Quote:
Originally posted by devdog69
Unfortunately, in the real world, it has been my experience that officials are hesitant to put the quabash on these sort of plays. This year, my first full year of varsity football, a coach tells us before the game of such a play they run during a punting situation, and our white hat just says ok. I ask him after the conference, 'isn't that illegal', he says 'maybe, depends on the interpretation'. I can't remember the exact play, but I remember being frustrated that the majority of officials in my area were lax on the rule, choosing to be wishy-washy on their interpretations, which makes it very hard for the few that wish to uphold the integrity of the game.
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I agree and I throw myself on the mercy of this court!
For years I had a JV coach run "where's the puck?" and it appeared to be a legal play until someone in this forum clued me to casebook 9.5.1d. No more, dear coach.
In fact, this season I had a youth league game -- leave to the dad-coaches -- where the player under the snapper, quarterback in the usual sense, starts walking away calling out signals. I did not flag it because it didn't fool anybody including the defense.
All too often white-hats and others not fully cognizant of the rules will let illegal acts go. Of course, now when the white-hat who knows the rule comes along, he is the bad guy.
Of course, that goes both ways. One game a coach is yelling for illegal substitution. When I step over to question him about what is illegal, he states, that in a previous game they were penalized for the eleventh player coming on the field and not being in the huddle. He was perfectly satisfied when I explained the player only needs to be within 15 yards of the ball and the rule is designed to prevent a player from deception by simply stepping one yard on the field.