Cam Davis

I was blown away by the ridiculousness of the fair catch call nullifying the touchdown by UCLA and have been researching it since then. Based on the definition of a fair catch that most of us are familiar with, it should be allowed on an onside kick if the kick is chipped into the air as the Texas Tech kicker appeared to do. But apparently, the NCAA (and only the NCAA) allows for a fair catch to be called even if the ball hits the ground, which of course, makes no sense and – as mentioned above – suggests that receiving teams should call for one on every onside kick until the rule is changed. But what makes this discussion even more ridiculous is that (from my recollection) the fair catch signal was made by a UCLA player who was 5-10 yards behind his teammate who collected the ball and ran it in for the touchdown. The rule above clearly states that the player making the signal should be in position to receive the ball, as was the OK State player who waved his arm. And certainly, a player trying to catch a bouncing onsides kick can't be waving an arm in the air at the same time. So in my mind, not only is it a stupid rule that should've been changed by now, the officials in the UCLA-Rutgers game called it completely wrong. It should've been Touchdown UCLA. One could argue that UCLA could've been penalized for having a player call for a fair catch who didn't attempt to receive the ball. But kick returners on other kicks frequently wave for a fair catch as a decoy, then let it go over their head in hopes of getting a touchback.