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Just to clarify, the 20 second count in three down ball begins on the WH's whistle, which will sound when he is satisfied the offence has all of it's players in or near the huddle. The "gates" will then usually go up when the huddle breaks and the offense is approaching the ball, normally five or ten seconds later.
In lower levels of ball, if the offence is still in it's huddle 10 seconds after the whistle, we'll normally start counting down from 10 to hurry them up....usually works. If they just don't get it, we'll tag 'em.
Couple of years ago I was doing a Bantam game (14/15 year olds), and I must have nailed this one team six or seven times for time count in the first half. At the start of the second half, the quarterback says, "Hey ref, what's with this new hurry up stuff, that 30 seconds seems to be going by awfully quickly!".
Needless to say, the lad learned something new that day....
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