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Originally Posted by OverAndBack
But in actual practice, it's not, is it?
If you say "obvious that a kick will be attempted," you're stuck there, too, aren't you?
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Of course.
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Some things are, and by rights should be, left to the wise judgment of the experienced football official.
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Not this "thing". Otherwise both NCAA & Fed could've defined "scrimmage kick formation" in such a way, leaving it up to the official's judgement.
Think about it. You're not asking the officials to judge what play
will be run, which could be worked out by some kind of signal from the captain if you had to, but what kind of play is to some degree
likely, before the ball is snapped. It's not even like the judgement about likelihood of a kick
during play, which you make to determine whether the kicker gets protection. Before the ball is snapped, that's just a crazy judgement for an official to have to make. Regardless of what play the offense winds up running, who's to say if you were right or wrong?
It seems you want to allow pass plays from such formations even with the numbering exception, just not too often! How are you going to decide that?
Much better to have a clearcut line such as I suggest, whereby the team that uses the numbering exception has to, in effect, decide between kicking and passing threats. Or any number of other clearcut lines that could be drawn, like allowing it only on 4th down. But basing it on "likely" -- which is what you really want, and which no combination of "obvious" and "may" can produce -- is really asking for trouble. I'm surprised anyone would wish for such a judgement call.
Robert