re: Player at the center of one of the most famous Alabama plays ever has died

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Kind of interesting. I wonder what would happen in today’s officiating.

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This source is some guy on wikipedia so take it for what it is worth.

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What happens if there is a player running for a touchdown and an opponenet comes off of the sideline to tackle him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.253.111.252 (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Referee's discretion. It falls under the general heading of palpably unfair acts. The referee can enforce any penalty he deems appropriate, which would likely be to award a touchdown. —C.Fred (talk) 07:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Oddly enough, that exact situation occurred in the 1954 Cotton Bowl between Alabama and Rice. Rice player was running down the sideline and an Alabama player came off the bench and tackled him on the 42 yard line. Referee signaled touchdown even though the ball never actually made it to the endzone. Even though this has only happened once (in major college and pro football), the general rule is as mentioned above: it would be up to the ref. I can imagine a situation where it would be plausible that someone might be able to catch the runner and the person on the sideline merely interfered with him allowing other players to catch up. In that instance, I can imagine a 15 yard unsportsmanlike or illegal participation penalty being enforced as opposed to an automatic touchdown.

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I wonder what would happen in today’s officiating.

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The ref (Tom Ritter) would get on the headset to speak to the SEC office in Birmingham. Steve Shaw on the other end would review the tape and determine that the replay was unclear because the TVs were not High Definition and award Bama the ball.