Triple Header - Part II

JV

I worked Umpire during the JV game and had one game altering call. Late in the fourth quarter the visiting team QB drops back for a pass, scrambles, gets in trouble, and then chucks the ball downfield to number 43 who makes a outstanding, leaping catch in spite of being double teamed. Too bad his team mate, number 76, drifted four yards down field. During pass plays, linemen are restricted from going downfield beyond the expanded neutral zone (i.e., more than 1 yard). Obviously, the coach was not very happy, especially when the final score was 27-22.

Varsity

As mentioned, this was my first varsity White Hat of the 2008 season and overall, my second 11-man game as varsity Referee (excluding the eight-man game earlier this season).

This game was personally important because I was told I am next in-line to become a Crew Chief. This was both a training exercise and an interview of sorts. There was nothing formal about the process, but had I made any major mistakes it would have been reported back to the assigner.

We are required to give teams twenty-five minutes to warm-up between games. The Freshman and JV games ran long, so the varsity game did not start until 8:05. Swell.

Then the Athletic Director informs me tonight was Homecoming and they have arranged for a special coin-flipper this evening. He was very excited that someone paid $1,000 to have the honor of the coin flip. Great. Of course, the AD never introduced me to the person or explained the format of what was supposed to happen. I guess he was too excited. I finally found out who the person was and made it up.

And to top it off the stadium was packed with people. Adding to the pre-game grief was the Head Linesman was a rookie with this being his first Varsity game ever. Great.

But with all these hiccups what I found very odd was I had no anxiety or nerves. I felt comfortable, relaxed and in control. It helped that this game was the battle of the losers. This is not to say it was easy. When you have two evenly matched teams, and the game is close, the calls/no calls become more important.

Twice during the game I waived off my own flag. The first was on a Roughing the Passer. My initial reaction was the defender drove the QB too hard into the ground. It wasn’t so much that he contacted him, because he was already committed, but it was the way he didn’t let-up at all. After a moment of reflection, I decided it was borderline at best and not a foul.

Then, later in the game when the QB was in trouble, I had to make one of those instantaneous fumble/incomplete pass decisions. I ruled fumble and threw a beanbag to mark the spot. Well, actually I threw a flag. Don’t ask I don’t know either. But I waived off my own flag again. I got ribbed about that all the way home.

I called a Roughing the Holder during a Try. The Try was unsuccessful, so they chose the half-the-distance penalty and attempted two-points. They made it.

I called an Illegal Shift when the Tailback and Fullback both shift at the snap. Good thing I remembered this was a live-ball foul.

Otherwise, a fairly routine game. The game ended at 10:30, which I very late for High School, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

Next post I’ll report on Saturday’s game. Some of my predictions from the previous came true.

Triple Header - Part 1

Friday night 10/10/08

A triple header Friday night on a real grass field reminded me why I love these new synthetic football fields. (We officials affectionately call them ‘plastic’) When these fields were first introduced I expected to have separation anxiety with real grass. There is something nostalgic about the smell of grass, dirty uniforms, and slippery footballs. I really felt it would diminish the game.

But several twisted ankles, sore knees, and having to clean my shoes makes grass seem so last decade. After games on grass fields let’s just skip the post-game beer and go straight to the Advil.

The big news on this Friday night was I worked as Varsity White Hat. I’ll cover this in the next post.

Freshman Game

During this game I worked the Back Judge position which can be pretty boring in a freshman game. My primary responsibilities are pass coverage and punt return, but I also manage the game clock, timeouts, and the twenty-five second play clock.

Two interesting things occurred during this game. First, the visiting team head coach was on crack or something because he was bouncing all over the place. His players all acted like scared little rabbits. The coach shouted the entire game his team was being harmed in some why. “Aiding the runner, he’s aiding the runner”, he kept screaming. No, your defense is getting their ass handed to them, coach. Aiding the Runner is foul by the offense when a teammate of the ball carrier either pushes or pulls the ball carrier. The spirit of the rule is the ball carrier needs to earn the yardage himself.

Another interesting series of events occurred on a kickoff. Following a Touchdown and Extra Point, the teams have one minute to resume play. So, after the extra point, I start my clock, run to the forty yard line and wait for the kicking team. When the minute is up I hand the ball to the kicker, run to the sideline, and raise my hand to let the White Hat know I am ready. When he blows his whistle I start the twenty-five second play clock.

