Folks, I've been puzzling this one from a game last night.
10-man high school game. Nothing spectacular about both teams, no major fouls - a little sloppily played, esp. on the line, but no sign of animosity. Four man crew. Veteran R, veteran LJ (me), solid young HL, solid official learning the U spot.
Fourth quarter, visitors leading by a boatload.
The play:
Middle of the field. Visitors have possession. Ball on my side of the centre, ergo I am the "free" official. The guard (three-man line) drop back, receivers - two on my side - pelt downfield. Reading pass, I move downfield to cover the receivers.
The Q rolls to the wide side of the field. Pass play into the flat. The R is correctly flowing to the wide side, following the Q.
The HL is correctly reading a short pass, is welded to the LOS, reading advance blocking (first) then covering the pass. The U flows from line blocking to the wide side.
I've got downfield passing - with primary coverage of A wideout, A slot and covering backs, down about 25 yards.
Problem. After the play, One of the A linemen is rolling about on the field, and A coaches allege that he was punched/assaulted in the private regions.
In principle, the short-side official should have that area of coverage - but in the four-man system, the "free" official has all downfield pass coverage.
The HL has no right even thinking about looking in that area: it's not his zone.
The R has no right even thinking about that area: he's flowing to the short side.
The U, really, isn't that responsible, as he has to turn to the wide side to pick up advance blocking on the roll-out, then downfield blocking on the pass to the flat, check for ineligibles, etc.
And the LJ has primary keys on the short-side wideout, the short-side slot (who went to the centre of the field, down about 30 yards) and secondary coverage of downfield receivers who originated wide-side, but are now on patterns behind the U. Six players, basically to watch for.
As best as we could all tell, the alleged nut-twisting incident took place not far from the close-line-area, short side, near the line. It took place at a point where no official had that area as a primary key, and at a time when the official responsible for the secondary coverage - the LJ - was deep downfield tasked with primary pass coverage.
I do not fault the mechanics of the other three officials in this incident. Yet at the same time, I can't bring myself to fault my own actions: by the time I'd read a pass to the wide side flat, stopped moving downfield and rotated to pick up secondary the fallout from the short side of the line, the A line player was already on the ground.
My guts tell me that this is something we'd have picked up with a five-man crew, as the back umpire would have taken the two deepest receivers and the free official would not have moved as deep downfield ...
But what I want to know from the vets out there - how could we have picked this up, without screwing up our primary assignments?