Welcome, Bucky, to our forum. I hope you find it both informative and entertaining.
We had one several years ago where a wing official , standing in front of B's bench, started to raise his hand with signal #7 (the dead ball signal) as he felt the runner MIGHT be down. I was R and along vwith U and the opposite wing clearly saw that he wasn't down and he ran for a
. B's coach was screaming that he stopped coaching when he saw the hand start to go up. We conferenced to decide if any B player saw the signal and stopoed playing
. The play had occurred on in the side zone opposite B's bench and all players were focused on the play and not the far away wing official. I then announced : "The inadverent signal had NO baring on the plasy and the
stands
".
Some were
happy , some
were not.
The following Monday I phoned NFHS to get their opinion. Thr rules editior's repsonse we handled it correctly. He reinforced that Rule 1-1-6 (the God rule) is in the book for such situations. He gave me a play that had occurred elsewhere that season :
I : 1/G @ B's 3, A false starts;
II: Now 1/G @ B's 8, runner is stopped at B's 4.
III: Wing official mistakes 5 yardline for goal line and signals
IV: Now 2/G @ B's 4.
A couple of days later B's AD phoned to say that they had reviewed the video more times than they needed to and agreed that we did the right thing
.
Question you need to ask : DID THE INADVERTENT SIGNAL HAVE ANY BARING ON THE PLAY
IF IT DID, TREAT AS AN INADVERTANT WHISTLE
IF IT DIDN'T , LET THE PLAY STAND.