Well, the crackhead coach was taking too long, so I just put the ball on the ground, ran to the sideline, and the White Hat blew the whistle. Twenty-five seconds later, I hit them with a Delay of Game. This is a dead-ball foul, five yards from the previous spot, so now they are kicking from the thirty-five yard line.

During this game the wind was blowing so hard, the ball would not stay on the kicking tee. We stopped the clock three times before one of the members of the kicking team held the ball for the kicker.

When they finally do kick the ball it rolls Out of Bounds (OB) untouched. A Free Kick OB is a live-ball foul with three penalty options. The options are: five yard from previous spot and re-kick, add five yards to the OB spot, or take the ball twenty-five yards in advance of the kicking spot.

The receiving team coach elects for the re-kick. So, crackhead is now kicking from the thirty yard line. The next kick also rolls OB untouched. This kicker had one hell of a leg and would be awesome had the wind not been blowing so hard. But alas, we push them back five more yards to the twenty-five yard line.

And yes, the third kick also went OB. The receiving coach finally elects to take the twenty-five yards in advance of the kicking spot, so he gets the ball at the fifty yard line.

This entire sequence wasted almost seven minutes of the game time. And my Varsity game paid the price.

A little behind

Life is getting is the way of my posting, so I'm a little behind. I have seven games to report on including tonight's college game. Relax... I'll condense everything. Although tonight's game is at the facility that is notorious for terrible game management. See http://pigskinref.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-is-college-football.html for a preview. I'm sure I'll report the same problems as last season.

Another interesting twist for tonight's game is we have a female official who rubs some people the wrong way. I have not worked with her before, but one of the male officials on this game really has a hard time with her. A lot of history between them. This may make for some interesting reading.


I have the day off on Monday, so I should be able to get back on schedule.

09/28/08 Weekend Game Wrap-up

College Game

Saturday's game was a a good contest between two teams ranked in the top 10 for our region. These games tend to be difficult to officiate and this one was no different.

As a crew we called thirty fouls, disqualified a player, threw a sideline warning on the head coach, and easily had ten unsportsmanlike conduct fouls. On top of that we must have had three late hits out of bounds. This typically happens between two teams who are good. They play aggressive.

Nothing really strange happened in this game other than the losing coach wanted holding on every play. I did call a hold on a long touchdown run, but there is no way he can blame me for a 42-17 loss. The holding was a classic. Even though the offensive players hands were inside the frame of the defender, I clearly saw him twist the shoulders of the defensive player. When you see the player make an unnatural move like that you know something is up. And when the ball carrier runs right by the guy doing the holding then its pretty obvious what just happened.

What I found annoying as hell were the some of the players from the winning team. What ever happened to letting your actions speak for themselves? They are cocky, arrogant, and have no honor. Play hard, kick their ass, and punish them for even thinking they can score on you. I'm cool with that. That's Football. But have some class. I see brief glimpses of class on the field, but very little. When I begin to hear players say, "can't we just end this game?" I know the 'class' has left the field.

We had another observer at this game who said we all did a good job keeping a difficult game under control. But I know I made some mistakes. I was really tired from some reason. I'm sure I missed some cheap shots because I was looking in the wrong place.

This Friday night I have the big game between the #2 and #4 ranked teams in the county. The college game is one of my road trips. A 7PM game in Fresno. I won't get home until after 2AM.

Eight is Enough... and more Intentional Grounding

This week I worked two high school games and one college.

High School Game

This game was somewhat of a milestone. First, this was a Varsity White Hat, so kinda, sorta like a promotion. Second, it was an 8-man football game. Yes, you can play football with eight players.

There are several small schools in the area just starting football programs, most of which are Christian based schools. Although not as intense as 11-man the quality of the football is not lacking. It is a very different game, however.

For instance the field is smaller -- only 80 x 40 yards (verses 100 x 53 for 11-man). The field used during this contest was quite unique. Rather than painting or chalking the yard lines the grounds keeper simply killed the grass. As I'm walking towards the field I'm thinking, "holy shit, there are trenches for yard lines." The trenches were an illusion. The field was perfectly flat, but the three inch grass made the 'depression' look huge. The field also lacked goal posts and most of the western endzone overlapped the infield of the baseball diamond; somewhere between first and second base as I recall.

And adding to the ambiance was the portable lighting system. All night we had light shining horizontally into our eyes and the constant droning of six gas powered generators. If the QB threw the ball high enough the ball sorta vanished for a moment. Nice.

