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Football Officiating => National Federation Discussion => Topic started by: wvoref on May 14, 2014, 08:08:23 PM
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This play occurred 2 years ago during a state final. Was a fan at game not on crew so can't swear this is exactly what happened but between what I saw and what was described heres what happened. Excellent game, both teams keep trading punches and finish regulation tied. Team 1 goes on offense scores TD and kicks PAT. Team 2 scores TD and elects to go for 2. Team 2 has called a timeout during this OT sequence (don't remember if it was when they were on defense, on offense or after TD while deciding to go for 2). They line up with QB in shotgun. As play clock is winding down, probably about 5 seconds remaining on clock, QB looks confused and looks at Umpire and signals timeout. Crew handled it right and ignored him. Unfortunately for B one of their down defensive linemen sees the signal and thinking time has been called stands up and enters the neutral zone before the play clock reaches zero. So instead of DOG and snapping from the 8 its Encroachment and snapping from the 1 1/2. Team 2 scores the 2 pt PAT game over. Now I'm 99.9% certain there was no intent to deceive but it made me wonder if some devious coach (and no in many cases that's not redundant) could exploit this situation. Team A's out of timeouts, near end of play clock QB loudly requests a timeout. Even if B doesn't jump some players would probably relax and if center then snapped ball it could catch B sleeping. While this would fall under the "Wheres the tee" category it would be very hard to prove, at least the first time. Naturally at the game many of the losing teams fans are complaining that it was a penalty for calling a timeout they didn't have, like in basketball. It's not but it caused me to wonder if maybe it should be. Admittedly its rare, never heard of it happening before, but in this one case it was huge.
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Based on your explanation, all I have here is a dummy playing on the defensive line. Could a coach exploit the rule? Sure. But unless there's more to this particular story, game over.
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The old axiom "play to the whistle" would apply here. Mr. D Lineman should have waited for one.
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Now to throw a wrench into this... what if one of the officials mistakenly called time out?
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This is a bad situation if an official calls timeout. The answer is easy but it could create a lot of stress. The R will start the clock on the ready so A cannot gain an unfair advantage by the official's mistake. If A has time to snap the ball no big deal and the game goes on.
If A does not have time when the clock hits 0, the officials need to high tail it off the field as quickly as possible. As an R, I probably would not even pause to put the ball over my head.
Whoever blew the whistle owes the crew dinner and drinks. The mistake is so big drinks do not cover it.
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The officials should comunicate with each other and the coach whose team has used up their timeouts. That being said, in the OP if the Ivy League bound QB yelled or signaled "TIMEOUT!!" knowing he doesn't have any, but knowing that it would probably put B to sleep; takes a quick snap.....and.... ^flag ^flag hankies should fly ^flag ^flag and unfair act as in Case 9.9.1B should apply. The try will now be held from the 18. Las Vegas oddsmakers would now favor a B victory nAnA.
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Now to throw a wrench into this... what if one of the officials mistakenly called time out?
It proves the game was too big for him? :sTiR:
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Ralph,
I would have a real problem saying the QB did this on purpose. the more likely answer is that he was confused and thought that he still had a timeout. I would have a real hard time throwing a flag on this unless I had some "evidence" the QB did it on purpose.
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It proves the game was too big for him? :sTiR:
While the ball was still dead, you would have an official's timeout for no official reason. RFP would be again signalledand egar tweeter :o ??? :!# would be responsible for first round of post-game Koolaide :)
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The R will start the clock on the ready so A cannot gain an unfair advantage by the official's mistake.
This was on a PAT -- no game clock.
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Ralph,
I would have a real problem saying the QB did this on purpose. the more likely answer is that he was confused and thought that he still had a timeout. I would have a real hard time throwing a flag on this unless I had some "evidence" the QB did it on purpose.
If the QB yelled "TIMEOUT !!", froze B, quickly took the snap and lunged into paydirt for the game winning score and a date with the prom queen ^flag ; I wouldn't have a problem calling that unfair. If the QB yelled "TIMEOUT !!", loked at the white hat ??? ???, saw no signal :o :o and took the snap before the play clock bottomed out, I would judge that as confused not unfair.
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If the QB yelled "TIMEOUT !!", froze B, quickly took the snap and lunged into paydirt for the game winning score and a date with the prom queen ^flag ; I wouldn't have a problem calling that unfair. If the QB yelled "TIMEOUT !!", loked at the white hat ??? ???, saw no signal :o :o and took the snap before the play clock bottomed out, I would judge that as confused not unfair.
The confusion scenario is how the real life situation played out. However it got me to wondering if this situation could be exploited by the same marvelous people who brought us "where's the tee" and "this isn't the right ball". Only problem is this situation might be slightly harder to interpret intent.
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I missed that it was on the extra point. That does make things easier. Just mark the ball ready for play and carry on. This would be a bigger deal if it was during the "regular" part of the game.
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The confusion scenario is how the real life situation played out. However it got me to wondering if this situation could be exploited by the same marvelous people who brought us "where's the tee" and "this isn't the right ball". Only problem is this situation might be slightly harder to interpret intent.
Which is exactly why you'd better be on your "A" game with the contest on the line. A crew that screws up something like this in overtime of a state championship game will get crucified, and rightfully so.
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I think it would be pretty easy to tell if the QB was doing this to be deceptive, vs doing it out of confusion. If it's the former, the try should now be from the 18.
Personally, I like the basketball rule: it's a foul to even request an excessive time out. But that's not what we have, so we play with what we've got.
As for the defensive lineman, too bad for you. Players don't CALL time out, they ASK for time out. Play until the official stops play, until the ball is snapped, or the snapper lets go of the ball (at which point the official should stop play).
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As for the defensive lineman, too bad for you. Players don't CALL time out, they ASK for time out. Play until the official stops play, until the ball is snapped, or the snapper lets go of the ball (at which point the official should stop play).
Careful, AB - your baseball roots are showing. :) Can't tell you how many times I've had to explain that to coaches in Little League - they yell "time blue" and start walking out onto the field, even while the play's still going...
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Which is exactly why you'd better be on your "A" game with the contest on the line. A crew that screws up something like this in overtime of a state championship game will get crucified, and rightfully so.
Want to reiterate that the real life crew handled this by the book. The situation of incorrectly granting the timeout was a "what if" posed during the discussion.
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Personally, I like the basketball rule: it's a foul to even request an excessive time out. But that's not what we have, so we play with what we've got.
Doesn't the NFL have that rule?
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Doesn't the NFL have that rule?
Kind of. It's a 15 yard USC foul to request either an excess timeout or a second successive time out in order to freeze a kicker on a FG or try attempt.