The tip I would give is over-communicate with the head coach who is right behind you. Call him by name (i.e. "Coach Jones") early in the contest. Find out for him what the penalty is when you see a flag on the ground. Always be respectful and when he does "cross the line", ask him if we wants a timeout to speak with the R. That almost always hushes him up.
Also, find out the ball person's name, and use it to keep him/her near you. Otherwise, you may be down on the 5-yard line with a wet ball and they are hacking around up on the 30. Not good.
Also, on our crew, it is the R and U who use the hand-on-the-face signal to acknowledge between them that they have a covered up tight-end (unbalanced line). They are the ones who will see him go downfield on a pass and throw the flag when the pass crosses the scrimmage line. You can't ask wing officials to do this.
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