With the shorter field, kickoffs are from the thirty verses the forty. There were several Touchbacks during the Kickoffs which is rather unusual for high school. The only other major difference is you need five players (verses seven) on the line of scrimmage, but most of the other rules are the same.

The game does play very different than 11-man. Holes open up faster and once a runner gets past the line there seems to be only one linebacker or safety to stop him. The final score was 54-40, so this this gives you a clue of what I am talking about. With all the scoring the game time was longer than a typical 11-man game - 2:45.

One interesting play occurred late in the third quarter. The team which ultimately lost was at their own 15 yard line with 2nd down and fourteen. The QB rolls out for a pass and is immediately in trouble running for his life. The poor kid was all of 5'2'' and looked like a scared rabbit. He rolls out of the pocket, scrambles towards the sidelines, and feeling the breath of his 6'3'' pursuer, dumps the ball to out of bounds. I toss my flag for Intentional Grounding (IG).

The QB says, "...but I was outside the pocket", to which I retort, "yes you were, but we are playing with Friday night rules." His coach asked to speak with me about this, and of course, stated the same thing. He is obviously coaching the QB to do this. I politely informed the coach the IG rules are different between high school and other levels. I was all over this call and if you read last weeks post you recognize why I would be a bit hypersensitive about IG. The unfortunate thing for his team was IG is a five-yard, spot foul (meaning, enforced from where the pass was thrown), PLUS a loss of down. The QB threw the pass at the 3-yard line. Two plays later the QB was sacked for a Safety.

Otherwise, a pretty routine game. This was technically my second varsity White Hat game, but the first where I was not working with my regular crew or my crew chief was working another position. I was truly on my own from a leadership point of view.

The college game report will be in the next post. A wild game with two team ranked in the top ten in the state.

Being Kinda Right is no Option - The Final Chapter

Lesson Learned #2

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. Truman Capote

Truman Capote is the one of the last people I'd associate with football, but I'm hoping his metaphor rings true. That lessons learned during screw-ups make uncertain future success that much more satisfying.

The screw-up occurred midway through the second quarter. And screw-up does not even begin to describe the severity of this mistake. For screw-up, Roget's recommends; botch, blunder, foul up, mess up, mishandle, spoil, make a muck of. The description to harm irreparably through inept handling is pretty close.

The play itself is pretty simple. The quarterback rolls out to my left, scrambles for a bit, and then throws the ball away. Simple. Basic. And apparently easy for the officials to botch.

As soon as the football skids across the feild the White Hat throws a flag for Intentional Grounding (IG) . This didn't make any sense to me. IG occurs when the QB dumps the ball to save a loss of yardage (i.e., to prevent a sack). Clearly, this is why the QB dumped the ball on this play. However, if the QB is outside the of the normal tackle position (i.e., outside of the pocket) when the pass is thrown you have two criteria to consider before it becomes a foul.

The first is whether the ball is thrown pass the line of scrimmage (LOS). If the QB is outside the pocket and the ball crosses the LOS, then IG should NOT be called. The second is whether the QB is outside the pocket and there is a receiver with a reasonable opportunity to catch the pass. If so, then IG will also NOT be called.

During our game the QB was outside the pocket and the ball was thrown beyond the LOS. No foul. Yet we enforced a penalty for IG. This was a botch, but this is not the BOTCH I have been teasing you about.

Why did we enforce a phantom foul? The White Hat generally has no idea where the pass goes. He should be watching the QB and nothing else. If he feels the QB is throwing the ball away to avoid a sack then he tosses a flag. The protocol during these situations is the wing official hustles over to the White Hat and tells him either there was a player in the area or whether the ball crossed the LOS or not. This did not happen.

Neither did the deep official (he is the official who speaks with the coach) get the foul information and report to the coach. And finally, I didn't question the White Hat on the pass crossing the LOS. I should have asked the White Hat what was reported. This is a simple technique to save the White Hat from doing something stupid. And I knew there was no foul. I knew this was not right.

But at the time I did not have the confidence I knew the rules on IG. The White Hat is Mr. Rules. He is a Crew Chief in our High School association. He's been officiating since the 1960's. He was my college mentor last year. I trusted him. And he was wrong. It's my job as umpire to cover his ass.

I now confidently know the IG rules and will never forget them. I've seared them into my brain. So, major mistake. We penalized a team that did not foul.

