Question

On one of the Tigers’ plays, Terrence thought they went for +3 yards, but his father told him they actually lost three yards. What should the scoreboard show?

Answer 1

−1

Explanation:

Let's say the set of downs starts at the 20 yard line (maybe the kicking team kicked deep, the receiving team took a knee and so play starts at the 20).

Ok - we're at the 20. First down - they advance 5 yards. So we're now at the 25. We can write that mathematically as:

20 + 5= 25

So the second play they get sacked deep and lose 6 yards. So we subtract 6:

25 − 6=19

So what's the change in yardage for the 2 plays? We are on the 19 and started at the 20, so we can write:

19 − 20= −1

and this makes sense because we know we advanced 5 and fell back 6:

+5 −6 = −1