[dan74]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Even if it wasn't, I would rather that the new officials would be exposed to such situations during a scrimmage than during a real game. We sometimes ask teams to do some odd stuff during preseason scrimmages to give our newer officials a bit of a test and get them thinking.
For example, we may ask a thrower to hold the ball across the boundary plane and have the defender smack it or try to grab it. This is not a play that happens with great frequency, but is one that we want our officials to know and get correct as they aspire to move up the ranks.
I will grant that this stuff is usually done for people in their first three years and not brand new folks. Some of them we do it just to shrink their heads a bit. You've all seen those people who have reffed for a couple of years and now think that they are the greatest and deserve the playoff assignments.

Nevada, yep, I agree.

Rainmaker, I figured Y2 was mostly joking.