You won’t be seeing plays like that anymore to hatch comebacks and fuel excitement at the end of games. Well, you could but it would not behoove the kicking team because the catching team can now signal a fair catch to field all of the high one-hop kicks like this.

It makes the play a lot safer for the crash test dummy camping out under the kick who used to get detonated as part of the play’s design. The dummy is now protected as college football continues to focus on safety, even on player that are inherently and inevitably dangerous.

That high, one-hop trick was the most reliable, most trusted way for a kicker to kick and a team to recover when it absolutely needed the ball back. The NCAA’s switch this this season sends kickers and special teams coaches back to the drawing board.

So say goodbye to the old way, but before you say goodbye to the anxious moments it once caused, realize we now have a new unknown to anticipate. Just imagine drama manufactured by new ideas or old ones that either never existed or were never used because of the way the rule once was.

“Now you have no control because you have no idea how the ball is going to bounce once you make it hit quickly to get that first bounce,” said kicker Tyler Bitancurt, who has been in charge of onside kicks throughout his career. “It could take a big hop. It could roll right into their hands. You’d like to have a little more control in what could be an important situation.”

The other rules that impact onside kicks remain the same and teams can’t have fewer than four players on either side of the kicker. DeForest said that while WVU hasn’t practiced any of them yet, he has ideas for how to have effective onside kicks. He said they involve shifting and motion, two or three kickers and even a holder who could end up kicking the ball.

“There will be more of a premium on that stuff because you lost what was almost a sure thing in the high one-hopper with the new rules,” Smith said.