College Football

TCU touchdown called back for this supposed 'invalid fair catch' signal

Was this even an attempted fair catch signal?

By Jason Kirk Sep 12, 2013, 10:22pm EDT

ESPN

TCU's Brandon Carter waves his arms around a little bit while settling in to catch this punt. It looked to many like he was just gaining his balance while positioning underneath the descending football. After gathering it in, he sprinted for what appeared to be the Frogs' first touchdown of the night, tying it up with Texas Tech in the fourth quarter.

But officials called off the touchdown, claiming Carter had unclearly sort of called for a fair catch, then taken off running. The point of the rule is to prevent deceptive punt returners from stopping punt coverage teamers in their tracks, then taking off, but is that really what Carter was doing?

Your stance on this likely depends somewhat on your established point of view ...

Aw hell yeah
— Viva The Matadors (@vivathematador) September 13, 2013

THAT'S NOT A FAIR CATCH
— Frogs O' War (@FrogsOWar) September 13, 2013

... but I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that. And it doesn't definitively appear to have been a fair catch signal to begin with.

It was the third time Thursday night a major TCU gain has been called back. The Frogs might have as many as nine or 13 points if not for all these callbacks.