Football Rules

At the neat and whitely painted Hotel Roosevelt, Manhattan, a group of sufficiently burly individuals lolled in easy chairs. Their adequate necks supported the brains of the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee. Though the Football Coaches' Association had recommended publicly that the Rules Committee should not alter the 1925 rules, it altered with a will.

The Forward Pass. To discourage the prevailing indiscriminate recourse to aerial attack by losing teams in the last few minutes of play, the Committee ruled: "In a sequence of downs--that is to say, between first down and first down--one incompleted forward pass will be permitted without a penalty, but thereafter each incompleted forward pass will draw a penalty of five yards."

The Safety. Heretofore teams leading by more than two points and not more than seven points, and finding themselves (near the end of the game) in possession of the ball and near their own goal line, have often intentionally scored a safety (counting two points against them) rather than run the risk of losing the ball and having their opponents score a touchdown. The safety scored, they were permitted to take the ball out to their 30-yard line for unrestricted first down.

In order to make the "intentional safety" less desirable, the Committee has ruled:

"After a safety has been made the ball shall be brought out to the 20-yard line and there, under the existing rules governing the free kick, be put in play by a punt, drop kick or placement kick by the team which has scored the safety."

Thus the only way in which the team scoring a safety can keep possession of the ball following a safety will be to use the onside kick.

New Ground Rule. To prevent undignified extra-gridiron scrambling for stray balls, during which spectators and players have so often been injured, the Committee held that in future the playing area will be identical with the chalked gridiron itself. Once a fumbled ball crosses either sideline, it will be considered dead and shall belong to the team whose player last touched it within the area of play.