Iowa Punt Return Called Back

Because all of the on field officials missed it. Technically it was an invalid fair catch signal, no real difference though. It wasn’t until it went upstairs for review, every TD is, right, that the obscure rule was exercised. It’s still bizarro to me that simply waving your arm like he did ends up being called this. As several have stated, a fair catch signal should be a simple raising and waving your arm up high. Everyone knows the motion, anything thing else should be ignored.

* can you just imagine if this had been the way a “spirited” cut-throat SEC game ended instead.

 

Exactly- it’s not a ‘catch’.

 

The ruling was that it was an invalid fair catch signal. If he had raised his arm above his shoulder, wouldn’t that have made it a valid fair catch signal? The network’s explainer ref made the comment that an invalid fair catch signal results in a dead ball, but does not afford the protections to not get hit.

 

No, that was a terrible call. How many times have we all seen a returner waive away his teammates and then decide to return the ball? It’s countless and everyone knows what it means.

 

Yep, Iowa got jobbed.

 

The thing that gets me is it was obvious he was not trying to signal a fair catch. I understand the purpose of the rule to prevent someone from waving their hand down low in order to fake out the coverage team. But that’s not what happened here.

I don’t see any way that his actions could be considered calling for a fair catch. Can you even fair catch a ball after it’s bounced? The ball was near the sideline. If he wanted to fair catch, he could just let it bounce out of bounds.

It’s obvious to me that he was signaling his teammates to stay away from the bouncing ball. If he was signaling for a fair catch, he would’ve stopped when he caught the ball. He acted as if he fully expected to be tackled.

I think a key here is he was running towards where the ball bounced. He wasn’t standing in one place waiting for the ball to come to him, where an invalid fair catch signal could be deceptive.

I find this a very egregious overly picky application of a rule. How can you have an invalid fair catch signal if the person obviously is not trying to signal a fair catch.

 

Based on what? Point me to the rulebook entry that says its a terrible call.

Lot's of folks here like taking shots at refs without actually reading and knowing the rules. Admittedly I didn't know this rule fully before yesterday, but I looked it up. It's pretty simple, any waving of an arm is a fair catch signal, it must be above the shoulders to be valid otherwise its invalid (as the ref stated in this case). If any signal is given, valid or invalid, the ball is dead "after catch or recovery". Recovery covers the fact that the ball bounced.

If you don't like that rule, fine I'm not arguing that. But its not these refs fault for following the rules as written, that's what they are supposed to do.

 

I was watching it live and was surprised they called that, especially at Kinnick. Iowa still had a chance to win the game as they probably only need about 20-25 yards to kick a game winning fg. Of course, they only had 2 yards of total offense in the entire 2nd half so 20 yards was a tall order.

 

Every one of them, the refs, on the field, missed it. Replay made the call.

 

Clearly, #37 for the Gophers didn't think it was a fair catch signal.

 

So? Refs miss stuff on the field all the time, its why we have replay. That doesn't change whether the replay ruling was right or not.

 

I think that’s lame on the Minn coaches. None of his players backed off. In the spirit of sportsmanship they should deal with the fact their players all missed tackles, instead of taking away a kids game winning TD.

 

Really? So, if we were playing UGA next week would you say "it's lame" if Napier made the same point after UGA's punt returner scored?

 

Hand went about the shoulder but not as high as the rules call for--thus invalid. I am sure the rule will be clarified in the off season LOL

As to the continuation of play--I think the refs have discovered with replay it is easier to correct errors after a play runs the full course than blowing it dead thus making it uncorrectable afterwords.

Earlier in the game MN was penalized for being too close to the receiver on a fair catch. (that was a bogus call IMHO--receiver reached out and touched the MN player to get the call). And if you watch the replay of the call in question you see MN 24 pull up when the IA player hand goes sort of up in the air.

 

In some of the replays you see MN 24 backed off when the IA player started raising his hand around.

 

Yes, they looked worse than normal--and that is hard!!! They are a pathetic offensive team and with two of their guys hurt they got worse. They have been lucky so far. It ran out yesterday.

 

I understand what you’re saying, but I just disagree. When you look at the rule, it presumes an indication of fair catch is being made. The section regarding invalid signal I assume it was to prevent people faking a symbol, and then running with the ball.

My speculation is when the rule was written, they were imagining only cases where someone is standing there flat footed, waiting to catch the ball, and makes some signal down low in order to deceive the coverage.

The ball was not landing anywhere near where the receiver was. I don’t see how anyone could interpret his actions as trying to signal for a fair catch, whether valid or invalid. He had to race to the sideline to get to the ball.

Regarding MN 24, it appears to be more likely he pulled up because the ball was bouncing and heading out of bounds. It doesn’t look like he pulled up because the guy waved his arm to keep his teammates away from the bouncing ball.

Regarding the MN penalty for encroaching on the punt receiver, I thought that was waived off by determining he was blocked into the receiver. On this last point, it is possible I’m thinking of a different game where that happened. I watched a lot of football yesterday.

All of this is opinion and speculation. From my viewpoint, he had no actions that indicated he was looking for a fair catch, or even trying to deceive a fair catch. And I think the refs overreached by interpreting his actions within any context to fair catch.

It’s interesting looking at the rule itself. Strictly speaking, it does not identify who on Team B must signal for the fair catch, whether valid or invalid. Technically, it seems that any person on Team B waving their hands indicates a signal for a fair catch. The rule does not state that it only applies to the obvious receiver of the punt.

What if the Iowa player never got close to the ball? What if another Iowa player had picked it up and run? As I said above, this was an egregious overreach by nitpicking officials.

In fact, any player running down the field is waving his hands in some motion.

 

At least you read the rule, thank you for that... I agree with you on what the likely motivation of the rule is, but the rules don't say anything about intent so the refs don't have the latitude to consider whether DeJean meant to call a fair catch or not. Clearly DeJean didn't intend to, but that's irrelevant as the rules are written.

DeJean waves his arm twice in a circular motion. If he does that above his head, that's universally accepted as a fair catch signal, which is defined as waving your arms above your shoulders. So if waving your arms in a circle like that above your head counts as a valid fair catch signal, then doing the same below your shoulders is by definition an invalid signal, which includes any waving of your arms that's not above your shoulders (or after the ball is caught/recovered).

This came up in yesterday's UT/Bama game on a kickoff. One UT returner made the "safe" signal acting like the ball was going over his head while the other returner was actually catching and returning the ball. The refs eventually ruled the play dead where the other returner caught it because his teammate made the signal with his arms. I've seen similar scenarios come up a few times and called this way.

 

. That’s different! What I hate about this, was nobody on the field (even MN sideline) were raising their hands and looking at a ref and asking for a flag when he fielded it and took off.

 

Yep, we will disagree Now if this happened to the Gators--we would likely agree LOL

For years Iowa fans have called the Chad Greenway offside call against us in the bowl the worst call ever against them. That is now being supplanted by the call yesterday LOL

Oh well--football is fun and infuriating at times!