What level are we working? If its JV, might be best to put him at BJ, the calls can be bigger (deep pass, punts) but the level of play is not as important as the Friday night gig. If Friday night, while the sideline gnawing may be worse, there's less of a major foul-up on a deep play where he's on an island.
This is why this such a difficult decision.
For varsity play, I would much rather have experienced and stronger guys on the sidelines. While a potential DPI call/no call or KCI call/no call may appear to be "bigger," one team or the other will be upset with such a call/no call, regardless if it is righteous or not, and there is nothing you can do about that. That will happen with the best B on the planet. But, those are almost purely judgment calls, and won't necessarily reflect on the official or crew as not knowing the rules or mechanics (i.e., being totally incompetent).
On the other hand, an inexperienced and less knowledgeable wing will probably get really confused when both teams start jumping and moving before the ball is snapped, and he is likely to "freeze" and have that "deer in the headlights" look on his face, and that can do more damage to the credibility of the entire crew than a blown DPI call. If he is able to offer any assistance at all on the neutral zone situation, he is likely to get it wrong, and the crew may not be able to refute what he says, and they'll enforce an incorrect penalty. And when he tries to explain it to the penalized coach on his sideline, he'll show his ignorance, and or display a low level of confidence that the teams can recognize as incompetence, and suddenly the entire crew is incompetent, and they will question everything that happens for the rest of the game. Pure misery for everyone at that point. I'd much rather have a guy that knows neutral zone situations, and can confidently explain what happened. Example: "Yes, coach, their guy jumped first, on your QB's hard count, but it was not a move intended to cause a false start, and he didn't enter the neutral zone. Then your guard on the other side of the snapper fell out of his stance, so that's a false start." They still won't like it - that's just human nature. But it will then be reduced to a judgment call, and not a case of incompetence with the rules. The ability to calmly, confidently, and competently explain that type of situation takes experience AND a strong knowledge of the rules. And you get that experience by working a lot of sub-varsity, and you get that knowledge by lots of rule study and video review. (Yes, the scenario given is for NCAA - NFHS rules may be very different, but that's not the point, here.)
That's my take. Neither philosophy is necessarily "right" or "wrong." Each crew will have to evaluate how to handle this, based on the known level of ability of the official in question, the rest of the crew, and the type of football they will be seeing.
Robert
