OFFENSIVE TEAM MAY CARRY BLOCKED PUNTS

Blocked punts may be picked up by the offensive team and advanced if they fall back of the line of scrimmage, according to William J. Bingham '16, director of Athletics, who returned yesterday from the Football Rules Conference held in California last week.

Under a new rule passed by the Conference if a punt is blocked by the defensive team and a member of the kicking team recovers the ball back of his line of scrimmage, he may run with it until tackled. Under the old rule used last year the ball was dead if recovered by the offensive team.

No Slow-Whistle

The slow-whistle rule passed by the Conference to encourage lateral passes was repeated at the California meeting, the Committee feeling that the rule had not accomplished its purpose and had led to unnecessary roughness.

Another change of interest was that making it unnecessary for substitutes to carry a slip onto the field giving their number and the number of the man whose place they were taking. It was the feeling of the Committee that no teams had tried to violate the substitution rule, and that in the future the umpire could easily keep track of the number of men on the field, and the men who had already played and would not be eligible for re-substitution.

Front and Back Letters

The only other change was that requiring numbers to be sowed on both the backs and the fronts of football jerseys to make identification of players easier for both officials and spectators.