When zero equals eleven - Part 1

The months of preparation, study, and impatience finally culminated this weekend into a four game block of contests. Unexpectedly, the games were actually pretty good for week zero and none of them were lopsided. I'll cover the HS games in this post, and include a separate post for the college game.

By the way, week zero means the regular season begins next week. The games I worked count as part of the team's overall ten game regular season team record. These same teams will have a BYE sometime during the remaining ten weeks. Stated another way, the teams which did not play Friday night already had their BYE and will play for ten straight weeks. So, the season is eleven weeks long, but the teams all play a ten game season. So why is it called week zero? I just explained it, don't you get it?

Freshman
For one official this was his first high school game. When I asked him if he was nervous he stated, "no, I did two pop warner games last week" Through a sagacious grin I said, "that's good".

Prior to the game, one of the coaches said his son would be the ball boy. The young man was around ten years old I suppose and seemed eager to please. We instructed him to stay with the Line Judge(LJ), follow him around, do what he says, etc. He respectfully said he would. Typically, the home team provids the ball boy and the LJ typically works the home team sideline. The chains are on the opposite side of the field - away from the press box so the announcer can see the down and distance.

This was twenty minutes before game time when I still only had three officials. I was getting pissed and anxious. When the forth official finally arrived, I decided to move him to LJ and the new guy to Head Linesman. (If you are going to be using four-man mechanics, then you want the stronger official on LJ). I forgot to tell the ball boy he now had a new official to follow.

Then, as we were doing the coin toss, the fifth guy shows-up. I'm getting more pissed. I've never worked this guy before, so I moved him to LJ and the fourth guy to Back Judge.

During the first five change of possessions my glorious crew cannot seem to get the right ball on the field. I have to kill the clock, bring the new ball in, slow the game down. We looks like idiots. Now I'm just annoyed as hell.

During a time-out the coach (father of the ball boy) tells me his son is on the other side of the field following the original line judge... just as we instructed. Ooops. I went over-the-top to thank the young man for listening so carefully to our instructions. And promptly told the LJ what a jack-off he was for letting this fiasco go one for half the quarter.

Insert -- voice-over exhale.

One of the new rules came into play - Horse Collar Tackle. The new guy threw two flags on a single play. One was a block in the back and the other was the horse collar. How a new guy can see this, let alone on the same play, is beyond me, but I'll leave that alone. Ok, these two live ball fouls will cancel and we'll replay the down. Then the Back Judge tells me that was not a horse collar. I defer to the BJ and waive off the horse collar. Why? The BJ reported that although one player did have his hands on the inside of the shoulder pads, there were two players tackling him.

Here is the rule:

No player shall: grab the inside back or side collar of the shoulder pads or jersey of the runner and subsequently pull the runner to the ground.

So it is a foul when a single tackler using this technique to pull the runner to the ground. Once you have more than one tackler, then there will be no foul. This was also the interpretation from the 2009 Rules Interpetation Meeting I atteneded.

The game ended 33-22, which is high scoring for Freshman. It could have been 33-29 if one of the players for the visitors was not being stupid and blind sided a guy thirty yards away from the ball. I called back the TD with this flag.

When I asked the new guy how he felt after his first high school game he said, "it's a lot faster than pop warner. And this isn't even varsity!" I promptly resumed my sagacious grin.

This was a longer post that I expected. I'll post the Varsity notes separately.

2009 Rules Interpretation Meeting

During the off-season I had the privilege of attending the 2009 Rules Interpretation Meeting with Steve Stearns, State CIF Football Rules Interpreter for California. I got the inside scoop on all the rule changes before anyone else. It was kinda cool.

Perhaps some explaining is in order. The CIF (California Interscolastic Federation) is the governing body for competitive events between High Schools. They sanction the events, decided which rules will be used, etc. The CIF also certifies sports official associations. I could not work Football games if my association was not certified by the CIF. The schools can only use officials from certified associations.

The CIF, as I mentioned, also decides the Football rules California schools will use. And yes, there are more than one set of rules that can be used. The CIF, as do most states in the country, use the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) rules. The NFHS is the "owner" of High School football. They decide how the game is played. They make the rules. They are the gods. This is where Steve Stearns comes in.

Steve attends the meetings at a national level and brings back to California the interpretations of the new rules. This may seem odd, but quite often, if you do not understand what problem is being addressed, or what the Rules Committee is really trying to prevent the rules cannot be applied properly. Steve is they guy who has the final say for California. If we have some weird play situation that is not clear in the book how it should be handled, then Steve is the guy who helps us decide the official ruling.

As I have outlined in many posts, much of Football officiating is about the "spirit" of a particular rule. This is what Steve does for the CIF.

Think about it -- how frustrating would this be for coaches, players, and fans to have the rules applied differently throughout the state?

