The
sideline warning
was put in a few years ago to add teeth to the "clear mote during live ball rule". The concern with wing officials,working out-of-bounds, running into coaches still in the mote. With the addition of 9-4-3 & 9-4-8 (such illegal contact), it was felt that "...geez, coach, can you try.." or "...please ,coach, please stay out of..." were not really strong enough to stress prevention BUT a flag and signal would.
In our lives, consider the times we may have been pulled over while driving and told
"...geez, you were going a little fast...could you try to...." VS "
I'M ONLY GIVING YOU A WRITTEN WARNING THIS TIME, BUT IT'LL SHOW UP IF YOU GET STOPPED AGAIN
..." We begin to pay more attention to our speedometer than before
. We know ,as Dean Vernon Wormer of Faber College once said : "...double secret probation" now exists.
IMHO, that being said, this was a formal foul that carried no yardage...IE... the choice of the offended team would exist.