Bri Kirkham is a junior telecommunications and journalism news major and writes ‘Miss Brehavin' for Ball State Daily. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of The Daily. Write to Bri at bmkirkham@bsu.edu.
If the NFL followed the same football inspection regulations as the NCAA, the controversy surrounding football inflation in last weekend's AFC Championship between the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots could have been avoided.
The ongoing NFL investigation has created curiosity (and anger) among football fans about what the NFL regulations actually state. Whose responsibility is it to approve of and check the footballs? How do these regulations differ from NCAA rules? Well, it turns out that it would be much more difficult to allow a mistake like this to take place in college football.
According to Rule 2, Section 2 of the NFL Rulebook, the referee should test the 12 primary footballs from each team two hours and 15 minutes before the game. Sounds good, right?
After the referee inspects the balls, they are then returned to each team. Now, the NFL Rulebook doesn't actually state whether or not the referee must return the footballs to the teams, but in most cases, including the game between the Colts and Patriots, they do. Why? Good question.
This is where NCAA rules differ. Ball State football manager Chey Kramer said the officials check the balls for the correct PSI and mark them.
“[The officials] keep the footballs until kickoff so no one can mess with them,” Kramer said. “And once we receive them back, we’re not allowed to tamper with them.”
Basically, while professional teams receive their footballs before kickoff, collegiate players do not. And that makes sense; there shouldn't be a recognized "honor code" when it comes to professional sports. A professor wouldn't give students their exams back to have over the weekend for safe-keeping before they had the chance to grade them.
This NCAA regulation is the reason why officials were able to discover deflated balls from the University of Southern California’s team back in 2012. They found and re-inflated three balls before the game and two more at halftime, making it possible for all balls to be regulation by the second half.
It’s entirely possible that if the NFL followed this same practice it could not only help officials discover deflated balls before game time, but it could also prevent professional teams from deflating them in the first place.
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