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Old Thu Dec 11, 2014, 05:02am
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Rich Rich is offline
Get away from me, Steve.
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 15,790
Quote:
Originally Posted by RealityCheck View Post
Rich, legitimate respectful comment should be welcomed and be used to help improve a sport.

The issue of missed spots in college football has been magnified since implementation of instant replay. I don't expect an official 20 yards directly down a sideline away from a ball-carrier to make a perfect spot every time. I do expect an effort to improve mechanics and get officials into better position to minimize excessively missed spots. I also expect officials who appear to be in proper position not to miss spots by a half-yard or more. And when spots are obviously missed, I expect other crew members to help out and for instant replay to be utilized.

Plays like this one should be used a teaching aid to improve officiating. That is why I brought it to the attention of this forum.
Most of the inbounds spots are actually gotten by the official across the field using cross-field mechanics. Did you know that?

Deep plays -- the deep wings usually get the spots mentally and communicate them to the short wings coming down the field.

Doesn't mean there won't be mistakes, but if a player is stopped inbounds, it's usually not the guy 20 yards back that's making that decision.

Further, officials tend to start with first downs on a yardline. Short wings will decide if it's short or not before putting the ball down. If it's a first down, they'll round it to a yard line every time -- at least at the levels where the fields are well-marked.