The football rules in college football were changed a few years ago have made the uprights 5 feet narrower than previously. Many game commentators have harped about how much harder it is to kick field goals from the hash marks. Assume the field goal is attempted from the hash marks. At what yard marker does the kicker have maximum angle to the two uprights. Note: You will need to find out the width of the uprights and the width of the hash marks . . . make a sketchpad model. Is there any merit to some commentators argument to take a penalty in order to have a "better angle" on the field goal kick?
To begin this investigation I created a to scale model of Notre Dame field in GSP (noticed the diagonal stripes in the end zone). A football field is 160 feet (53.33 yards) wide. It is 60 feet (20 yards) from the sideline to the hashmarks) and there is 40 feet (13.33 yards) between them. The goal posts are 18.6 feet (6.2 yards) apart and 30 feet (10 yards) back from the goal line. I then created a point on the field and connected it to the ends of the field goal posts to measure the kicking angle from that spot on the field. By moving the kicker around the field it could be easily found where it would be best to kick from:
GSP File
As we can see from the different measurements taken from the hashmarks on the football field, the angle will always increase as you move closer to the goal line. Therefore, the announcers are incorrent in suggesting a team take a penalty to "have a better angle" on their kick. Assuming the hashmarks were to continue into the endzone (which they do not) and assuming the kicker could kick from in the endzone (which he could not because the team would have already scored a touchdown) we can see that moving closer than 4 yards over the goal line begins to reduce the kicking angle. It is at this non-existant situation that you would want to take a penalty to improve your kicking angle. However, it is interesting to note that the kicking angle from the hashmark only 1 yard away from the goal post is still greater than if you were kicking it from the hash mark on the 20 yard line.