I recall that the second half kickoff by RU in the first Garden State Bowl ended up in the end zone after bouncing around for quite a distance before it reached the end zone. Rutgers recovered the ball in the end zone but was not awarded a touchdown. Officials discussed the play and ruled that the RU kicker was offside . I do not recall ever seeing this before or since. When I google it, Google said a kicker cannot be offside. Is my recall faulty?
Kicker offside on kickoff
- Thread starter DANTHEMAN
- Start date
We were definitely called for offsides, negating the TD. Not sure whether it was the kicker.
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I could see a kicker being offside on an on sides kick, he might plant the non kicking foot a bit over the line...but when you are kicking it into the end zone, hard to figure.
They got something wrong then because a kicker can not be off sides unless he misses the ball completely. Then the entire team is basically off sides. The kickers foot can go beyond the line without penalty. If they did one of them plays where the kicker fakes it and another guy kicks it the kicker buy name came be off sides but not the guy who kicked the ball. Sounds to me like they couldn't remember or more than one player may have been off sides and meant to say kicking team and not kicker or the officials were simply dumbass's. Ha
Yes, they got it wrong, it was complete bullshit. A flag was thrown, nobody knew why, so they made up the call on the kicker. Awful.
It may have been that the officials did not want an upstart Rutgers to score an easy one on a Pac10 team. It would have made the game a lot tighter to start the second half. The call, I agree, was complete bullshit, and probably the only time that a kicker was ever ruled offside on a kickoff.
Is there any video online to watch it?
What year was it? If it was a long time ago then the ref would have probably said kicker or kicking team as they did not single out by number which player when started announcing the penalties. He could have said kicker and while technically been wrong by the rules then been correct on how it was called.
What year was it? If it was a long time ago then the ref would have probably said kicker or kicking team as they did not single out by number which player when started announcing the penalties. He could have said kicker and while technically been wrong by the rules then been correct on how it was called.
The kicker (do not remember his name) was a soccer style kicker and that was a bit unusual in 1978. The ruling, I believe, was that his planting foot preceded the ball.
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