The flight of a football is seen as a parabolic motion. This parabolic motion can be broken down in to a horizontal axis direction and a vertical axis direction. The horizontal axis shows how the balls moves left to right and there are kinetic equations; which kinetic is a word used to describe the math behind motion. The four equations used to describe kinematics in two directions are show below:
These four equations
are how to solve how far the ball will travel
after leaving the Quarterbacks hand. A question
to ask however is, why is a football not
affected by air resistance? It is due to the
footballs Gyroscopic Precession. Gyroscopic
Precession as described on www.unc.edu is, "The
change in orientation of a spinning object's
rotational axis that occurs when it is subject
to an outside torque."
This outside torque is the torque that the Quarterback placed on the football when he released it. It lets the football go through the air without air resistance. However, there is something known as a wobble that the football is affected by in the air. It can make the pass fall short or go over the Quarterbacks projected target. During Drew Brees passes in the FSN Sports Science video, his passes generate three wobbles per five rotations. This can be seen to be very effective because Drew Brees does hit his projected target ten out of ten times. However, not all passes are this perfect and due to this some can go long or fall short. The passes go long or fall short due to the air flow that goes over the football.
http://www.unc.edu/~lwander/Group%20Project.html
Next, we will get into the final part of the forward pass, The Catch.
Introduction Slide The Catch Drew Brees - 10 for 10
This outside torque is the torque that the Quarterback placed on the football when he released it. It lets the football go through the air without air resistance. However, there is something known as a wobble that the football is affected by in the air. It can make the pass fall short or go over the Quarterbacks projected target. During Drew Brees passes in the FSN Sports Science video, his passes generate three wobbles per five rotations. This can be seen to be very effective because Drew Brees does hit his projected target ten out of ten times. However, not all passes are this perfect and due to this some can go long or fall short. The passes go long or fall short due to the air flow that goes over the football.
http://www.unc.edu/~lwander/Group%20Project.html
The above photo shows
how the Air that flows over the football can
distort whether it goes long or falls short. The
less wobble the ball has falling through the
air, the more likely it is to get to its target.
Next, we will get into the final part of the forward pass, The Catch.
Introduction Slide The Catch Drew Brees - 10 for 10