Saturday's game was hot. Frickin hot. And then on top of that it was hot.
The field itself (grass) was in okay shape, we had a twenty-five second clock that actually worked, the chain-crew actually did a good job. The home team provided water and sports drink, towels and soap for showers. Nothing to gripe about.
The new NCAA timing rules seem to be working. Our game finish in exactly three hours. This was with twenty-five penalities, eleven time-outs, and final score of 38-16, so there were plenty of times where the clock stopped. Last season the average was something like 3:15. I'm loving the new clock mechanic.
In simple terms the clock is now only stopping on incomplete passes. For plays going out of bounds (could be a run, completed pass, fumble out of bounds, backward pass, etc.) the clock will start on the Ready. Once I put the ball down the White Hat starts the clock. The clock will still be start on the snap on change of possession and and will be stoped to move the chains as ususl. The twist is within two minutes in the 2nd and 4th quarters we fall back to the previous timing rules. But for 56 minutes, it is pure bliss.
The game started on a strange note. During the opening kickoff, the 25-second clock expired way before the kickers were even close to kicking the ball. When I say expired, I mean it was '00' for five seconds. I threw a flag for delay of game. As umpire, this is not my call, but no one seemed to be paying attention. I heard the coach say "that was ticky-tack". Well, ya, it was, but why bother having the rule if we aren't going to follow them. We keep getting preasured to speed the games up, so what the hell. And you damn well know if it was the the other team he'd be screaming. Nonetheless, I won't do that again.
We had an unusual Illegal Batting by the offense following a blocked scrimmage kick. Batting, in case you are not familiar, is intentionally striking or intentionally changing the balls direction with the hands or arms. So, in this case, the blocking of the scrimmage kick (punt) is technically batting, but that touching is ignored. What is not ignored is after the kick is blocked a player from the kicking team leaps in the air and intentionally strikes the ball so it goes forward. Batting is complicated because sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. I'll do a post just on batting soon. Luckily, batting does not occur often, but when it does it is a 15-yard, loss of down penalty. But there are exceptions to this also.
I threw flags for Chop Block, False Start, Ineligible Receiver Downfield, and a Defensive Holding.
The new Chop Block rule is also great. More on this next time.
There we also several defensive holding fouls during pass plays.
