|
Had a Junior High game a couple of weeks back.
In pregame, one of the coaches says to me "We're not very good, so we run a lot of trick plays".... and alarm bells start going off immediately in my head.
Sure enough, second offensive play they run a 'swinging gate' type formation where the center tries to snap the ball sideways to a split end. Naturally, the snap was errant and ended up going out of bounds.
On their second series, they line up in a standard formation. The QB goes under center. The Head coach (on my sideline), then starts screaming "What are you doing? We're supposed to be in ____!" Quarterback yells back "What?" turns, and starts running to his sideline. Alarm bells start going off in my head, and after the QB runs about 10 steps the ball is snapped directly to the running back.
I flagged it as an "unfair act" (Casebook 9.9.1B).
On the next series, they play where the center never gave the ball to the quarterback... he snapped it and held it between his legs (not sure if the QB touched it or not), then paused for a few seconds while the rest of his team ran a fake. Then the center took off running with the ball.
Flag. (7-2-4)
Of course, I'm on this coaches sideline, so I get the honor of explaining all of these infractions to him. He took it surprisingly well, only saying things like "I didn't know you couldn't do that" and "we have to run trick plays to give ourselves a chance". It took a lot of self-discipline to refrain from telling him he'd be better off teaching his kids to run 3 or 4 basic plays well rather then trying to rely on trickery.
|