The Famous Goal Line Stand

[indyfrisco]

Wow...did I hear that right? About the 3 minute mark (maybe a little after that) Penn State is lining up for the 3rd and goal. The crowd gets loud and the referee blows the whistle. The commentator syid that the ref was restarting the play because it was too loud and the offense has the right to hear the playcall from the QB.

At first I thought had never heard of that, but in hindsight, I seem to remember there used to be a penalty for crowd interference, right?

I googled and found this:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_there_a_pe ... much_noise

Is there a penalty in football for too much noise?
In: Football Rules and Regulations [Edit categories]

[Improve]

The following is an excerpt from an interview chicagosports.com did with former NFL referee Jerry Markbreit in 2004:


" There is a rules procedure set up for crowd noise when the visiting team cannot hear signals because of the noise. If, in the opinion of the referee, and after a signal from the quarterback, the noise is so loud that play cannot continue, the game is stopped and an announcement is made to the crowd in an attempt to quiet things down. After a second announcement and an appeal to the home team to assist in quieting the crowd, and if the noise does not subside, the home team is charged a timeout. The only time a 5-yard penalty would be assessed is when the home team is out of timeouts. This is a very complicated procedure, and you are correct in that it has not been used in years. The quarterbacks are experts at dealing with crowd noise and rarely, if ever, appeal to the referee. The quarterback knows that if he does not get the play off because of the disturbance, that the crowd will get louder. Consequently, quarterbacks find a way to let the game continue, regardless of the noise. "

Is this still applicable? If not, any idea of when it was taken out?

[indyfrisco]

Shit, the NFL still has this.

http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/penaltysummaries

I wonder when the last time this was called anywhere.

[Mace]

I haven't seen this rule enforced since the 80's, when it was called frequently during home games at Iowa, so I'm guessing it's no longer on the books. It seemed like it was almost a challenge to the crowd to get loud enough that the visiting QB would have to ask the ref to quiet them down, and it became somewhat of a game within the game.

[indyfrisco]

I never saw it called when I went to the Houston Oiler games as a kid. Then again, back then, the Astrodome looked like this on gamedays:

[Mikey]

I never saw it called when I went to the Houston Oiler games as a kid. Then again, back then, the Astrodome looked like this on gamedays:

Here's my fondest memory of the old Astrodome...

[PSUFAN]

My remembrance of that stand was a little hazy - I was 8. I remembered it that Joe stubbornly ran up the gut on 4 successive downs, which of course isn't true. Also, there was definitely time for PSU to take another crack at the win...but the int sealed the win for Bama.

As for the crowd noise penalty - UM benefited from such a call at the Beav against PSU in the '93 game.