First College Scrimmage

Completed my first college scrimmage this afternoon. Well, the first one that really counts. Last year I while I was a prospect, I worked two college scrimmages, but these did not count towards qualifying. Now they do.

I ran my ass off and this was just a scrimmage. They ran about 75 plays, but there are so many more plays to the flats and long passes. The Umpire does not just wait for the ball many or stop at the hashes anymore. I'm running sideline to sideline on most plays now.

Working the middle is much the same in college as in HS, however there are a few things I've noticed so far that are very different. I still go to the LOS on a pass, but I'm not so focused on whether the passer crosses the line or not. The wings do this. In HS the White Hat often wants me over the ball until he blows the whistle. Not in college. Put the ball down and get hell out of there I was told. Unless, of course they are in a hurry-up offense, then I stay over the ball until released. I was also told the Referee will never... ever... touch the ball.

I worked the wings for a series or two. This is very different than college. Holding your position on a pass is just weird and then sprint to the forward progress spot like some nineteen year old when your... well, no where near nineteen. I had a player ask me if I wanted a drink of water because I was sweating so much. I declined.

I don't work the wings much in HS any more, but I guess I can kinda go on automatic. The game is so much simpler. But now, I need to pay more attention to which receiver to watch, who is eligible to block below the waist (BBW), is my man off the line, do we have a seven man line, did a covered receiver go down field on a pass. These players are bigger, faster and smarter (some would question this). They are better coached for sure and these coaches seem to actually know the rules. I see players changing techniques during the play as if they know when they are crossing the line(like with holding).

This is going to be harder than I thought.

We Are Musing Officially

According to Google Analytics, there have been 76 visitors to the blog and 27 of you have returned more than once. For such a niche topic this encourages me to continue. I appreciate you taking the time out your busy day to read along. I'd enjoy hearing from you, so send me an email at pigskinref@gmail.com.

If you have been reading along you'll notice I have been all over the place with topics related to American Football officiating. Or maybe my writing is so riviting you didn't even notice.

Scrimmages start this week, so I will have plenty of content for the COAR blog. But I also have a boatload of things to discuss that are not specifically related to my ambition to become an "official" NCAA official. This is why I am creating a second blog named "We Are Musing Officially". (WAMO)

In WAMO, the entries will be more like http://pigskinref.blogspot.com/2007/07/ugly-side-of-game.html. This was by far the most popular blog entry to date and it had nothing to do with COAR.

I haven't even mentioned the NBA Ref scandal because this didn't belong in COAR. But it will in WAMO.

Give me a few days to get this going. If you have any official ideas requiring musing, drop me a line. We'll stir the pot and see what happens.

When the right thing is not the correct thing

Last year I officiated the best game of my football career. And I hardly remember anything except one play late in the second quarter. It changed my entire perspective on the role of the White Hat.

This was the last freshman game of the 2006 season and I was the White Hat for the cross-town rival game. Before the game, both coaches explained this game was for the league championship and was very important to both teams. I told the coach that was great and we all agreed we'd "let the boys play" tonight. All was well.

And it was well. This was a classic game. The air was cold, fog hanged in the air, the crowd was into the game, and the play was awesome. Both teams fought hard and the game went back and forth. I truly was a beautiful thing. Then it happened.

Somewhere around 3:00 minutes left in the 2nd quarter there was a sweep to the right sideline that went about 15 yards past the LOS. There was one hell of a late hit that the Line Judge correctly called. If a late hit in a rivalry game is not bad enough, the players ended-up on top of one the coaches. The twist is this coach happens to have no legs, no arms, and is in a wheelchair.

So I have big ass collision with a flag, in a big game, in front of God and Country, with a person in the coaches box who happens to be in a wheelchair. You can imagine what was going through my mind.

Thank goodness no one was hurt. After administrating the penalty, we resumed play. A play or two later, my Back Judge ran the ball back after a pass and asked 'are you going to let the coach stay in the box. Isn't this unsafe." Ahhhh, ya.

For the next series of plays I must admit I was not thinking about the game. I was thinking about that Bobby Martin kid from Dayton who had no legs and the officials in that game would not let him play. Those guys were scorned as villains. Ya, I want to go down that road.

But what I finally decided was to wait until half-time so I didn;t make a scene and I asked the coach if he minded remaining behind the coaches box rather then being in it. I said I felt with all the players surrounding him, he was not able to move out of the way quickly enough should another play occur near him. Thankfully, he understood and agreed.

I cannot find anything in the rules stating this coach could not be in the coaches box. All I found was rule 1-1-6. I know I did the 'right' thing because had there been a 2nd incident and a player was really hurt, I think I opened myself up to some serious safety negligence allegations. But the 'correct' thing is to do nothing because he has a right to be the box as a coach.

At the end of the game both coaches agreed this was one of the best games they had ever been apart of and thanked me for a well officiated game.

Don't ask me who won. That was the last thing on my mind.

Scrimmges 'R Us

Saturday is both college scrimmage day and one of the HS scrimmage days. I'm required to do both in order to work games. Luckily, our college regional rep is also part of our association (and my former HS crew chief) and he was able to negotiate a deal with the HS head guy. But we still need to work and hour at the HS scrimmage, then run over to the college scrimmage, then back to the HS scrimmages. Next Sat will be the same thing. What a pain.

I did get the schedule for the first half of the college season - three games. I don't work the first two weeks. I guess this is ok since we were really only promised four games for the season. I get the last 5 weeks of the season in 10 days or so. If I get 6 games for the season I'll be ok with it. Since I work primarily at Umpire, I should be happy with what I got. There are 22 umpires and 17 games per week. Getting 3 games is pretty good I guess.

Next year I'll have to push to work the wings.