{"id":653703,"date":"2026-05-20T04:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653703\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:05:08","slug":"punt-rule-change-takes-over-at-big-ten-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653703\/","title":{"rendered":"Punt Rule Change Takes Over at Big Ten Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sky is falling in the world of college football. The transfer portal, NIL, lawyers, money \u2014 everywhere you look, there\u2019s a new problem that requires a Juris Doctor to solve. Over the last two weeks, CFP expansion has become the talk of the sport, but that\u2019s not the most burning question at the Big Ten Spring Meetings. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a punting problem. <\/p>\n

The NCAA is adding a new rule that applies to the specifics of how punt teams line up before the snap. It\u2019s a complicated, convoluted matter that\u2019s difficult to explain, which is probably why Big Ten coaches spent 45 minutes complaining about the rule. All 18 Big Ten coaches are against the punt rule changes. <\/p>\n

The most vocal critic of the rule is, you guessed it, Kirk Ferentz<\/a>. He\u2019s spent the last 27 years punting to win at Iowa. He described the potential changes to the punt rule as a \u201cclown show.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no compelling reason to change it. It was already perfectly fine,\u201d Ferentz told ESPN\u2019s Pete Thamel<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not playing for a couple more months. I don\u2019t know why they couldn\u2019t (change it).\u201d<\/p>\n

There are usually a handful of rule changes a year in the sport, many of which go unnoticed. The punt rule change definitely went unnoticed. <\/p>\n

The long story short is that the NCAA is adding strict number requirements for offensive linemen in a punt formation. In order to limit a team\u2019s ability to gimmick their way to a fake punt out of a rugby formation, they would rather players wear zip-up jerseys to put on a proper jersey number for the punt. <\/p>\n

1. Formations must be 2\u00d72 on either side of the snapper. Unless there are five players, wearing numbers 50-79 on the LOS. <\/p>\n

2. Players are locked into the 2\u00d72 formation with the Guards & Tackles in, or touching the tackle box. No shifting, and they are ineligible. <\/p>\n

3. If five players wearing 50-79 are on the LOS, normal football rules go into effect (shifting\/eligibility).<\/p>\n

4. If a team elects to change player jerseys to alleviate numbering exceptions, a team may fill out a form and present it to the referees in the pregame meetings. An announcement will be made prior to the play about the changes.<\/p>\n

Via @FrankWilsonJr<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After seeing the detailed explanation of the new punt rules, it\u2019s easy to understand why Big Ten coaches made a big stink at spring meetings. Will it be enough to call off the rule changes? That\u2019s doubtful. Oh, and another important question, are they going to do anything about this Playoff? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sky is falling in the world of college football. The transfer portal, NIL, lawyers, money \u2014 everywhere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-653703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}