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2014 Season Clips (7)
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The video page will continue bringing you clips which are good learning 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.
In our last video collection we included a play that featured an increasingly called foul of "hands to the face." Of course, there is no such animal in the NCAA rulebook but I think we all know what they really mean. The play was a stiff arm by a ball carrier that had been ruled to be excessive so was flagged. 69% of the crew ruled foul while 31% said no foul. There were quite a few comments sent in with the votes and the quality of the comments, as always, was very good. We will develop a way to share those comments with the entire crew so that in our polls, you will see the comments as well as the vote results. One consistent theme in many of the comments was that it is time for some rule re-wording to better address this type of action.
We will be the first to admit that we have often thought Referees were being far too generous towards passers on intentional grounding situations. But in this play it appears our passer is being treated perhaps a bit too harshly. Requirements of 7-3-2-h: To be charged with the intentional grounding foul the passer who has not left the tackle box must be attempting to conserve yardage and the pass must go to an area where there is no eligible Team A receiver. How would you rule on this play? Please view this play video and take the poll. (Please remember to scroll down and click on the DONE button after making your choice.)
To continue on the intentional grounding theme...This play illustrates one of our greatest difficulties when ruling on potential intentional grounding, was there an eligible Team A receiver "in the area." In this play, as the announcers allude to, there may have been one in the same area code as where the ball landed, but "in the area" ? We report - you decide. (And to be clear - we understand the concept of contact by the defender possibly causing the ball to go astray. Our understanding is that if the contact starts before the passer begins to throw, then we are to judge it had no effect but if it starts after the passing motion begins, then it did have an effect. )
Penalty enforcement discussions should always include mention of what happens when certain fouls occur in the end zone. In many cases, although Team A fouls behind the line of scrimmage, we enforce the penalty from the previous spot. But if that same foul happens in Team A's end zone, the penalty is a safety awarded to Team B. Chop blocks are one of the many fouls that qualify for this penalty enforcement. Good job by the crew and good job by the announcers who recognized the penalty enforcement would include a safety. They got one right finally!
Thanks to one of our contributors for this video clip. This is a unique play situation. The fundamental problem in this play was caused by an official who made perhaps an automatic signal without thinking. The umpire is not responsible for judging on the actions of the QB who is in the act of passing. His incomplete signal here stopped play when it should have continued. We handle inadvertent signals the same as an inadvertent whistle (4-1-2). It was 3d and 6 at the A-34. The QB fumbled at the A-27, A Team A player was picking up the ball at the A-35 when the the U ruled incomplete pass. We next see the ball is spotted at the A-39, 4th and 1, clock is running. Team A had to call a timeout as they appeared to be confused by what had happened and during the timeout, the crew must have conferred and decided there had indeed been an inadvertent signal on the previous play. Thanks to the timeout, the crew had time to get it right. Kudos to the crew for confronting the inadvertent signal and not trying to gloss over it to hide it as we have seen done in other games but not clear why it took them so long to do so.
Illegal Block Below the Waist - Defense
Another one of those calls infrequently seen is an illegal block below the waist against the defense. This particular play highlights an apparent inconsistency in the rules. The current blocking below the waist rules mention "Team A" and "Team B", not offense and defense. Team B can block below the waist in certain defined situations (9-1-6-b). Team B can always block below the waist against the ball carrier but what if the block is against non ball-carriers but in an attempt to get to the ball carrier? The only part of the rule that seems to address that is 9-1-6-b-3 which covers blocking below the waist against eligible receivers beyond the neutral zone. What about ineligible receivers? Can B block below the waist against them to get to the ball carrier? The rule is not clear. Although in this video clip the contact is by Team A, not B, the concept is the same, the "blocker" is attempting to get to the ball carrier. The rule is further clouded by the statement at 9-2-6-d "After a change of team possession". "After any change of team possession, blocking below the waist by any player is illegal except against a ball carrier." Is the intent of the rule to outlaw contact below the waist , even if in an attempt to get to the ball carrier? And what about in an attempt to get to a loose ball? For this and other reasons, we are hoping for some rule re-wording come 2015.
There has been considerable discussion over the years about whether deep officials should have bean bag in hand on kick plays. One side says this makes it easier to deploy the bag since in most all cases, it WILL have to be used. The other side says that by having it out already, we are placing ourselves in the precarious situation of deploying it when it should NOT be used. While it is not known if this B had the bag out already, it was clearly deployed when it should not have been. While this may be viewed as harmless, was it ? If the receiving team sees the bag deployed and they know that means the kick has been illegally touched, then perhaps they do not attempt to play the loose ball afterwards. If they knew the ball had been touched by a teammate then it is likely they would attempt to recover the loose ball. There is no reason to use the bean bag to mark a spot where Team B touched a kick. Perhaps it would be better to use the "tipped" signal to signify the covering official has seen the ball touched by the receiving team.
Headsets
Rule 1-4-12: "Coaches phones and headsets are not subject to the rules before or during the game." It appears that either some conferences have chosen to do their own exceptions to this rule or some officials are simply choosing to ignore it. We suspect the first possibility is the most likely. Video 1 Video 2