The meeting lasted almost 2.5 hours. There are a lot of changes this season and I'll be mentioning these as the season progresses. A few of these will not make the coaches happy.

My first game is this Thursday and I bet one of these new rules will come into play. I'll let you know.

Let's do this thing

Football season is upon us and I once again become part of the greatest game humankind has known. The scrimmages are over, the tests are over, and my patience is over. Let's get this thing started already.

College scrimmages pretty much sucked this year --only inner-team scrimmages. The way I understand it there just is not enough money for teams to travel for scrimmage. This is unfortunate. This problem, however, is not limited to Community Colleges. Many of the High Schools in our area will not be fielding Freshman teams. This is very disappointing.

I received a full schedule from the Community College association and will continue working as Umpire. The complete HS schedule is not out yet, but I have my first game on Thursday as the White Hat and then two games on Friday -- one as White Hat and the other as Line Judge.

I do know I will have two varsity White Hat games this season. Regular readers will know this is a big deal.

During the off-season I was given the job of Chairman of the Certification Program for the HS association. This also means I get the grade all the tests. More on this and some the rule changes next time.

NCFL Week 9 Update - Part II

Picking-up where we left off, week nine's game was full of difficult plays to officiate. Often there are games where really only one or two times do you have something odd happen. Something you second guess yourself on or need to have a conference on the field. Week nine's game had way too many of these situations.

I threw a flag for Aiding the Runner. This is when a teammate either pushes or pulls the ball carrier(runner). The Runner must earn the yardage themselves. The home teams was driving to the goal line and when the scrum pile started, several of his teammates began pushing the pile. This happens frequently in games and many offiicials do not see it. They get caought-up in the play and are watching the ball. The penalty is 5 Yards from the spot of the foul.

Things really fell apart when early in the second quarter the visitors threw a pass to the flats. Recall, I work Umpire, so I often will spin or rotate to help on these plays. Often I am the only one in position to see a trap ball. So, I let go of my keys (the players I typically focus on during scrimmage plays), turn to the flats, and witness the airborne receiver snatch the pigskin from the air and plummet to earth into a sea of jerseys. I cannot help on this play so I turn my attention back to mess around the action. I do this to help 'clean-up' and catch any necessary actions away from the play. Everyone is slowing down... no whistle...the play seems to be ending... I still have not heard a whistle... this feels funny... where is the f-ing whistle...

Now, you may be asking why don't I blow mine? Well, Umpires generally do not blow their whistle unless the play ends right in front of them, and if I cannot see the ball, I can't blow the whistle...

Where were we... right, no f-ing whistle... all of sudden a player for the other team is running with the ball... and still, no whistle. What the hell just happened? Apparently, the receiver, thinking he was down, let go of the ball and the other team, thinking it was a fumble, picks it up and runs. The official on that sideline ruled it was a fumble. Well, ya, if you don't kill the play what are people going to think?

One team is happy, the other is pissed, and all of a sudden, I am part of the game. And a few plays later the benefactors of this screw-up score three points. This is not good.

This occurred twice, both caused by the same official.

I had a controversial no-call that I still think I got right. The runner is embraced by to defenders, but forward progress was not stopped. They go to the ground, but the runner falls on-top of another player, rolls onto his feet, and continues running. Nothing other than his hands or feet touched the ground. This was not a tackle. I did have my whistle in my mouth (I use a finger whistle), but thankfully, I did not blow it. Sometimes it hard to believe how fast you can process this stuff when it happens. Again, one team was happy, the other was not, but in my judgement he was not down.

Then we had this one. http://www.pacificaislanders.com/News%20stories/Pacifica%20defeats%20Salinas.html Notice the ball is out before the QB is on the ground. This would be a fumble. Unless, his arm had been in motion, or maybe his left leg, which I cannot see, touched the ground before the ball came loose, or maybe this photo is after his elbow hit the ground and the ball came loose and now he is just trying to protect himself?

I'm pretty sure it was a fumble. This is very difficult to officiate in real-time because you have to watch for several things at once. The primary concern is for the safety of the QB. The guy is getting mauled. If I were the White Hat on this play, I would be focusing on the QB - forget the ball. We would never live it down if the QB gets hurt for some extra-curricular activity.

My point is most of these close calls would be less of a problem if we were not under the microscope due to some crappy no-calls. Once we become part of the game, everything comes into question.

The next contest is the last regular season game.

NCFL Week 9 Update - Part I

An official should never go into a game with expectations of who is going to win. Admittedly, I often do. Most of my colleagues do the same. It has no bearing on my calls or no-calls or have any influence on how I perform. I couldn't care less who actually does wins the game. Completely irrelevant to me. As I have mentioned before, I frequently don't even pay attention to which teams are playing... there is a team in a white jersey and team in a not-white jersey.

