Quote:
Originally posted by ump76
I, as a U, tell my defense " IF he takes a knee we are not going to hit him" I do not tell them he is going to whether he has told me or my R he is.
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I am in complete agreement with everything posted here regarding not coaching this play. I will say I am in a distinct minority where I live. Even the members of my crew like to announce to the world that "he's taking a knee" and they expect there not to be any hitting on the line. Something to try to persuade them against next season, since our regular season is over and as a 1st year crew, we're finished.
I will post something I saw in a youth game yesterday, though. Team was up late and B was out of timeouts. Now, this is an age group where they allow a coach on the field, and the offensive coach announced that they were going to take a knee. The defensive coach told his linemen not to hit the offensive linemen. I didn't say a word.
Then the QB fumbled the snap and since none of the linemen moved, he was able to fall on it.
THIS is why I don't want to give any advice to anyone. If the QB takes the snap and gets his knee down quickly, there are rules to protect him and the linemen and I will make sure those are applied liberally.
I'm too lazy to start another thread, so I'll just stick a few unrelated comments here:
There's also something that seems to be a local practice I hate -- finding out if a team is going to onside kick and giving the crew members a secret signal. I was trained in a place where we read the situation and moved officials up based on the situation, beanbags in hand. If the teams snuck one in at a weird time, then the LJ is right on the free kick line and can officiate accordingly.
Of course there are some other weird regional practices I can't seem to get used to -- wearing a raincoat or striped parka on the field during a game, the umpire signalling a touchdown (which happens too much around here), and some others that I can't think of right now.