RE: Watching the Bama game since I was there and just

Posted on: October 16, 2018 at 05:48:04 CT

Your post surprised me and was a good catch - sort of. Linemen can go 3 yards past the line of scrimmage so went back and watched that drive to see if Bama really was downfield too far twice in one drive. Bama threw 3 passes on that drive. The first was an RPO. No ineligible players were were even to the 3 yard limit when the ball left the QB's hand. The 3rd pass wasn't an RPO and the ineligible players backed up to setup a pocket. The LoS was at the 2. But the second pass was an RPO and Bama's center #71 was clearly 5 yards past the LoS and the refs missed it, as did I when I watched the game. It was the same play that Missouri was flagged for roughing the QB.

I then wondered what would have happened had they saw Bama's center downfield. Would the fouls offset and the down replayed? I looked it up and the two fouls do not offset because one is classified as a dead ball foul. Bama should have been backed up 5 yards from the line of scrimmage and then the refs would have marched the ball forwards 15 yards and Bama given an automatic first down. Bama made good yardage on that play so that 5 yard penalty would have also wiped out Bama's gain. Bama's upper classmen on the OL have been busted for that earlier this year. They are used to Jalen Hurts who would take off running if no one was not open within a second so after two seconds, sometimes they forget and assume its a run.