Question for officials

[Pioneer_PA]

Situation came up last night and I was curious about something.

If a ballcarrier is horsecollared, but falls into the endzone for a touchdown, is it a penalty? If so, when is the penalty assessed?

This situation had no bearing on the outcome of the game, but I hadn't really thought about it before.

[bucknutnut]

Thiswould be very rare to happen due to the fact that technically a horse collar has to be grabbed by the back half of the collar and pulled backwards bringing the runner grounded and in judgement of the calling official be the sole reason for the backwards motion of runner (another words if there is 2 or more people making contact or tackling him simaltaneously could be determined the tacler forced him backwards not the horse collar). thus would make it hard for the ball carrier to fall backward and still break the plane of the goal line. However, never say never if it does occur it is the offenses choice of taking the penalty on the try (half the distance)or on the kickoff (15 yards prior to the kick making the kick line the recieving team 45 yard line).

[zebra77]

this year if the runner is tackled by the collar the foul is called, he does not have to be tackled backwards.
and yes the scoring team has the choice of on the try or the kick-off.

[bucknutnut]

unaware of the rule change this year thanks for the info i will look that up.