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.

Doesn't it really boil down to a judgment whether the foul (holding) was an actual, "attempt to conserve or consume time illegally", or just someone violating the blocking rules apart from any consideration about affecting timing.

Interestingly, during this weekend's Nebraska defeat of Michigan State, holding foul on third down was declined with a minute and change in the fourth quarter. On the succeeding 4th down, the play clock started on the wind at 25 instead of 40, giving Nebraska a few more seconds on their next possession. Had the foul been accepted, the extra down would have allowed Michigan State to run out the clock, or at least to within a few seconds of zero.

Not as far as I'm concerned.....I'd say some of those in this thread agree with me.

When a foul obviously benefits the team committing the foul with respect to the clock, it's common practice to start on the snap.

A player commits a false start with a running game clock with 1 second on the play clock on 4th down with 24 seconds left in the game. Are there officials here who would even consider starting on the RFP?

For a False Start, with 1 second left on the play clock, I'd agree with restarting the clock on the snap, but the question was about a holding penalty on an 8 yard gain, where it seems at least reasonable to suspect the intent of the foul was a lot more about achieving the next 1st down, rather than manipulating the clock.