Dear Nebraska players and coaches, ESPN analysts, and Michigan linemen:

There are two, and only two, kinds of passes in college football.

A forward pass is one that ends closer to Team B's (the defending team's) end zone than it began. There may be no more than one forward pass per play, and it must be thrown from behind the line of scrimmage by an eligible runner (including the quarterback) who has not crossed the line of scrimmage during the play. If an eligible receiver does not catch a forward pass, it is deemed "incomplete," and the play ends.

Every other pass is a "lateral" or "backwards pass." Anyone with the ball can pitch the ball sideways or backwards, and if it hits the ground, the ball remains live. The play does not end, and any player can pick up the ball and carry it, down it, or score with it, or even pitch it again. There may be any number of non-forward passes on a play.

Please remember this next time a non-forward pass hits the ground while you are playing football: the ball is not dead.

And in a note to ESPN's Mike Tirico: please see this earlier item concerning when a pass is "almost intercepted."

Thank you.

Via Romenesko, I find this story in the Raleigh News & Observer (in North Carolina), explaining how reporters covering the murder of a returning soldier (allegedly by the teenaged boyfriend of the man's wife) used the family's blogs to gather more details about the family, especially those of the teenage daughter who knew the alleged murderers. The story says of her:

It's not clear who Becky intends to read her blog. Most of the time she seems to address her words to friends and others who know her.

Can you imagine a newspaper printing, "It's not clear who the reporter intends to read his story. Most of the time, he seems to address his words to a general audience," or other such nonsense? Yeesh.

Readers complained to the News & Observer's ombudsman that printing this kind of information about the family was, as the story said, "almost voyeuristic," and unnecessary in the story. The ombudsman's reply quotes a journalism professor saying it's perfectly appropriate to use publicly-available online information in a story. In other words, because it's available for all to see, it's fair to use it.

So how did the online version of the story about the blog entries end?

All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.

Does anyone think the newspaper would have honored such a request had one been posted at the bottom of the blogs in question?