[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

Does the Fed football rulebook deal with human reaction time? If so, then you have to go with that.

Originally Posted by waltjp

As for FED addressing timing issues, I found the following:

The 2007 edition of High School Football Rules Illustrated states, "Obvious errors in timing may be corrected by the referee if the discovery of the error is made prior to the second live ball following the error, unless the period has official ended. No other adjustments in timing is authorized."

The 2006 edition of High School Football Rules by Topic states adds as rationale, "The correction procedure applies to obvious errors. The coverage does not authorize attempting to correct trivial or incidental lag starting or stopping the clock. The error must be in an acknowledged discrepancy in the time and does include a slight lag due to human reaction. Correctable errors will have resulted for a failure to apply the provision of the timing rule on the part of the official or failure of the clock operator to follow the direction of the field official, or from a mechanic (sic) failure of the clock. The error to be corrected must not involve judgment. In a situation in which the clock was not stopped after the score of during the administration of a penalty, the referee is permitted to put time back on the clock. If there had been a failure to start the clock with the snap following an incomplete forward pass, or with the legal touching of the free kick following a touchdown, the referee would be permitted to compensate by taking time off the clock."

So there it is: the Fed addresses the issue. However, it doens't get specific. In Fed bball, human reaction time was limited to one second. If I'm a home timer, my slight lag might be different depending on who has the clock as their 12th man. It's unfortunate, but I'm sure it happens.

Originally Posted by waltjp

First of all, FED football doesn't recognize tenths of seconds. It's either 1 second or it's zero.

Not sure why. Kinda dumb actually.