of these kind of catches, where a receiver neither obviously regains his balance nor is obviously falling over, and come up with something that might help everyone call these rather irritating plays more consistently?  Going to the ground as a concept is fine 95% of the time, but it seems like there's a significant number of edge cases coming up where it's seriously hard to determine whether going to the ground should apply or not.

[golfingref]

Can someone post the definition of catch from the three different codes, NFL, NCAA, and NFHS? Or are they all the same? As a high school official, we are often educating coaches on rule differences between Fridays vs Sat/Sun and I would like to be armed with this answer if pressed. I would have also had incomplete on the Navasota play, but that decision would have come from all the recent replays seen from college and professional games.