I have to disagree that those who want clarification on this rule are being too technical. Some of the illustrations you give in your argument go against both the rule book AND the accompanied casebook examples. At the High School level we are constantly encouraged to follow both the intent and the writing of the rule. When those two collide (as they have here) the solution is not to ignore the clear writing of the rule, but to rewrite the rule so that it lines up better with the intent. I appreciate the fact that intent is pushed intensely at the college level, but that's the college game. Not every philosophy at that level works at the high school level. On the other hand, I have watched college games in which the letter of the rule superceded the common sense intent of the rule. For example, I watched a game in which two players on offense wore the same number. They both went in at different times during the same series and it was flagged. I'm not sure, but I suspect the intent of this rule is to keep A from deceiving B by confusing the personnel. Only problem with that is that one of the players was like 5'11", 180, and the other was 6'2" 245. There was no way B could get the two mixed up. Should have been "no harm, no foul," but because the RULE said it was a foul, the officials threw the flag. there are certain situations in which the clear, written rule is called simply because it's a rule. We can argue intent all day long, but the clearly written rule here says that there has to be 5 ineligible numbers on the line unless the numbering exception is being used, and then if it's 1, 2, or 3rd down, there has to be 4.