This week (week 9) I assumed the undefeated team would beat the .500 team. I worked these two teams last season during the California State Championship game. During this game, both teams were undefeated; however, clearly one team was better than the other --- 58-6 better.

So, going into this game, what was I too think?

When the score was 6-0 at halftime... and the anticipated victors were losing... I was frankly perplexed.

The coach with the goose-egg, of course, blamed the officials for his team losing. And if I am being honest he had plenty to gripe about. Several poorly officiated calls/no-calls by two of the weaker officials on the crew made the entire crew look terrible. These mistakes were accentuated because they all occurred during some form of change of possession when everyone and their mother was watching.

My opinion on this scenario is the coach should never let the game be decided by me (the officials). His team touches the ball 60-70 times a game. I do not influence each and every play, but mistakes may occur on non-routine plays. And when players fumble the ball, weird shit happens. His team fumbles several times. When the ball gets punted, weird shit happens. His team punted a lot. Someone once said, "Three things can happen when you pass the ball and two of them are bad." His team passed a lot. Most of the questionable calls occurred during fumbles, punts and passes. In this league, at this point its maturity, you are going experience officiating mistakes when weird shit happens.

I am not making excuses. This coach got screwed on several plays. It pisses me off when mistakes are made and now I become part of the game. I want people to forget, or better yet, not even notice I was even there. The game deserves good officiating and we earn our money making difficult judgment calls when things start falling apart. The level of officiating does need to improve which I will discuss in another post.

Ultimately, the team who I expected to win did prevail 14-17. There were some interesting plays I'll mention in the next post.

Week 8 Doldrums

Rivalry games can be fun to work. They can also be hard to work. This weeks rivalry game was neither. It was just plain boring.

Oh, there was scoring -- 44-20... or 28. I can't read my writing. But all it really means is the clock was stopped following each score. Neither team drove down the field. Just a lot of turnovers, and then opportune scoring because of the resulting good field position. There were occasional blown coverage resulting in a long touchdown pass. These types of plays may be exciting on TV, but from an officials point of view, this is pretty boring.

From an Umpire point of view, pass blocking is dull. In this league, there is no 'pocket'. There really is no time for a lineman to hold during pass plays. Three step drop and dump the ball off. Boring. An because these guys cannot decide on using a standard game ball, all I end up doing is chasing the ball after the highly probable incomplete pass, placing the ball back on the ground, stepping back to my position, and doing it all over again. And again.

There were way too many offsides for this late in the season. The visitors must have been called for seven offside fouls. There complaint was the Center was moving the ball. The Center's adjustment of the ball was absolutely NOT cause the defense to jump. Every Center adjusts the ball to some degree. As long as he is doing this consistently, which they all do, then no one is being fooled. He is not doing it deliberately. It's routine and part of a rhythm. The defenders were jumping because the QB was changing his cadence, not because of anything the Center was doing.

The home team's Center was very good. Everything the defense was in the neutral zone, we would snap the ball. It becomes a free down. No matter what happens, they will be keeping the ball. I was impressed.

No one really complained about being held. Since I worked this team several times, I guess they know I will not be persuaded.

We did have one great play on a two-point Try. The receiver inside the end zone was coming back to the ball. He caught the ball airborne, reached back, and touched the ball on the top of the pylon. It was quick thinking by the receiver. The pylon is considered to be part of the end zone. As an airborne runner he needs to keep the ball in the field of play. The HL was not on the goal line for some reason, but he did make the correct TD ruling.

Two more weeks of the NCFL league. I may work a second game this weekend with another league. I have not seen the names for the crew.

College Season begins in April

Hard to believe but the college season is already starting. Sunday I attended the first of two college clinics in Stockton. During the clinic we watch film and discuss various play situations. This clinic focused on the two-minute offense. As was pointed out at the clinic, there is very little mentioned in the mechanics manual on how to handle this situation. Ironic as this when some of the most important plays occur during the game.

Midway through the clinic we broke out by officiating position. During the Umpire meeting we focused much of our time reviewing where to line-up during scrimmage downs. There are several points of view on this. The mechanics of the Umpire position are evolving, due in part, to safety concerns for the Umpire. Many of the old school rules-of-thumb donot work all that well with modern football. Do we begin six yards deep or eight yards deep, do you move up to the line-of-scrimmage on passes or stay put, cheat-up during Trys or take a wider view, etc. It all boils down to what each of our conferences what us to do. And no, they are not consistant.

I learned this at the Reno clinic last year. Each conference has a prefered way of working each position. There are no universal standards.

We also had several DI and DII conference supervisors speak about their respective conferences and how one becomes an official in these conferences. Sounds like I can begin to get on the radar, but I would not be accepted until I have five years experience. I'll start applying and see what happens.

The next clinic is July 25th, which is where we take our tests.