Gee, this is a twist on what I had last night. Working a Freshman A game. Visiting team is getting crushed, but trying for another score to at least make it respectable. I'm on the wing (3-man crew). Visitors line up in a shotgun spread formation, with a 3rd and goal on the 9. The receivers on my end shifted back and forth as if they couldn't figure out who was supposed to be on the line, finally they get set, both of them off the line. I take a look down the line and notice that there's only 6 on the line, because I can see clearly 5 behind the line. Snap goes off, and I drop my yellow hanky. Incomplete pass.

White hat comes over, I tell him what I got. Home team (defense) declines the illegal procedure penalty, making it 4th and goal at the 9. Visiting (offense) coach asks to talk to me and white hat, thinking we had our penalties confused. Coach was claiming since his guys were moving, that it should be a false start. I explained to him that they were shifting, and did get set for a whole second before the snap. I explained what the penalty was. Whole time, my white hat has this expression like, something is wrong with this conversation. Coach was adamant about it should be a false start. It hit me that the coach was still arguing for a penalty against his team. So, I finally said, "Coach, do you realize what you're saying?" He kept on rattling about how it should be a false start, and by then it hit my white hat what was going on. Finally, coach accepted it but wasn't still happy.

Fourth down, offense throws another incomplete pass. Home takes over, but calls a timeout right away since personnel was all wrong and everything (what else do you expect at the freshman level?). During timeout, I meet with R and U at the ball to verify number of timeouts, etc., and told R that coach was trying to pull a fast one on us. White hat said at first he didn't realize what coach was saying till I asked if he realized what he was doing. Then U chirped in and said, boy was he trying to pull a fast one. I looked at him and said, no way!

Our "theory" was that coach wanted the false start because it was a dead ball penalty, and would have ended up being 3rd and goal at the 14 instead of 4th and goal at the 9. No wonder coach didn't answer me when I asked if he realized what he was saying. Geesh!