Okay, so the other day I was watching a college football game with my buddy, and we got into this HUGE debate about whether you could advance a fumble. I was like, “Dude, I think you can,” but he was totally convinced you couldn’t. So, naturally, I had to figure this out for myself.
I started by hitting up Google – my usual go-to for all things sports-related. I typed in something like “can you advance a fumble in college football” and started digging through the results.
It wasn’t immediately clear, to be honest. There was a lot of jargon and rulebook talk that kinda went over my head. But I kept at it, reading through different articles and forum discussions. I even found some videos explaining it, which helped a little.
My Little Experiment
Then, to make it even more fun I go to practice.
- I grabbed a football.
- Then I found a friend.
- I purposely fumbled the ball.
- And my friend try to pick it up and run with it!
After all this, I finally pieced it together. It turns out, you can advance a fumble in college ball, BUT there are some catches.
It’s gotta be a legit fumble, not like a forward pass that gets dropped. It has to happen on downs one through three,otherwise, things get * the fumble occurs on the 4th down, the ball went back.
So, yeah, I was kinda right, and my buddy was kinda wrong. It’s not a simple yes or no, but hey, that’s what makes football interesting, right?
