The Pigskin
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2013 Week 11 Clips
TECHNICAL NOTE: For those not aware, when viewing these videos in the You Tube window, you can adjust the resolution for a sharper view. Notice in the lower right hand corner of the video player window a setting icon that looks like a gear. Click on that and you can adjust the setting up to 360p, 480p or even 720p in some cases. This will give you a sharper image.
The video page will continue bringing you clips each week which are good teaching material as we all work together to understand and enforce the sometimes complicated NCAA football rules. The videos are not meant to demean or belittle any official. They are used so that ALL officials can learn from the situations and issues other officials encounter in their games. No official has ever completed a career error-free. But by sharing our errors with others we help them avoid the same pitfalls. NCAA football officials at all levels exhibit incredible rule knowledge week in and week out. We can always get better and this page hopes to serve in that effort.
We examined a play last week that typified some of the confusion many officials have had this year when trying to apply the blocking below the waist rules. The poll results proved what we expected, there is no great consistency on this type of block (the "crackback"). 61% of our group ruled the wide receiver DID foul on the play while 32% said no foul. The comments were also very interesting. Many who ruled no foul said the defender had a legitimate chance to defend himself from the block, so no foul.
Expensive Unsportsmanlike Conduct Call The
NCAA and its officials have worked hard to "clean up" the game and encourage
players to behave in sporting fashion. The Unsportsmanlike Conduct rule
has been tweaked and the Rules Editor has spent considerable time adressing the
issue. In 2011, he issued this play interpretation in a 2011 bulletin:
Play 3. Third and 15 at the B-20. Eligible A88 catches a pass at the B-18 and
heads for the goal line. Very close to the goal line he dives into the end zone,
with no Team B player closer than about 10 yards. The field judge is uncertain
of the exact spot where A88 started his diving action. RULING: Foul for
unsportsmanlike conduct. Administer as a dead-ball foul: The touchdown counts
and the penalty is enforced on the try or the
succeeding kickoff.
Please view this play video and take the poll. (Please
remember to scroll down and click on the DONE button after making your choice.)
Live Ball Hit Judged to be Dead Ball Hit ? Some times we see plays that just defy explanation. Why did the officials rule as they did? They had a great view of a play, it seemed like an easy play to officiate, yet the crew does something that seems nonsensical. Is it because their respective conference management has directed they handle certain plays in certain ways? Perhaps the unending attention paid to targeting and potential targeting lead to the flag being thrown here. But, after the crew confers, if they determine a hit was NOT targeting (neither the 9-1-3 nor 9-1-4 variety), it is not required that some penalty be enforced. 9-1-4 prohibits hits to the head or neck area of a DEFENSELESS PLAYER. The ball carrier is not normally a DEFENSELESS PLAYER and as we have pointed out in this space previously, the ball carrier is subject to all manner of ferocious hits...for now. 9-1-3 prohibits a player using his helmet to target any part of any player's (to include ball carriers) body. In this video, the player hit was a ball carrier and he was hit while the ball was still live. If it is targeting, call it. But if it is not, are we now inventing fouls because a hit offends our sensibilities? The hit in this video was announced as a dead ball foul. In this specific play, it did not matter if the penalty was enforced as a live ball ir a dead ball foul. But it is not hard to imagine a scenario like this play but with some added component that WOULD make it critical to call this foul as it was, live ball or dead ball. Ex: Same play as this video but A committed a hold earlier in the play. If this hit is called a dead ball foul then, we would have to enforce the penalties for both A and B's foul. But if the hit is called a live ball foul then it offsets the holding call and the down is replayed. As the rules editor has said time and time again...Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking which leads to sloppy officiating.
Dead Ball Foul - Not Unsportsmanlike Conduct Another rule change this year that still has resulted in some inconsistent application is the change at 9-2-1-a-1-j which changed many dead ball personal fouls to dead ball unsportsmanlike conduct fouls. "Dead ball contact fouls such as pushing, shoving, striking, etc that occur clearly after the ball is dead and that are not part of the game action" are to be called unsportsmanlike conduct. Contact like that seen in this play clearly is "simply" a garden-variety late hit and is properly called a personal foul, as was done in this play.
"Bush Push" - NOT As most officials know, this year there was a change to the "aiding the runner" rule. For years players were not permitted to help their ball-carrying teammate by pushing them forward, pulling them forward, carrying them, etc. The Rules Committee reportedly decided that since officials were not penalizing teams when one player pushed his ball-carrying teammate forward, they should just remove that section of the rule. That act effectively legalized the "Bush Push", made famous by Reggie Bush and USC some years back. But there is a big difference between that act and the actions of a player who is just taking a cheap shot at the back of an opponent. This crew recognized that difference and properly flagged the "non-Bush Push".
Ineligible Downfield Many officials probably understand this but it seems there may be some who still do not recognize a critical part of the rule regarding ineligibles downfield on pass plays. When there is a legal forward pass that crosses the NZ, ineligible receivers at the snap cannot advance more than 3 yards beyond the neutral zone UNTIL THE PASS IS THROWN. That means the moment the ball is released from the passer's hands, the restriction evaporates. Some officials may incorrectly assume the restriction continues until the ball crosses the NZ, or worse...until it is touched downfield. If you wait until the pass is released and then start looking around for who may be illegally downfield, you can easily be fooled into flagging a player who truly was not downfield when the pass was released. In this play, the ball was snapped at the A-36. Lineman A53 was looking for someone to block at the A-39 when the QB released the pass. The U reverses completely around and spots A53 at the A-45 and he throws the flag (which lands at the A-47). However the pass was already caught by that time so there is no foul.
Too Much Info ? There has been a welcomed increase in the use of referee microphones to explain situations that are not immediately clear to players, coaches, fans, and the media. But sometimes we may run the risk of putting out too much information. It may be this conference has directed its Referees to make announcements like this but is this the sort of thing we really want Referees to say? It may be very appropriate to make this statement when reviewing game film with other officials but when the masses hear this, they may mistakenly believe that, by rule, when the ball carrier does not get back to the line of scrimmage, there can be no foul against the offense for holding downfield. That is obviously not a true statement, by rule. In this play, the "hold" seemed to occur at the A-38, almost 20 yards from the line of scrimmage.