Clock Start on Holding Penalty?
 

Okay heres the situation:

High school football: Team A has the ball with 15 seconds to go in the game, and and are ahead by 4 points. It's 4th down and 4. Team B has no time outs left.

Team A runs a play for a 8 yard gain, but holding is called. Team B accepts the penalty, forcing team A run another play. When does the clock start? Does it start on the 'ready for play' or the snap?

By the way, this exact situation happened and the refs ruled that the clock starts on the 'ready for play'. So team A ran out the clock, and then ref's made them run one play with no time on the clock Team A took a knee and game was over.

Ready for play.

The untimed down was incorrect..

That would have been correct under the old NFHS rule but not recently.

You mean the clock should have not started on ready for play?

Clock starts on the ready for play, no untimed down.

The part that changed recently was the untimed down provision... used to be that if a penalty was accepted clock ran out before Team A could run another play, they'd get an untimed down... the change was that an untimed down is only awarded if time expires DURING the play where foul was accepted.

The scenario you described is what would've happened BEFORE the rule changed... after the rule changed, there should've been no untimed down.

Clock status is what it was, unless the play ended with a score, out of bounds or incomplete. I was referring to the old untimed down rule.

Could 3-4-6 apply here? Consume time. R can order clock stopped.


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3-4-6 COULD apply, but in almost every circumstance, it probably doesn't.

What is 3-4-6?

I don't have the book directly in front of me to quote, but 3-4-6 is presumably the rule that says the referee has the discretion to start the clock differently than usual in the event a team attempts to consume/conserve time illegally.

I seem to be in the minority opinion on this, but my approach is that if a team fouls and that creates a timing advantage, they should not get that advantage. So in the original play (4th down run by winning team that reaches the line-to-gain with short time remaining, but there was holding on the play), I will start the clock on the snap - otherwise, team A gets to consume (even more) time through their illegal action.

We had a team up 2 TDs on Friday run the play clock down to 1 and then false start. About 4 minutes left.

We started on the snap.

My discretion.

If only they were all that easy.

I took the same approach. If they gained advantage from it, I started on the snap. Sometimes my crewmates disagreed.

Clock Start on Holding Penalty?
 

ART. 6 . . . When a team attempts to conserve or consume time illegally, the referee shall order the clock started or stopped.

Also, casebook pp. 25-26 has some comments as well.