“Educating” coaches about the rules?

[chymechowder]

DIII college game today.  Midway thru 4th quarter. Score is A35-B14.   Team A punts.  While kick is in the air B22 gives the “get away/poison” signal.”  Ball hits the ground at the numbers and bounces high in the air, heading over the sideline. During the bounce, before the ball is dead, B22 blocks a Team A player. It’s a “light” block.  The point being, it didn’t affect the play; the ball was just about to be dead, and it wasn’t a hard block.

I’m the head linesman. As we’re setting the chains, I tell a B assistant coach, “Hey, just so you know, if your return man gives any signal-valid or invalid, including a getaway signal—he can’t block or foul during the down.”

He says, “What? That can’t be right. We asked about this before the season, and based on what we were told, we tell our guys to give the GET AWAY signal on a short punt…but if the ball takes a high hop, they should grab it and run with it.”

I say, “Well if that happens, the ball is dead once they recover the kick. Because of the invalid signal.”

We discuss it during the next couple dead ball situations. He maintains that he checked with the powers that be and that it’s ok for his guy to return the kick (or even block) after giving a GET AWAY signal.

It should be noted that this was an entirely friendly conversation. He wasn’t yelling; he just wanted to know what the rule was, and how he could be mistaken about something he thought he’d clarified before the season.

So my question is: what, if anything, would you do about this?  Again, this was not a contentious exchange at all. It was just a special teams coach asking me for clarification on the rule.
 
Would you tell your assignor/white hat about it?  Would you suggest that the assignor clarify the rule for the coach?  Not for an “AH-HA! You were wrong!” purpose, but just to help them better understand the rule?

Put another way: what, if anything, is an official’s (or the crew’s) role if a coach asks us to serve as a quasi-interpreter during the game?

[ABoselli]

By the time we get to the regular season, the teams and coaches will have had access to and had briefings on all the pertinent rule changes for that year.

Unless it is a head coach, and it is a major rule misinterpretation, I would let it end with what your exchange amounted to - a sharing of information. We can't be the PR department as well as sales.

If you think about it, how many times have you heard some cockamamie mangling of some rule over the years by some assistant coach? I had a certain HC whose face was in the front of the rulebook for a few years scream once that because the punt (that his team was trying to block) had glanced off the up back that it was their ball at that spot. He went nuts for a while because we didn't know that "rule". He also had never heard of a 30 second timeout.

At this point, they're stuck with their own (mis)understanding, in my opinion. Hopefully, this AC will go back and educate himself.

 

[Andrew McCarthy]

I’m the head linesman. As we’re setting the chains, I tell a B assistant coach, “Hey, just so you know, if your return man gives any signal-valid or invalid, including a getaway signal—he can’t block or foul during the down.”

So we'd have an extra foul for fouling?    

[chymechowder]

haha, but yes.  well, not an extra foul, but an extra penalty.

Say the signaler holds during the down, it'd be a 15 yard penalty, not 10.

[GameWillTravel]

I didnt know you can teach Monkeys to read

[Atlanta Blue]

I didnt know you can teach Monkeys to read

Well, using that logic, I guess all zebras are just fancy dressed jackasses. 

[Diablo]

DIII college game today.  Midway thru 4th quarter. Score is A35-B14.   Team A punts.  While kick is in the air B22 gives the “get away/poison” signal.”  Ball hits the ground at the numbers and bounces high in the air, heading over the sideline. During the bounce, before the ball is dead, B22 blocks a Team A player. It’s a “light” block.  The point being, it didn’t affect the play; the ball was just about to be dead, and it wasn’t a hard block.

I’m the head linesman. As we’re setting the chains, I tell a B assistant coach, “Hey, just so you know, if your return man gives any signal-valid or invalid, including a getaway signal—he can’t block or foul during the down.”

Put another way: what, if anything, is an official’s (or the crew’s) role if a coach asks us to serve as a quasi-interpreter during the game?

I think it's important that coaches know when they have wrong knowledge.  Correcting errors helps them as well as the crews in the following weeks.

This particular situation is covered specifically in AR 6-5-3-VI.  Since this was a "friendly" discussion and there is a definitive statement, I suggest you email the assistant coach and cc the HC the AR citation and its content.  If it were just an interpretation without rule book documentation or a less than "friendly" discussion, I would describe the situation & discussion to your assigner and suggest that he contact the HC.