[JRutledge]

As I have stated I am a member of the Central Officials Association in the Chicago area. We have NFL, D1 (Big Ten and MAC officials) and many State Final officials on our roster. Every single week we see an enormous amount of film on all kind of plays. There is not a single presentation that does not have film of NCAA games that happen during the past year. We have guys that spend hours bringing in tape on plays that happen dealing with specific areas of a presentation. For example if we have a presentation on the "Kicking Game," we have several plays that deal with Roughing the kicker or PSK. We see crazy plays that might involve all kinds of rules. So when you get on the field, you have seen a Roughing the Kicker play probably 10 times in about that many games and we talk about the positioning and what the rule is. What is interesting is that we do not always agree with what was called in the game, but we are not shown the plays to always come to one conclusion. Especially when we are dealing with a judgment situation, we might have discussion on why that was a good call or why it was a bad one. But it prepares you big time for when you get on the field. Because you can come up with some kind of conclusion in your mind what you will do if you see something similar. It also helps you realize that even the "big boys" make mistakes. And in football you see a lot of silly mistakes from D1 and even NFL officials. Hell, we could not even agree what the call was during the NC Game on the big DPI call.

If this official had done half of what we do in our association, he might have been very clear what the play was. I think TXMike made the best point, whether something was called or not, is not going to keep the player from being injured. Our calling something is only going to penalize the action if needed be. But there might not be a single thing to penalize.

I had a coach last year get a Unsportsmanlike Penalty because he got mad at me (kid got hurt) because his player decided to jump over a blocker and the blocker hit him while in the air. Well he hit the kid below the waist, but that is not a foul when you have an airborne player. The kid got nicked up and the coach went ballistic. But the only penalty was called was on the coach for his reaction. So if your defense is the fact that, "the punter got hurt," that is not going to fly.

Peace