Inapproproate Touching

During Saturday’s college game mistakes were made by some players and by the officials. The game ended 38-0, so we did not influence the outcome of the game. But mistakes are mistakes.

Out You Go
One thing I did not make a mistake on was ejecting two players for throwing punches. One guy in the 2nd quarter and the other guy in the 3rd quarter. The coach for the 2nd guy (the visitors) said he was going to protest my flag. Which apparently he did, since I got a call from the Commissioner Sunday morning asking for my view of what happened. He said he was watching the film and it got cutoff before he could see anything. I explained what I saw and why I threw the flag. Now, whatever happens to this play is whatever happens. Out of my hands. But if my ruling stands, this player cannot play the during the game next week.

What I am finding is most coaches are being very good about controlling players. When I throw flags now players begin to panic. They tell me if the flag is on them the coach will make them run sprints or some other form of punishment. I love that. Other coaches don’t seem to care. We are still throwing too many flag for Unsportsmanlike conduct, and I have had to DQ three players in the last 2 weeks, but things do seem to be getting a little better.

Inappropriate Touching
Our crew made a mistake related to an illegal touching foul. The root cause of this mistake was poor communication. Here is what happened. The Side Judge reported the foul as Illegal Touching. He was correct. The rule for this is found at 7-3-4 “No eligible offensive receiver who goes out of bounds during a down shall touch a legal forward pass the field of play or end zone or while airborne until it has been touched by an opponent or an official”. Simple. If a receiver steps out of bounds, comes back on the field and touches the ball, it’s a foul. The player became ineligible (remember this) by stepping out of bounds. But, what makes this kinda odd is the penalty is -- loss of down from the previous spot. No yardage. Not much of a penalty. So this becomes, in essence, simply an incomplete pass. BUT, after a moment, the Side Judge provided some additional information.

The receiver did step out of bounds and touch the ball…. BUT before that, this player was a covered receiver who went downfield. Hmmm. This makes him an Ineligible Receiver Downfield, which is a 5-yard penalty from the previous spot. If accepted, the down would be repeated. But, before we uncover (pun intended) this quandary, let’s first review what it means to be a covered receiver.

To understand being covered you first need an understanding of what it means to be an eligible receiver. Rule 7-3-3-a says, “Each player who is in an end position on his scrimmage line and who is wearing a number other than 50 through 79.” So to be ‘covered’ means an eligible receiver by number, say #40, has another player further down (wider) on the line of scrimmage. In other words, #40 is not the LAST player (in an end position) on the line of scrimmage. There is another player is the last one on the line of scrimmage and thus #40 is ‘covered’. This makes him, if you are following this, an ineligible receiver by position. If he goes downfield and there is a legal pass downfield, we have a foul.

BUT wait… there’s more. Rule 7-3-11 says “No originally ineligible player while inbounds shall intentionally touch a legal forward pass until it touched an opponent or an official”. This is also a foul for Illegal Touching. But, the penalty for this flavor of illegal touching is 5-yards from the previous spot…. No loss of down.

So, what the heck do we have here? Here is what I think. We obviously have Ineligible Receiver Downfield once the ball is airborne. There should be a flag. Then, once the player touches the ball we have a flag for illegal touching and the Ineligible Downfield goes away. I think the defense has an option to take either the loss of down, or the 5-yard version of Illegal Touching.

I originally walked off the 5-yards because typically the penalty is called on a lineman who touched the ball (the rule 7-3-11 flavor). I brought the ball back and we eventually applied the loss of down Illegal Touching. But really, we should have given the defensive captain the option.

Either way we looked like we didn’t know what we were doing. Because we didn’t.

Wanna Get Away?

Thank You

Before we jump into the weekly football dialog, I’d like to thank everyone for all the positive feedback from fellow officials from across the country. It means a lot to me.

Reno Football Officials Camp

I finally signed up for the 2010 Reno camp. I attended the 2007 and 2008 camps, but due to being out of work last year, I did not attend in 2009. Some readers have commented they plan on attending this year and I’d love to meet you at the camp in June. But I suggest you register quickly. It looks like there is only a single week instead to the usual two week camp. The website indicates there will only be 14 crews, so you can do the math on how many slots there are for your position.

