Most football games are routine, at least at the high school level, and are essentially over by they end of the 3rd quarter. Infrequently, officials have an impact of the outcome of the game, and even more rare, are the single mistake made by an official that determines the outcome of game. Most games are just not that evenly matched. However, this week I had three opportunities, all during a single game, where my decision determined the outcome of the game. I think I make the correct decision in all three plays although I may not have been 'right' on one of them. Let' see if you agree.
It's 4th down and the home team is backed up to their 5 yard line. The player ready to receive the long snap (i.e., the kicker) is backed-up to his end line. The snap is bad, the kicker fumbles the ball, he panics, and scrambles to get out of the end zone. Which he did. His progress was stopped a the 1 yard line and then he was driven back into the endzone. I hit my whistle and crash in signaling timeout, which means I did not rule a Safety. This was the correct ruling. I actually saw this play on the news that night and knew I ruled correctly on this play. But, here is what I thinking at the time and why I may not have been right.
We have this philosophy in our are area were we do not want to award a 'cheap safety'. If the Defensive (typically its the Defense) team earned the Safety we are not going to take this away from the Defense. But when it comes to the play I mentioned above, even if the player ran to the goal line and it was close we are going to avoid giving the Safety. In this game the player was clearly out to the 1 yard line, so there was not 'when in question' issue here.
But after the play was overheard the coach say, "We need to teach these guys [the offense] to take the Safety." Why is that?
Because now the other team has the ball at the one and has a great opportunity to score 6 points instead of the 2 points for the Safety. You can argue that taking the two points and then giving the ball back to scoring team is not a great alternative (the idea around the 'cheap safety') but, in this case, at this point of the game, awarding a cheap safety would be the right thing to do. I'm sure the other coach was not thinking "please don't award a Safety".
For the next several plays I considered whether doing the correct thing was the right thing to do. I concluded it was and I'd do it again. The play was the play, and players need to learn how to think on the field. If they make a mistake like this that costs them the game, then this is a lesson learned. The final score of the game was 28-29, so difference between a safety and a touchdown had a bearing on the final score.
Part II, in the next post, I talk about two identical play, both in the 4th quarter within two minutes of each other, which absolutely had a beating on the outcome of the game. And to be quite frank, had I not been writing this blog for the past few years and forcing myself to review the rules and philosophies, I would not rules these two plays properly. I would have directly changed the outcome of the game.
Stay tuned.
