Situation 1 = the crew must determine which came first between the granting of the time-out or the committing of the out of bounds violation. By rule the granting of the TO comes when the official signals, which is the raising of a hand and the sounding of the whistle. Rule references are 5-8 and 2-12-6. The violation occurs and the ball becomes dead when the player touches out of bounds, the whistle is merely an indicator to everyone, including the timer, that the official has recognized the violation. Therefore, the timing of the whistles is actually not the determining factor. If we adhere strictly to the rules, the only the covering official would have knowledge as to whether to player stepped out prior to a partner sounding the whistle for a time-out. In the situation presented, it seems that the out of bounds preceded the granting of the time-out.
That said, I have a good friend who is a former D1 official and he has counseled me to bend the rules a bit in such situations and go with the time-out request whenever it is close in the spirit of game management because all coaches understand that they can save a possession if they are willing to burn a time-out. Even the opposing coach is usually okay with this as long as the same is done when his team is in trouble and he makes a request.
Situation 2: Whenever the facts of the action are not in dispute, but it is merely a question of what is the proper rule or application of a rule, the crew should conference with the R on the game being consulted and allowed to make the final ruling. He also has to take the responsibility should he screw it up.
There is no clear rule reference for this because what is written in the book is crafted with the understanding that all officials will always have correct knowledge of the rules. If one does not, it can only be inferred that someone else needs to step in and provide the correct information and then allow the R to make the final decision based upon his other listed authorities for when officials disagree.
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