Wanna Get Away?

This weeks game had a lot of problems and was basically a mess. Some very simple things went wrong at the most inappropriate time. Inappropriate means, the score was tied 28-28, it's 4th down and 7, there is 4 minutes remaining in the forth quarter, and... what? You think I'd tell you this early in the post?

This week I worked with a crew from our sister group in the north. They do not use crews like we do in the south and the non-crew format does not seem to work as well as it down in college. We were not on the same page in spite of having a 20 minute pre-game.

There are several issues worth mentioning during the game (which took 2:45 minutes, BTW) but, there were two major issues of interest.

The QB is running around trying to avoid a sack and while he is running for his life he simply tosses the ball forward. I ask the White Hat if there was an eligible receiver in the area. I'm working Umpire, so I have no idea about the receivers. I get a blank look. Otherwise we have Intentional Grounding. This is a huge deal in a game tied 28-28 since this is a loss of down foul. Here is the rule found in 7-5-2 "An illegal forward pass is a foul. Illegal forward passes include: A) A pass after team possession has changed during the down B) A pass from beyond the neutral zone C) A pass intentionally thrown into an area not occupied by and eligible offensive receiver D) A pass intentionally thrown incomplete to save loss of yardage or to conserve time.

Notice the key word intentional. The foul is called Intentional Grounding, after all. In most cases when this foul occurs it is obvious, as it was during Friday's game, that the QB is just dumping the ball. Which is why I found it odd the White Hat ruled this an incomplete pass. On one hand, it makes no difference. The down counts either way, Intentional Grounding or Incomplete Pass. The only real difference is that IG also includes a 5-yard penalty. But this 5-yards, at this point in the game, makes a big difference. These guys need a 1st down. They are backed-up on there own 25 yard line.

So, it turns out to not make a difference. They made the 1st down on the next play. The team is driving down the field. They have the momentum. Time is running out. We are in hurry-up offense and the defense is getting tired. And then it happened.

It's 4th down and six at the 35 yard line (the opponents 35). They gotta make this. 2:10 on the clock. A run up the middle and the runner hit the wall... but his he down? ... has his momentum stopped? Should we blow the play dead? The ball carrier falls forward. Did he make the 1st down?

No, because he didn't have the ball. The ball carrier (i.e., the runner) is sweeping to the outside. Wow, that was a good fake... holy crap, he fumbled... wait did I hear a whistle... holy crap, why is there a whistle being blown... oh, this can't be good... no, this WON'T be good. Now what?

First, thank goodness, I did not blow the whistle. But now we have a problem. So, here is the rule on IW found in 4-2-3-c, "An inadvertent whistle ends the down. Inadvertent whistles are administered as follows... The team in possession may choose to either accept the result of the play at the dead-ball spot or replay the down if, during a down or during a down in which the penalty for a foul is declined, and inadvertent whistle is sounded while the ball is in player possession."

Soooo, in this case, which is unusual, there was not a loose ball, and hence, a beanbag. Most IW's occur during a loose ball (i.e., a fumble) and the beanbag gives us a reference point to go back to if we needed to administer the accept the result at the deadball spot. But if the ball carrier still has possession and an IW is blown what do you do? Remember, it was 4th down. If they are short of the 1st down they want to obviously replay.

And the result of the dead ball spot? About 2 yards passed the line to gain. I think, but who knows because, there is no beanbag. of course, so... holy crap. Now what, Mr. White Hat?

Oh ya, I almost forgot... during the fumble the other team recovered the ball.

The White Hat panicked and choose to replay the down. But the rule says the team in possession may choose... I need a beer.

So, luckily the next play... since thy got to replay the down... they threw an interception. Game over.

There was actually a second IW during the game by the same official but I will spare you the details on that.

I also worked a college and an 8-man game on Saturday. Look for this in the next day or two. During the college game there was some inappropriate touching... I mean illegal touching. We managed the screw this up also.

Oh ya, I got a phone call Sunday morning from the State Commissioner for Community College Football about one of my flags on Saturday.

Yes, I'll explain. Stay tuned.