There's a string of social media posts working their way around the site previously known as Twitter concerning the oddest opponents various college teams have faced in the past. Most of the odd opponents are athletic clubs and military teams the colleges played in the years well before our current scoring rules existed. To add to the discussion, I posted a chart I created for
The 1971 Syracuse safety happened when the kick was high and short, and an Indiana player illegally batted the ball in the end zone before it hit the ground. In 1974, the rules were changed to adopt the '3 and 1' system of penalty enforcement. That change made it much harder to score a safety by penalty, and I believe in the Syracuse case as well as David Nelson's newspaper example, under the 1974 and later rules, the try would have been replayed after a half-the-distance penalty. Also, I believe it was the rule in 1971 that the try ended "when it becomes certain that a scrimmage kick on a Try will not score the point". So, the refs must have thought the kick still had a chance of scoring when it was batted. In essence, the refs called 'goaltending' and awarded the score, just like basketball!
I was in a hotel bar when Texas one point safety happened and I’m proud to say I correctly announced the outcome before it was sorted. I was there on break from speaking to a group of college umpires. After it was grasped by everyone what had happened which was fairly quickly because several also officiated football one of the umpires loudly declared “I don’t ever want to hear dropped third strike or the infield fly rule is complicated after seeing that sheee-it”
The 1971 Syracuse safety happened when the kick was high and short, and an Indiana player illegally batted the ball in the end zone before it hit the ground. In 1974, the rules were changed to adopt the '3 and 1' system of penalty enforcement. That change made it much harder to score a safety by penalty, and I believe in the Syracuse case as well as David Nelson's newspaper example, under the 1974 and later rules, the try would have been replayed after a half-the-distance penalty. Also, I believe it was the rule in 1971 that the try ended "when it becomes certain that a scrimmage kick on a Try will not score the point". So, the refs must have thought the kick still had a chance of scoring when it was batted. In essence, the refs called 'goaltending' and awarded the score, just like basketball!
I was in a hotel bar when Texas one point safety happened and I’m proud to say I correctly announced the outcome before it was sorted. I was there on break from speaking to a group of college umpires. After it was grasped by everyone what had happened which was fairly quickly because several also officiated football one of the umpires loudly declared “I don’t ever want to hear dropped third strike or the infield fly rule is complicated after seeing that sheee-it”