North Texas Exploits NCAA Fair Catch Rule To Ruin Navy’s Onside Kick With Extremely High-IQ Play

Navy appeared to recover an onside kick against North Texas on Saturday. However, the Mean Green called a fair catch to ruin the surprise.

It was an extremely high-IQ play!

Although this is not the first-ever fair catch to be called on an onside kick in college football, it is extremely rare. The momentum would’ve swung in favor of the Midshipmen if not for the quick thinking!

Navy tried an onside kick.

Navy scored its first three points of the game on a field goal with just under eight minutes left in the second quarter. In hopes of getting the ball right back, it went with an onside kick.

Nobody on North Texas saw it coming.

Kicker Logan Gossett flicked the onside kick toward the far sideline from the 35-yard-line. The ball just barely traveled 10 yards beyond the 45-yard-line to be recoverable by the kicking team.

Midshipmen safety Giuseppe Sessi jumped up to challenge Mean Green wide receiver Baron Tipton for possession. They both got to the ball at the exact same time even though there is a six-inch height difference between them. Sessi was early. Tipton was late.

Navy appeared to recover the surprise onside kick but the Midshipmen did not get possession.

North Texas called a fair catch.

As Sessi and Tipton converged on the football, the latter called for a fair catch. It was an extremely smart play from the redshirt freshman.

Navy was immediately prevented from recovering the kick because of the fair catch. Tipton must be allowed the opportunity to possess the ball as soon as he makes the signal.

According to the NCAA rulebook, “a fair catch of a free kick is a catch by a Team B player who has made a valid signal during an untouched free kick.” The rulebook also states that “during a free kick, a player of the receiving team in position to receive the ball has the same kick-catch and fair-catch protection whether the ball is kicked directly off the tee or is immediately driven to the ground, strikes the ground once and goes into the air in the manner of the ball kicked directly off the tee.”

Thus, Tipton’s fair catch signal made it so that Sessi was not allowed to touch the football or the opponent until he received the opportunity to field the kick. The play was ruled dead as soon as Sessi challenged him.