Quote:I'm curious, not having seen OSU's play: if the QB had rolled out past the hash marks before flinging it would intentional grounding have been called? Any refs out there?

Nope. It wouldn't have been intentional grounding. He stayed in the pocket. You would THINK with 4s left and trying to run out the clock, you just run outside the pocket -- and if someone was coming at you, you fling it down field to go out of bounds (no intentional grounding)... and if someone was Not coming at you, you just slide on the ground, game over.

A dumb play call. Which is why nobody knew about the rule exception. They didn't play it to milk the new weird rule in the books -- otherwise, the OSU coach would have been going Nuts after they said one more play was to be called. And that next play did Not come in a heartbeat. He had plenty of time. So no, it was Not a purposely non-competitive play, other than just wanting the clock to expire (expected) -- gone wrong (but later found out, should have been 'right' due to an f-d up rule).

Quote:RATIONALE: Prevents the offense from gaining the unfair advantage of an additional play if they complete an illegal forward pass for a touchdown as time in a half expires.

And the situation does not fit the rationale in this case. In the situation that occurred, applying the new rule, would have given the offense an unfair advantage. The rationale for letting the clock expire on turnover on downs is the ASSUMPTION that the offense is the one struggling to score -- and thus, you let the time run out. That is Not Necessarily the case, as seen in this one -- hence, the new-rule is bad, as it goes against common sense.

I think in the off-season they'll adjust it.