Sometimes the best way to end the pain of an irritation under your saddle, is just to get off the horse. The 2011 revision ends the ambiguity and intends to render this situation, “Case closed”.
I’ll agree, I have never seen your, “a VERY official interpretation of the playing rules that was sent to the Oregon High School Assocition in response to the inquiry that was sent to the NFHS.”, so I don’t know what it said, whether it provided any rationality or logic or whether I would gree with it.
I’ve explained why I believe the original "revised interpretation" was illogical, but in case you weren’t paying attention, allow me to summarize.
1. It is clearly understood that the game of football is played within a field, whose dimensions are specified in 1-1-2. The rest of the planet, outside those lines, is OOB.
2. A player is inbounds, until he goes OOB (thus allowing for a player who alights from inbounds, over a boundary line, remains inbounds until he touches, or is touched by someone, OOB.
3. Common sense, and an understanding and appreciation of the purpose of the game, suggests, that opponents can either be inbounds, or OOB and logic suggests a player somehow has to go from one status to the next. A player is inbounds UNTIL HE GOES OOB, seems logical that he then REMAINS OOB UNTIL HE COMES INBOUNDS (Whether he is legally inbounds or not is another question).
The absolute absurdity of a player, who has already fully passed from being inbounds to being fully OOB, could somehow retain status as being inbounds, without ever bothering to to be back within the confines of the playing field, by simply jumping into the air, in my humble judgment, MAKES NO GOD DAMN SENSE WHATSOEVER.
Personally, I respect this game, it’s rules and it’s rule makers to the extent I believe they would NEVER do something that deliberately MAKES NO SENSE and creates a travesty of the purpose and intent of this great game, and then expect those they have specifically given authority to exercise good judgment, to go along with something so foreign to the conduct of this game, without exercising that judgment.
Your above assessment that, “officials that make up their own interpretations based on what they think they rule SHOULD be” is the kind of BS presentation my daughters make when they are trying to persuade their mother to listen to their side of a story, so I’m not surprised it was received negatively. Thankfully, my wife was usually smart enough to see through that teenage tactic.
It seems the underlying irritation beneath your saddle might be that football rule makers decided that NF: 1-1-6 bestowed the power of FINAL say, “on any situation not specifically covered by the rules…and all decisions are final in ALL matters pertaining to the game to Referees, rather than coaches. Perhaps the rule makers were confident Referees were the only appropriate participants they were confident could handle such authority wisely and judiciously, on a consistent basis.
