Evening star., 1935-01-31
LATERAL PENALTY
THOUGHT SEVERE
Not Satisfied With Sideline
Play Nor Position of
Goal Posts.
BY H. C. BYRD.

-OOT BALL coaches who will
- gather in New York from every
section of the country this week
end to discuss possible changes
in the rules, to evolve recommended
tions to be made by them to the Rules
Committee, seem pretty generally to
have fixed in their minds three definite
changes they feel should be car
ried out.
First, and most important to them
apparently from opinions expressed
RECENTLY. is to recommend change IN
the penalty for inadvertently making
a forward pass on an attempted lateral
after a previous forward pass from
scrimmage formation has galnea
ground. Second, is to bring the pali
in from the side lines Is yards instead
of 10 when it goes out OF bounds.
Third is the possibility Of moving the
goal posts back to the goal line.
The first of these is the result OF
general belief among coaches that the
present penalty is too severe. For IN
stance. under the rules as they now
exist, if a forward pass is MADE, tne
ball caught and a run OF 70 yaros
added and then the man with the ball
attempts a lateral to one of his team
mates and inadvertently makes tor-
ward instead, the ball goes back to the
spot of the previous down, thus NULL
tying all the original gain from the
start of the play. The coaches feel
that if this penalty were lightened so
that the ball would go back to the
spot it was passed from after the orig
inal gain it would serve to open up
play a good deal more and cause
coaches to take more chances and thus
make a more spectacular game.
Would Assist Offense.
-HE idea of moving the ball in
from the side lines to spot Is
wards in instead of 10 is to al
low greater latitude in the selection
of plays by the offensive team and
make the defense more difficult. There
is some opinion that sideline play
adds to the strategy of the game and
that the ball should never be moved
in any distance and should be played
from any spot where it may be downed.
This opinion, of course, is against even
the present rule of bringing the ball
in 10 yards.
Moving the goal posts back to the
goal line instead of leaving them on
the end line simply is an effort to
bring back more field goal kicking
and to increase, somewhat, strategy
near the goal line. 1t Is more difficult
to score a touchdown with the goal
posts on the goal line than with them
at the end line. Some coaches carry
this feeling to a point where they are
of the opinion that the try for point
should be made from a point in the
field certain number of yards out
from where the ball crosses the goal
line for a touchdown. There is not
the least doubt that the strategy Of
offensive play within the 15-yard zone
would be heightened a good deal by
re-eStabliShing this old rule. This
probably will not be done, though, as
sentiment seems to be to try to make
scoring easier.
Tom Hamilton, head coach of the
Navy, is gathering information from
coaches in this section and will pre-
sent 1t at the meeting in New York
as representative of this section. He
says that he has no very strong con-
Wction about any of the proposed
changes, but is of the opinion that
1t would be well to tighten the penalty
in regard to the making of a second
forward pass from the same scrim-
mage play.
Most of the coaches-in fact, prac-
tically all of them-feel rather
strongly that the rules are pretty
much all right as they are, with the
exception of three or four minor
changes such as those mentioned It
is doubtful If there are half a dozen
coaches in the country who would
want to see radical alterations in the
present code and all the others would
fight bitterly any attempt along that
line.