But it gets worse.

The penalty for IG is five yards from the spot of the foul PLUS a loss of down. We did not enforce the loss of down. Meaning, we let them repeat the down. We gave them another down. I don't even remember what down it WAS, let alone what is was supposed to be, but this is cardinal rule #1, go straight to hell and do not collect $200 kinda botch. Know what down it is and never, never, never, EVER give a team an extra down. This is Officiating 101. It's preschool officiating.

So here is the rub; if there was no foul, then it was an incomplete pass and the down ends. If it was a IG foul then they would lose the down. Get it? Botch with a capital B.

And of course they scored two plays later. (Insert awkward silence) Good thing they lost the game.

It doesn't end here. Our entire crew was downgraded. Here is an except from the weekly bulletin "This situation is a CREW downgrade as 5 other members, within their responsibilities during penalty enforcement failed to recognize, question or communicate the loss of down situation."

Downgrading is a form of disciplinary action. Everyone at some point gets downgraded for mistakes. Even the NFL guys. But too many of these and you'll never get moved up.

Its been a week and I still cannot stop thinking about this.

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. I can't think about eating. Too much egg on my face and I am crying over spilled milk.

Being 'kinda' Right is not an Option - Part II

Being Kinda Right in College

Last Saturday I worked two College games. One was great. The other was a complete disaster.

First Game
The first game started at 1:00PM ended in 2:50 minutes in spite of a score of 38-22 and nine timeouts being called. I'm still loving this new timing rule. The game ran smoothly and the game was easy to manage. We only had a total of thirteen fouls.

I did throw an Illegal Helmet contact on a tackler. That was easy. I also threw a Personal Foul when #55 drive both this hands into the chest of opponent. I could have tossed him for fighting, but told the White Hat I did not want to eject him. I didn't need to. You could hear his coach screaming across the field "I told you never to retaliate!". He's right. We always catch the second guy. Otherwise a simple game. Then came the second game.

Second Game
The second game began at 7:00PM. By 8:00 I wish I was somewhere else.

The White Hat and I worked the 1:00 game and we also were working the 7:00 game. The first game ended at 3:50, but by the time we completed the game report, took a shower and drove to the 7:00pm game, we did not arrive until 5:30pm. We were rushed.

Being rushed didn't help as this was a difficult game to officiate. There were several personal fouls, and an Unnecessary Roughness when the a defender threw the QB out of bounds and then the QB retaliated. I think there were four flags on the ground.

I threw a flag on an open field Chop Block. The 'low' part of this block needs to be at the thigh or below. I wish I could see the film to confirm the low block. At worst we was at the thigh, but on film it will look pretty dramatic. The defender went head-over-heals folowing the block.

In all there were twenty-six fouls during the game.

I nearly had an Inadvertent Whistle when a receiver muffed a pass, it falls towards the ground, hits a defender on the foot, springs into the air and is finally intercepted. I had moved the whistle into my mouth when the receiver muffed anticipating the incomplete pass. By the time the third player was going after the ball, I had taken it out. That was a close one.

I was involved in two controversial calls, one of which I'm still feeling the sting about. I learned a lot during this game.

Lesson Learned #1

The first was on a pass to the flats to my right. The QB put a lot of heat on the pass so I had to turn quickly to help with coverage. The ball was behind the receiver and thrown short. A defender stretches for the ball and it does a shoe-string catch. I instantly signal incomplete. I know I heard the ball hit the ground and from my angle the ground assisted the receiver with the catch. The wing official did not protest my call, but later said he felt his hand was under the ball. I still felt the ground assisted.

What complicates my call is the interception occurred right in front of the wing official. No, he was trailing the guy who intercepted the pass where I was observing from the front. This is why I turn to assist on these type of passes, because I have a better angle. After the game I asked one of the deep officials who is a former Umpire what his opinion was. Did I go fishing is someone else's pond?

He felt it is OK for an umpire to make that call, but it's one of those things you have to be 100% positive about. The question is -- was I in the best position to make that call? He felt I was still in the process of moving. I had not planted my feet and I was not in the best position to make the call, right or wrong.

In hindsight, I still believe my call was correct, but when this situation occurs again I will add to my mental checklist "am I positioned to make this call." If I'm not positioned properly, how can I really make a call like that even if I am right?

Lesson Learned #2, is a big, painful, humbling lesson I'll describe in the next post.