The Pigskin
Page
2013 Post-Season Week 3 Clips
TECHNICAL NOTE: For those not aware, when viewing these videos in the You Tube window, you can adjust the resolution for a sharper view. Notice in the lower right hand corner of the video player window a setting icon that looks like a gear. Click on that and you can adjust the setting up to 360p, 480p or even 720p in some cases. This will give you a sharper image.
The video page will continue bringing you clips each week which are good teaching material as we all work together to understand and enforce the sometimes complicated NCAA football rules. The videos are not meant to demean or belittle any official. They are used so that ALL officials can learn from the situations and issues other officials encounter in their games. No official has ever completed a career error-free. But by sharing our errors with others we help them avoid the same pitfalls. NCAA football officials at all levels exhibit incredible rule knowledge week in and week out. We can always get better and this page hopes to serve in that effort.
As the season winds down, fewer and fewer officials are tuning in. There were only 78 participants in our last poll question. 68% ruled the player A75 did commit a holding foul in his attempt to recover the loose ball and there should be a flag for the act. A significantly large number (26%) said there was no foul by A75.
Roughing the Passer/Targeting ? A player who is throwing or who has just thrown a pass is defenseless by definition. In addition to being protected from roughing the passer fouls, they are also protected from targeting fouls, even if the hit is not so late that it would normally be called roughing the passer. Observe B90 in this play. Did he foul the QB? Would you flag? Please view this play video and take the poll. (Please remember to scroll down and click on the DONE button after making your choice.)
Chop Block Observe the right guard and tackle. Is this really what the chop block rule is intended to prevent? The low component appears to force the blockee down before the "high" component even starts. (And a reminder to referees, the Rules Editor has publicly commented in multiple review videos this season that the chop block penalty announcement is to include the numbers of BOTH players involved in the block. Chop block is a 2-player foul so both numbers are to be announced)
Onside Kick and KCI The goal is to "get it right" and the crew did that here. We do not know why it took them so long to do so, but in the end, they did. It is true there was likely no expectation of an onside kick in that situation but many crews operate under the assumption that every kick will be an onside kick until proven otherwise. This gets them in the proper frame of mind to deal with the various types of acts that they might have to judge on during an onside kick, to included whether there is kick catch interference on the play. The rule (6-4-1-4) extends the unimpeded opportunity to catch a free kick to those kicks that are immediately driven into the ground off the tee at the kickoff as was done in this play. An unrelated onside kick play shows that things do not always go as planned by the kicking team: Onside Kick Gone Wrong
More KO Craziness This play is interesting more for what could have been than what actually happened. Many officials have scratched their head over AR 6-2-2-IV since it was first published several years ago. That AR has a kickoff that is grabbed by an airborne Team B player and was the first to touch it before he lands with the ball out of bounds. The ruling is a kick out of bounds foul. In this video play, the airborne Team B player does not grab the ball but rather bats it backwards and out of bounds. Should this be handled the same way the AR play is handled or should it be handled according to rule (6-2-1 and 6-2-2)? The rule says that a kick untouched by an "inbounds" player of Team B is a foul. Is this airborne player "inbounds"? 4-2-1 defines an out of bounds player as one who has any part of his body touching anything, other than another player or game official, on or outside a boundary line. It would seem that any player who is not out of bounds, is inbounds by default. If so, that makes the ruling in the video play perfectly understandable. What would the crew have done if B7 had grabbed the ball and landed out of bounds instead of batting it backwards out of bounds?
Defensive Holding on Pass Play In this play, an eligible receiver was flagrantly held behind the line of scrimmage as he attempted to get into position to receive a screen pass. The pass was thrown towards him but deliberately into the ground. Since the ball was near an eligible receiver, there was no intentional grounding. And since the action happened behind the line of scrimmage, there was no defensive pass interference. This holding was a foul under 9-3-4-a. However, the R announced the penalty as including an automatic 1st down, apparently believing it was a 9-3-4-e foul. At least two factors prevented the action in this video from qualifying as a 9-3-4-e foul: 1 - The pass did not cross the neutral zone; and 2 - the contact foul was not committed beyond the neutral zone.
False Start Penalty Announcement "Everything was going along so well until the R opened his mouth." How many times have officials said that about their R? In all fairness though, perhaps someone on the crew offered information to the R which confused him and led to the announcement glitch. Can you spot it? We will provide the answer in the next installment of video plays.