Player loses helmet with 17 seconds left

[whatsthecall]

Scenario I seen play out last night, what's the ruling?

Team A is trailing 35 seconds left no timeouts. QB gets sacked and loses helmet with 17 seconds left to play. He has to come out for a play, but he jogs off the field very slowly to giving the WR's time who were 30-40 yards down the field time to reset and run another play, a play that they likely wouldn't have gotten off without the loss of the helmet. The clock was stopped for over a minute for the substitution.

Is there no rule to protect against this? If not what is stopping teams with no timeouts from intentionally losing their helmets to initiate a substitution for a free timeout?

[sir55]

If the substitution takes more than 25 seconds, a flag could be thrown for DOG, but that gives the offense what it needed, additional time to run another play. If the delay in getting back to play is judged by the referee to be for the purpose of consuming time or conserving time, he can order the clock to start on the ready. If the officials believe the loss of a helmet was intentional, the referee can just run the clock out. This type of activity is discussed in the case book at 3.4.6.

[bossman72]

You can always chop/wind the ready for play whenever you feel it's taking too long.

[AlUpstateNY]

You can always chop/wind the ready for play whenever you feel it's taking too long.

NFHS 3-4-6 provides the Refereewith considerable leeway to deal with these type instances.