You might be a sucky ref when...

Geeze, I sucked so bad at the scrimmage today. This was a 'controlled' scrimmage between two teams and the nearest thing to a real game so far. Full contact, but no kicking game, start all plays at the 30, run 12 plays then switch. We had chains, but no clock.

So, how did I suck? Let's start with walking penalties off in the wrong direction. Three times. The reason - I didn't really listen to the penalties. I heard holding -assumed offensive. It was on defense. Same thing on a PI call.

Then on a holding call behind the line by A, I forgot it was previous spot. I did HS rules. What was worse was I listened to the White Hat who said it was a spot file. It's my job to not let this happen. Damn.

Then, there was a false start on the right guard I didn't call. I froze because the defensive player moved first. I could not determine if he went into the neutral zone or not. This is relevant for the penalty enforcement, but no matter what, the play should not proceed. Way too much thinking going on.

I did make a good holding call where the Right O Guard had the Def Guard by the shoulders with an open hand technique. No problem, until he twisted the defenders shoulders right when the ball carrier ran by him. The perfect hold at the point of attack. I also caught the center with a snap infraction.

Another controlled scrimmage tomorrow. Let's hope I suck again.

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.

Stop Asking Stupid Questions

Let' see, it's 11:15PM on a Saturday night and I'm blogging. Yea, I know. The kid are finally asleep... so is the wife. I guess I can finish the 2nd of three HS football test.

I'm not sure about your association, but mine uses open books now. But we have three, 100 question tests, so its not like you can just slack off. Some questions are straight out of the rule book, others are from the case book, and others are well crafted and force you to look in several places in the rules. An example would be a play scenario where you have to account for which teams was last in possession, who had "clean hands", dead-ball fouls on plays with a double foul, with PSK involved. Or something like that.

But as I mentioned last time, some of these questions are just not well thought out. For example, one of the questions on this years test is "A PSK foul can only occur after the kick crosses the line of scrimmage." I hate these kind of questions. Follow me on this.

First, the foul occurs when and where the foul occurs. PSK is simply an enforcement spot for a foul that occurs under certain conditions during a Scrimmage kick down. In Rule 2-16-2-h PSK requires a foul by "B", during a scrimmage kick plan (and here is my point) in which the ball crosses the expanded neutral zone.

So, to cross the expanded neutral zone also means the must cross the line of scrimmage. But, what does the question designer on my association test want? If you take the literal description out the manual, then the question is false. If you read it like someone who 'thinks', then the answer is true. The kick cannot cross the expanded neutral zone with out first crossing the LOS. So, yea a PSK foul can only occur after the ball crosses the LOS... duh.

But I still think it is a trick question and the answer is false because... well I really don't know why. A better question would have been "When K commits a foul behind the LOS the enforcement spot is the PSK spot". At least this version really tests you knowledge on what a PSK foul is and when it occurs.

But whatever. I know what to do when it happens in a game. I wouldn't care so much, but you have to get a score of 90+ in order to work post season and there are always about ten of these bullshit type questions. Or they use double negatives. Those really suck too.

College scrimmage start next week, but do I know when and where... no.

Change is good, right?

Just returned from the HS football meeting. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I expected to be moved to another crew. Unfortunately, I was.

Being on a crew is akin to being on a team. That's a really nice cliche, but not really true... it is more like being in a click. We have our table at the meetings, our own inside jokes, our own countless stories about games where 'this' or 'that' happened, and we want the whole thing to be exclusive. There are people we never want to work with, and lets be honest, don't deserve to be on our crew. Our crew ROCKS and we know it. And I will miss working with those guys.

But, we all knew this day was going to come. We do actually have the highest rated crew in the association. All five of us work at least 1st or 2nd round of playoffs each year. Most of the other crews are really hurting for experienced people. We need to do what is best for the association.

From what I was told, my new crew chief asked for help and my name was the first to come-up. I'll assume this was a complement.

My new crew chief, I am told, is a good guy and runs a good game. Its odd, but in 11 years with the association, I have never actually worked any games with him. When I asked where he planned on using me, he said that was up to me. Now, that has never happened before. Either I am highly respected and thus, can get whatever I want, or this crew is weak all around and anywhere I work will make things better. I prefer to think the former, but I expect it is the later.

Completed the first of three open book test. I have another gripe session next time on some of the annoying questions that are asked on the NFHS test.