Losing my Virginity

Well I lost my college football virginity yesterday. It was a lot like losing the other kind of virginity. A lot of anticipation ending in an anti-climatic malaise... but this doesn't stop you from wanting more and more of it.

I was hoping to have some real juicy news about my first real game as a college official. I'm somewhat disappointed to report the game was actually pretty easy and I only made a few minor mistakes. There were five penalties and only two were live ball - illegal formation and a DPI. Although this contest was not a real test of my abilities, there is still a story to the game.

First, College games are long... the first quarter lasted 43 minutes! Both teams thought they could pass - they couldn't... and shouldn't.

Next, I was not the only rookie official. Our Linesperson (who was female) was also a rookie. She actually did a very good job. This was only the second game for the Field Judge. With only two vets on the crew, my expectations were low. Turns out, we did a great job.

One area that really slowed the game down was the ball mechanics. On almost every change of possession or long pass out of bounds, I had to call for a new ball when it should have been shuttled in immediately. This was partly due to the lack of experience of the wings, but mostly the ball boy on each side of the field was not paying attention. It often took 5-10 seconds to get the ball in. Multiply this times 25 change of possessions and it adds up.

I did throw one flag - ineligible receiver down field. Number 77 ran past me as I went to the LOS, then I saw the QB dump the pass to someone in the flats. I had not reached the LOS when the receiver, who was parallel with me, caught the ball. Number 77 was definitely past the expanded neutral zone, but the receiver was probably within it - more or less. We decided to waive it off, however the White Hat said it was a good flag, and should the same thing happen again, throw the flag. It is always better to throw a flag and wave it off than to let something go you should have called.

The game was tied at the end of regulation, so we went into overtime. The team that ultimately lost had a chance to win the game with a 34 yard field goal with 10 seconds remaining. Of course, they missed. My first college game and it goes into OT. At this point we were over 3 hours into this thing. It was hot, tired, and just wanted to get off the field.

As a crew, we screwed up the OT by carrying over the unused timeouts. Both teams had unused, so this was a tragic mistake. Carrying over is a HS rule, not a college rule. All six of us can be blamed for this blunder. The visiting coach even called us on it. His team ended up winning, so no real harm done. Our White Hat sent an email later that night saying we made a mistake.

That's it for my first real game. I wish there was more dirt on me screwing this all up.

Next weeks game is unfortunately with one these same teams. It always sucks working the same team two weeks in a row.