Was roughing the passer the right call?

Iceman

Well-Known Member
I need clarity on the Iowa roughing the passer call. 30 didn't hit him high or low. Perfect tackle hitting him waist high and drove through him. Perfect form tackle. It wasn't late. They said he drove him to the ground. Not sure how rushers are to rush the passer!
 
I dunno if it was the right call. But I was watching at a bar in STL and accidentally grabbed the fork of the person sitting next me and a flag flew in from Iowa City. They were calling everything.
 
That was very weak...if another defense did that to our QB and it was called in our favor, I would still say it was very weak.

I guess the only answer is to not wrap when you hit the QB, but the second you go that route a guy pumps and spins out and is off to the races.

The crack-back call was just as bad. It looked like a penalty in real time because the defender got decleated, but when you watched the slow-mo, Dunker did exactly what we has supposed to do: he got his head in front, he made contact at the torso, and he did not launch into the defender. He basically got penalized because he is a mountain of a man that the defender didn't see standing there.
 
The Schulte and Dunker calls were weak, but this is where we are at. If we are about protecting the players and wanting the sport to continue, you have to make those calls.
 
So on the game thread another poster mistakenly referenced what appears to be the NFL rule pertaining to “roughing the passer”. The rule mentions “landing with full body weight…

“Such acts include unnecessary driving of the quarterback into the ground and contact that violates the body weight provision of the roughing the passer rule, which states that a defender that lands on the quarterback with his full body weight will be penalized for roughing the passer, regardless of whether the quarterback has released the football”.

This rule was highly controversial when first implemented and Clay Matthews was at the center of the controversy.
Interestingly, Dean Blandino was critical of the new the NFL rule at the time. I would have loved to have heard him weigh in last night on Schulte’s hit/tackle but I don’t believe they ever consulted with him.

SO, what I could find from the 2023 NCAA Football Rules Book pertaining to “roughing the passer” is from Rule 9, Section1, Article 9 (a):

4. “Forcibly driving the passer to the ground and landing on the passer with action that punishes the player.”

Judgement calls and open to interpretation obviously. And I have seen multiple hits like Schulte’s not flagged. A good clean tackle that didn’t punish the quarterback imo. Not sure what a defender is supposed to do in that situation.
 
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It was a judgment call. He did put a little extra into landing on the quarterback and driving him into the ground.
 
So on the game thread another poster mistakenly referenced what appears to be the NFL rule pertaining to “roughing the passer”. The rule mentions “landing with full body weight…

“Such acts include unnecessary driving of the quarterback into the ground and contact that violates the body weight provision of the roughing the passer rule, which states that a defender that lands on the quarterback with his full body weight will be penalized for roughing the passer, regardless of whether the quarterback has released the football”.

This rule was highly controversial when first implemented and Clay Matthews was at the center of the controversy.
Interestingly, Dean Blandino was critical of the new the NFL rule at the time. I would have loved to have heard him weigh in last night on Schulte’s hit/tackle but I don’t believe they ever consulted with him.

SO, what I could find from the 2023 NCAA Football Rules Book pertaining to “roughing the passer” is from Rule 9, Section1, Article 9 (a):

4. “Forcibly driving the passer to the ground and landing on the passer with action that punishes the player.”

Judgement calls and open to interpretation obviously. And I have seen multiple hits like Schulte’s not flagged. A good clean tackle that didn’t punish the quarterback imo. Not sure what a defender is supposed to do in that situation.

I will say, Iowa has gotten away with a few this year that I thought could have been roughing. Perhaps Schulte was just the unlucky recipient of the roughing the passer "season achievement" penalty on behalf of the defense.
 
I will say, Iowa has gotten away with a few this year that I thought could have been roughing. Perhaps Schulte was just the unlucky recipient of the roughing the passer "season achievement" penalty on behalf of the defense.

Agreed.
 
It was a dumb play... he needs to know that you can't drive the qb like that.

You cannot like the rule sure... but it was a mental mistake.
 
It was a dumb play... he needs to know that you can't drive the qb like that.

You cannot like the rule sure... but it was a mental mistake.
I don't like the selective application of the rule. I especially dislike the tendency of refs to apply rules differently to "better" teams, and particular positions/players. Compare what called PI looks like against a TE vs a WR. You have to basically tackle a TE five seconds early to get called as a DB. This is probably a bigger problem in the NFL, though.
 
It was a dumb play... he needs to know that you can't drive the qb like that.

