 One of the most exciting plays in football will result in the referee and every fan of the team with the ball raising both hands over their head and yelling touchdown. After all, scoring a touchdown is the goal of the offense every time they go out on the field. So let's take a look at that moment when a team does score a touchdown and how they would do so. Before I start though I want to define one thing real quickly because it is mentioned a lot in the upcoming rules and that is a pylon. The pylon is this orange thing that sticks up out of the ground. It sits at the intersection of the goal line and the sideline and as you will see in a moment it is considered to be in bounds. The pylon is there to help the referees determine whether or not a ball is in the end zone. Alright then so there are five different ways that the rules describe how a touchdown can be scored but they all essentially revolve around the ball crossing the goal line. Specifically, the first way is that the ball is on, above, or behind the plane of the opponent's goal line and it is in possession of a runner who is advanced from the field of play. In other words, a player with the ball runs into the end zone so that's simple enough. The second way is that the ball is in possession of an airborne runner and is on, above, or behind the plane of the goal line and some part of the ball is over or inside the pylon. So as you have likely seen in a game when the offense gets close to the goal line things can get very tight and a player may try to jump into the end zone, kind of like this. And so what this rule is saying is that the very instant the ball is over the line and the ball doesn't have to be completely over the line it's simply any part of the ball being over any part of the line it is a touchdown. And so it looks like this running back has indeed scored a touchdown. It is also a touchdown when the ball hits the pylon and this is expanded on in our next rule that states it is a touchdown when a player in possession of the ball touches the pylon provided that after contact by an opponent no part of the player's body except his hands or feet struck the ground before the ball touched the pylon. So this second part is really just repeating what it means to be tackled. Obviously if the runner is down before the ball reaches the pylon it would not be a touchdown. Another aspect of this rule worth noting is that part of a player's body can be out of bounds before the ball touches the pylon and it will still be considered a touchdown as long as that part of the player's body that is out of bounds does not touch the ground. So a player can say hold his arm out over the sideline but as long as any part of his body does not actually make contact with the ground out of bounds he is still considered to be in bounds. The next rule is that it is a touchdown if any player who is legally in bounds catches or recovers a loose ball that is on above or behind opponents goal line. So this part is mostly talking about receiving touchdowns and when a pass is caught along the sideline or in the back of the end zone a player must remember to get his feet down in bounds after he has caught the ball. The rule being that for college games the player must have one foot down in bounds but in the NFL the player must have both feet down in bounds and the receiver must also be cautious not to go out of bounds and then come back in as that would be a penalty and take the touchdown away. And finally a situation that you will probably never see but it is a rule nonetheless and that is that it is a touchdown if the referee awards the touchdown to a team that has been denied one by a palpably unfair act and so this would be something like a player or a coach who is standing on the sideline tripping a player that is running down the field or something crazy like that but again you will probably never see that happen. You will however see a few touchdowns at almost every game you watch so hopefully that helps you understand them a little better.