Its good!! Isn’t it?

By

Eric McCullough

The football rules in college football were changed a few years ago to 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.

Is there any merit that some commentators argument to take a penalty in order to have a "better angle" on the field goal kick?

The dimensions of a standard football field are:

160 feet (53.33 yards) wide,

60 feet (20 yards) from the sideline to the hashmarks,

40 feet (13.33 yards) between the hashmarks.

The dimensions of the goal posts are 18.6 feet (6.2 yards) apart and 30 feet (10 yards) back from the goal line.

Is there any merit that some commentators argument to take a penalty in order to have a "better angle" on the field goal kick?

When you look at the kicking angles on the field from the hashmarks, you notice that the longer the field goal kick, the smaller the angle the kicker has to kick the field goal. You can see that from the goal line, Adam Vinetari has a 25.05 degree angle to kick the field goal. Whereas from the 55 yard line, Adam Vinetari has only a 5.43 degree angle on the field goal kick. Therefore, it wouldn’t make any sense for a kicker, such as Adam Vinetari, to take a penalty in order to have a better angle on the field goal kick.

Do you notice anything about the kicking angles from the hashmarks compared to the center of the field?

You can see that if Adam Vinetari wanted a better kicking angle, then he would want the ball at the center of the field. The closer Adam is to the goal line the greater the increase of the “better angle”, but it is still beneficial for Adam Vinetari at the longer yardage field goals.

You can play around with the GSP file to make your own conjectures.