Subtle Change in Manual

[Stripes50]

Has anyone noticed that they have changed "Head Linesman" to Head Line Judge"?

No note, no reference to the change anywhere but it's all over the manual.

[ElvisLives]

Has anyone noticed that they have changed "Head Linesman" to Head Line Judge"?

No note, no reference to the change anywhere but it's all over the manual.

If you hadn’t noticed, we are in the age of wokeness and “political correctness,” for better or for worse. 🤷🏻

[Ralph Damren]

In woman's basketball, I believe they still reference 'man-to-man defense'  . It doesn't bother me, but I'm sure those to the left will someday change it 

[ncwingman]

This is literally the worst thing to ever happen.

Moving the umpire to under the uprights during a field goal, and he's still responsible for roughing the snapper from 40 yards away, is just minor in comparison.

[ElvisLives]

This is literally the worst thing to ever happen.

Moving the umpire to under the uprights during a field goal, and he's still responsible for roughing the snapper from 40 yards away, is just minor in comparison.

Crew of 5? If so, wow! And why?

[ncwingman]

Yeah, it's in the new officials handbook. BJ and U under the posts, LJ and HL stay on the line. Technically, it doesn't say the U is still responsible for the middle of the line like that, but it doesn't specifically say who is... and there's no way the R is entirely responsible for everything. It might say it somewhere I haven't seen yet. The organization of the book leaves a bit to be desired.

I can understand the rationale for wanting to keep both wings on the line - having the LJ run back to the goal line on a broken try down is usually futile. However, I think this is just creating a new problem instead.

[Etref]

Most umpires couldn’t make it 40 yards in time to see the kick!

[bossman72]

Were there changes on Free kicks too?

I think U under the upright on a FG is a good idea, but I would set a yardage limit.  I've done this in youth football and you can still officiate the snapper just fine.  This was almost exclusively on tries.
I think at a certain point, maybe the 15, the U should stay in the normal spot and the LJ should go back.

[bossman72]

Has anyone noticed that they have changed "Head Linesman" to Head Line Judge"?

No note, no reference to the change anywhere but it's all over the manual.

I always thought that Head Linesman was a misnomer.  "Head" Linesman would imply that there is more than one linesman to be the "head" one of.  I think they did that so they could put letters on their shirts.  L and LJ is confusing as opposed to H and L.

To be fair, Head Line Judge is a lot better than Down Judge.

[Snapper]

Both of these things have been the case in Michigan for awhile now.  The U under a post.  And HL stands for Head Line Judge nowadays.

Michigan also has their officials flip sidelines at the half.  (Although God forbid that they do that exactly how the NCAA does it.)

I didn't care for any of these changes when they came about.  But I can't see where they've made any real, substantial differences either way.

And that's often the case.  It's fun to bitch about rules and mechanics changes.  I've done it a lot through the years.  But ultimately, not that many changes make a fundamental change to the game.  Football is still one of the best sports ever invented, still played by huge numbers of kids, and watched by even huger numbers of fans.  And we get to be a part of it and contribute back to it.

So I reserve the right to still bitch about how some things are done.  But its mostly done in good fun.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go yell at some kids to get off my dang lawn. 

[ncwingman]

Were there changes on Free kicks too?

I think U under the upright on a FG is a good idea, but I would set a yardage limit.  I've done this in youth football and you can still officiate the snapper just fine.  This was almost exclusively on tries.
I think at a certain point, maybe the 15, the U should stay in the normal spot and the LJ should go back.

Yes, for free kicks, U is now at the 50 (instead of LJ) and the wings are on the goal line with the R. After the kick, both the U and BJ come on the field to the hash marks.

If a returner takes the kick back up the U's side of the field...

[riffraft]

Were there changes on Free kicks too?

I think U under the upright on a FG is a good idea, but I would set a yardage limit.  I've done this in youth football and you can still officiate the snapper just fine.  This was almost exclusively on tries.
I think at a certain point, maybe the 15, the U should stay in the normal spot and the LJ should go back.

The odds are we are going to have a fire drill with a bad snap than the snapper is going to get roughed. Having the LJ under the upright leaves a big hole. I have no problem as a U looking at the snapper and judge an upright, particularly on tries.  How many 40 yard FGs are even attempted?

[bama_stripes]

The odds are we are going to have a fire drill with a bad snap than the snapper is going to get roughed. Having the LJ under the upright leaves a big hole. I have no problem as a U looking at the snapper and judge an upright, particularly on tries.  How many 40 yard FGs are even attempted?

This.  Even in a football-crazy state such as mine, coaches are loathe to try long FGs except in an emergency situation — too many bad things can happen.  They’d rather take a chance on converting the 4th down.

And, honestly, how many times do we actually see RTS?  We’ve done a really good job of taking that out of the HS game.  Since the wings are pinned to the LOS, they should be able to catch that foul on almost every occurrence.

[ncwingman]

I agree that the vast majority of scoring attempts from scrimmage kicks are tries and this is less of a concern for a try. However, FG attempts are non-zero and if a team has a kicker that can make kicks, they will use them often. I'll see maybe 5 FG attempts all year, and they're all in the same game.

On a long field goal, you're also more likely to see a serious block attempt which increase the risk of RTS but also jumping over the line/potential hurling/did they go through the a-gap, etc..

Once the kick is airborne, the U is watching the ball to judge the score. R has potential RTK and is watching the back field, the wings can see the ends, who is watching the middle of the pile? It's one of those things that won't be an issue - until it is. When it happens though, we're just going to miss it. If we're cool with that, then we're cool with that, I guess.

As an aside, I've recently been thinking about clinic topics/discussions that get glossed over. One of them that I keep coming back to is that we focus a lot on initial positions, keys at the snap... and then just stop having guidance. Partially that's because what happens after the snap is very unpredictable, but I've been trying to think about "What are you looking at 5 seconds after the snap?"

[UmpnRef]

I agree, a lot can go on in the middle during field goals/PAT with the manual change. I see it as a potential player safety issue for the snapper. Time will tell.

The other item that will occur per the manual on kicks, (of course rarely) if after a fair catch or awarded fair catch and R decides to do a free kick, the manual says the U and R go under the goal. I assume, which I don't like to do, this leaves the BJ with the kickers and the LJ and HLJ at the goal line per the manual change on free kicks.

[Ralph Damren]

While I've always been under the assumption that the referee was the crew chief and the other officials were equals, the new rank of 'head line judge' sounds like he/she/it now holds rank over the mere line judge on the opposite side of the field.  My concern is the potental pride punchure of the poor line judge unless we also change his/her/its title  My random suggestion is head border judge'.......

...AND YOURS....