JustRules

This back judge probably never misses a count again. You need to count every play especially coming out of a time out. The first two plays were coming out of time outs.

To be fair NCAA rules are different. And could have changed since Bill Lynch coached at Michigan stadium. The current NCAA rule difference from NFHS is if both players are airborne when they have simultaneous possession the one who touches the ground first is awarded possession (assuming possession is maintained). But also by philosophy it's very rare to have simultaneous catch. Generally one of them has it. Let it play out and one will usually come away with the ball fairly quickly. If not then you can apply the simultaneous catch rule. I haven't heard that consistently in NFHS so I wouldn't expect all crews to apply it. To answer the original question I agree with Bobref. Each official has a different angle and shares what they saw. If they can determine one of them maybe didn't see an aspect other(s) are confident in they may decide as a group to go with one call over another.

Would love to see the end zone view of that. This could very likely be a push by the RT that causes the LB to lose his balance as he tries to get around the edge and dive at the QB. I've seen plays like this several times that are clearly no fouls form the end zone view which is the view the covering official (referee) would have on this play. From this angle it does look like it could be a take down from behind. Especially to a Center Grove fan is 100% biased about the action. That's the strange thing about being an official. You don't care if he gets the sack or they get the first down. You just want to get the call right. It's amazing how that changes your perspective on EVERY play. If this was a whiff like Bob speculated then you would feel awful as an official taking away a huge 4th down conversion.

Not necessarily. Are you referring to this play by the Packers in 2016? I believe this play resulted in an NFL rule changes. I scanned through the NFL rule book but didn't see anything, but that doesn't mean it isn't there somewhere. The NFHS rule was changed about the same time. This would still result in a free kick out of bounds foul against the kicking team in NCAA.

Hash marks yes, I'm not sure if they expand the uprights for the state finals. I doubt they have a separate set for them installed. But some uprights have the ability to be expanded.

I would really hope an official would never say the quality of their officiating will vary depending on how much they are paid. There is some truth to the fact you may get better officials if you pay more because the better officials can often be more choosy. But even that wouldn't be a guaranteed factor. But I'm going to give the same effort if I'm working a youth game for $40 as I would a college varsity game for $300. But if I have a choice between those two games I'm probably going to work the $300 game. If you are a middle school that only pays $40 and the schools around you pay $60, you'll probably get lesser quality officials. I think every official you talk to will say there is a wide variety of quality in officials from high school and below. The lower you go the more likely you are to find lesser quality officials. I will say there are a lot of very good officials who continue to work youth games too. With 900ish licensed officials plus whatever number we have unlicensed working youth and middle school games there is no way to make sure all of them are trained and understand the rules and do a good job. Compare that to all of D1 across the country. Most conferences have 6-8 crews of 8 officials. That means the P5 and G5 conferences probably have a combined 600 officials. And they have 10 supervisors that oversee their work and they all have staffs and position coaches that review their games and provide feedback and grades. And you go through a lot of evaluation and vetting to even get to that level. Kudos to everyone who puts in the effort every week to be the best they can be. Some don't put that effort and some that do don't have the personality or skills to be great. But they are at least willing to try.

With a running clock if you flag it the clock will keep running. Talk about it as a crew. Then go to the offensive team and him twice if he wants to accept or decline He'll likely accept so you then you need to enforce it. Your radios are dead so you have to go old school and communicate verbally about the enforcement. If you are inefficient enough you may be able to use up 2-3 minutes of the running clock. Not that I would advocate for that, but with a running clock don't worry about passing on fouls like that. It won't delay the inevitable end of the game.

HS uprights - 23 feet 4 inches NCAA uprights - 18 feet 6 inches NFL uprights - 18 feet 6 inches It's common for NFL uprights to be much higher than NFHS or NCAA which makes them look narrower.

Sadly that's entirely possible.

The MIC is still good even without Carmel aand Center Grove. Every week is a battle even against game NC and Pike. They are likely to win their sectional and have another shot at CG in the Regional Final. Still a lot of talent at WC.

And there is no such thing in the football rule book as a lateral. It's either a forward pass or backward pass. I know what you mean but lateral means same/sideways and not backward. It's coach/announcer speak and can be like nails on a chalkboard to officials.

Good thing you weren't an umpire. You have that every play and twice on punts or any COP. You have to be tough and resilient in the hole.

