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.

Illegal Balls?

9/11 Varsity Game

This game is interesting because we had several odd things occur. But first, the non-odd, yet interesting.

I once again had to throw flags for sideline warnings (see this post of a rule description) But this time I deliberately added a dramatic effect. During a long touchdown run I noticed the coach in the restricted area. I tossed my flag right in front of him. The crowd gasped. The coach turned white. I smirked. I told him the first one was just a warning - no yardage. I thought I sent a pretty strong message. I was wrong.

On the second play of the 3rd quarter he was once again in the restricted area. This time the response was "I know this is a point of emphasis this season, but shouldn't you be watching the field?" I guess this coach has not heard about the $10M dollar lawsuit in Texas http://www.law.com/jsp/tx/LawDecisionTX.jsp?hubtype=TxCaseAlert&id=1202431770981&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1

Basically, an official ran into a coach on the sideline. The coach now has permanent brain damage. This occurred after repeated attempts to warn the coach to stay out of the restricted area. The courts have favored on the side of the officials. I think I will keep throwing flags and stay out of court.

Next, the visitors tried to use an illegal ball when they returned after halftime. The ball was very old, felt sticky (as if it was altered - is was a cold, foggy night) and had no stripes. You may think this is odd, but there is an entire section in the rule book on the ball. It describes how many laces there can be (either 8 or 12), how far apart they can be, how many panels, the air pressure inside, and a continuous 1-inch white or yellow stripe centered 3 to 3 1/4 inches from each end of the ball. The stripes shall be located only on the two panels adjacent to and perpendicular to the seam upon which the laces are stitched.

We had an interesting foul - Illegal Touching. This may be a new one for you, so pay attention. Here is the rule, an ineligible A player (a means offense) has illegally touched a forward pass if he bats, muffs or catches a legal forward pass, unless the pass has first been touched by B (a defensive player).

Bats, muffs or catches for simplicity sake means this "ineligible offensive player" deliberately touched the ball. Being hit in the back of the head by a pass would NOT be illegal touching.

So, you should be asking, which offensive players are ineligible to touch a pass? Linemen. And who are the linemen? Players numbered 50 - 79 (most of the time.)

During this game the QB was in trouble, and to avoid a sack, he tossed the ball to #53 who caught the ball. Oops. Flags. This is a 5-yard, loss-of-down penalty from the spot of the touching. Actually, a pretty big foul.

When I went in to get the information to report to my coach, the White Hat said to enforce this from the previous spot. I said, no this should be a spot foul. He did it from the previous spot anyway.

The next day I got an email from him saying he was wrong and I was right after all. This is rare, because he knows the rules way better than I do. He told me next time I should be assertive and stop him from making mistakes.

The game was actually very well played and was tied 20-20 for a period of time. We did have a player ejection late in the 4th quarter. I did not see the foul, but the calling official said the player took a swing at another player. That will get you tossed every time.

During the college game I earned the nickname ' twinkle toes'. And yes, I'll explain why next post.