You cannot like the rule sure... but it was a mental mistake.
I get, with the exception of offsides, encroachment, false start, illegal formation - nearly all the "physical" calls are subjective. However, this one, along with Coop's wave, were selectively fine applications of extremely subjective rules that had dramatic impacts on close games.

That should never be the case where extremely subjective officiating determines outcomes. You see whistles swallowed in literally every tight game during crunch time (especially basketball) because good refs know better than to nit-pick "marginal" calls vs good play.
(Sidebar, also thought the flag on Illannoy for holding K Brown, which happened to be on Iowa's winning drive, was also pretty ticky-tacky.)

Either way, get rid of the rules like these that have such discombobulated definitions and wide margins for interpretation. If they stay on the books, train refs to use a LOT more common sense to understand football plays vs malicious intent.
 
I don’t think that the refs did a good job yesterday. That being said I don’t think that we got the short end of things. As mentioned above the hold on Brown was ticky tack. I have no clue what they were thinking when they picked up the flag on the apparent pass interference call that was going to go against us. Happy to get the win and move on to Nebraska. Go Hawks. On a side note I enjoyed watching the players and coaches celebrating the win. Good to see a lot of smiles. Happy for Brian to be able to enjoy a win in his last game at Kinnick.
 
The hit didn't look that bad in realtime. The crowd was very upset about it. One of the fans threw their seat back on the field right over the Illinois sideline. It happened in the section I was sitting in. However, I think it was definitely the right call after watching the TV replay.
 
The hit didn't look that bad in realtime. The crowd was very upset about it. One of the fans threw their seat back on the field right over the Illinois sideline. It happened in the section I was sitting in. However, I think it was definitely the right call after watching the TV replay.

Ask me yesterday and I'm ambivalent, but leaning fairly heavy towards livid.

Watching the replay last night....you can see a mental decision made on the way to the ground to put just a little extra oomph on it.

Should it be? I won't argue that. I think it's all a bit silly trying to protect broken bones and ripped muscles that will heal when they're all pretty much guaranteed to wind up with behavior changing...soul changing CTE.

But I think the call was warranted under my understanding of the rules and the game.
 
So on the game thread another poster mistakenly referenced what appears to be the NFL rule pertaining to “roughing the passer”. The rule mentions “landing with full body weight…

“Such acts include unnecessary driving of the quarterback into the ground and contact that violates the body weight provision of the roughing the passer rule, which states that a defender that lands on the quarterback with his full body weight will be penalized for roughing the passer, regardless of whether the quarterback has released the football”.

This rule was highly controversial when first implemented and Clay Matthews was at the center of the controversy.
Interestingly, Dean Blandino was critical of the new the NFL rule at the time. I would have loved to have heard him weigh in last night on Schulte’s hit/tackle but I don’t believe they ever consulted with him.

SO, what I could find from the 2023 NCAA Football Rules Book pertaining to “roughing the passer” is from Rule 9, Section1, Article 9 (a):

4. “Forcibly driving the passer to the ground and landing on the passer with action that punishes the player.”

Judgement calls and open to interpretation obviously. And I have seen multiple hits like Schulte’s not flagged. A good clean tackle that didn’t punish the quarterback imo. Not sure what a defender is supposed to do in that situation.

You're correct about the NFL rule and I was the one who posted that. That's on me and my bad.

While the NCAA rule says basically the same thing, it's in a much shorter paragraph.

Either way, I'm old school and the rule is still dumb plus it's a judgement call. The crew that worked yesterdays Iowa game we've all seen many times. They call a pretty tight game, and in my personal opinion too tight most often, but they are who they are.

The Iowa player could have hit Paddock right in the mid section very hard without driving him to the ground. Dare I say the QB would have felt that just as much and there would not have been a penalty.

The D was undisciplined at times yesterday. That has to be cleaned up this week.
 
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Ask me yesterday and I'm ambivalent, but leaning fairly heavy towards livid.

Watching the replay last night....you can see a mental decision made on the way to the ground to put just a little extra oomph on it.

Should it be? I won't argue that. I think it's all a bit silly trying to protect broken bones and ripped muscles that will heal when they're all pretty much guaranteed to wind up with behavior changing...soul changing CTE.

But I think the call was warranted under my understanding of the rules and the game.

I don't see it. It's moot anyways at this point.
 
From this angle, you can even see that Schulte unwraps him on the way to the ground, as opposed to lifting and driving him into the turf. Not really sure what else he can do in this instance:


After watching the illegal crackback, I am more inclined to think that was the right call. Dunker lowered his shoulder and leaned in just enough to go over the line.
 
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