Please translate. 8 points or less are you saying the rules committee says be ready to play on both sides? That's my preference. OL - be ready to block, DL - don't be stupid. Had a game a couple years ago where the QB muffed the snap and the defense came out with it, but we thought we saw the QB take the snap and knee it. The game ended on the next kneel. When we got the film we clearly saw the snap had been muffed and recovered by the defense near midfield in a 1-point game with 30 seconds left. I don't like telling the defense they can't do anything. If we are going to tell the teams to not do anything then we should just end the game.

Great list Bob. I agree on all points!

The coaches I've talked to have said this is a big risk for long field goals. Plus you have a snap to someone mostly immobile on the ground so harder to respond to a poor snap. Plus you add in the complexity of getting the ball placed properly. The risks outweigh the potential benefits in many cases. But it's an entirely possible option that could have positive outcomes if the FG is not successful.

I'll add the "approximately parallel" portion as well. Sometimes you have a tackle or maybe wideout who is angled in or out especially on a trick play.

I tried to go back and find the play by play in a box score but haven't found one yet. I know the announced said they voided the play, but the R's announcement was not heard on the broadcast. I thought the ball was snapped at the succeeding spot with no clock adjustment. They treated it as if the penalty for illegal substitution was declined. The replays I saw I didn't see an IU player sub so I assumed the Center Judge reacted to seeing the defense subbing and assumed the offense had subbed. The R pushed him back because there was no substitution. If that was true the mistake was attempting to prevent IU from snapping the ball. A friend said IU did sub one player so the Center Judge was right to hold up the play but he should have stayed until Illinois completed their sub. Illinois was being slow in their sub and if IU didn't like being held up they shouldn't have subbed. If the latter is what happened it's possible the flagged was picked up (would have been declined anyway) and they went with the result of the play. It's also possible it happened as you said it with going back to the previous spot and previous clock, but that's now how I remember it at the time. Regardless the officials made a mistake on how they handled the play. It was a crazy situation.

Agree and good suggestion on this being brought up in the pre-game meeting. If he's got his arms up approaching the sideline he's giving the indication there is a problem and the snap is not imminent. That's where they got in trouble. If the QB was just moving sideways without indicating a problem then this can be done. Kudos to this crew for understanding the rule and getting it right. The rule book talks about deception and says there are ways to legally deceive. But non-football acts like this are not allowed.

The R probably could have dropped a flag after the discussion and then signaled the foul but would that have made you feel any better about it. I wonder what information the wing and R had that mad them realize they missed it. The rule currently states you need to have no more than 4 in the backfield. It doesn't say you have to have 7 on the line. It could be a foul for illegal number (same signal as illegal formation) if you have 10 players in the game with 6 on the line and 4 of them in ineligible numbers. This could be easily missed but if you didn't catch it before the snap I'm not sure how you realize you missed it when the team is lined up for a try. If there were 11 players with 6 on the line and 5 in the backfield, hopefully the other wing got involved in the conversation and they discussed what they had for backs and realized they did have 5. If they were right I agree with Bob. Better to look ugly and get it right than be ugly and get it wrong.

They pick good plays as well! Your goal should be to provide an example of GREAT mechanics!

You see that play occasionally. You only see video of the ones that work. I imagine it fails much more often. Would love to see a blooper version of this play.

I would have also considered resetting the game clock to what it would have been with 25 seconds left. The mistake of the clock operator and the crew to recognize it ealier cost the defense an additional 10 seconds of game clock time. That's better than 25 seconds but still a significant difference late in a half. In many states the clock operators and chain crew are part of the crew and provided by new or retired officials. We should all consider ourselves part of the same team.

They have their own shortage issues so they get it. They still get heated during games because it's emotional and they put so much into it. We put time into it, but we our livelihood is not based on the actions or decisions of 16-17 year olds. One thing we can do better as officials is communication with coaches. Anticipate what they may want before they want it. For example, at the start of a series late in the half, let your coach know you will look to him after every play in case he wants to call a time out.

I believe he had the UNS on the spike as well. Two UNS is an automatic ejection. He's out next week as well. Hopefully a good lesson learned for him. He looks like a great player.

Yes it's arbitrary but it should be flagged. He's giving you a nice break if he doesn't flag it. I've now seen the play and what he did for the second foul was not a simple first down signal. It was a delayed action that completely warranted a flag. That was a no-brainer. Complaining about it in an online forum and the announcers giving their opinion of the call contribute to the constant lack of respect given to officials when they are doing their job correctly. The announcers were flat wrong but non-officials listening to them treat them as authorities and assume the crew was wrong. This gives fans fuel to complain about it as well.