OSU-Central Michigan finish
 

Was listening on the radio, so I may not have all the specifics 100% accurate, but the pertinent info is good. With 8 seconds left on the game clock in the 4th quarter, facing 4th down with a 3 point lead, OSU decided to try run out the clock by having the QB take the snap and throw the pass high and way out of bounds to allow the clock to run out. The problem was that the QB was still in the pocket and there was no receiver even close to the area. The clock did expire during the pass, but intentional grounding was called and Central Michigan was given an untimed down due to the penalty.

I'm pretty sure the enforcement was correct but I can't find the rules support. Any help?

It was incorrect. Loss of down foul means no untimed down. Conference has already acknowledged the error.

There were only 4 seconds left when the last down was snapped.

Will heads roll

Soccer guy chiming in with a probably-dumb question:

The rule says there is an untimed down unless the foul is on the "team in possession." Since it was 4th down, the play ended with a change of possession. Does the phrase "team in possession" refer to the team possessing the ball at the end of the play (as in, the defense intercepts the pass and the returner gets tackled by the face mask on his way to the end zone) or does it only refer to who is in possession at the snap?

Or, am I misunderstanding something about when and how possession changes after 4th down?

Thanks.

Possession at the time of the foul.

I know why the officials missed it: since the foul was on OkSU, it was 4th down, and the time ran out, there wasn't really a penalty for the foul. Which is odd and probably threw off their thinking. I can't prove that I wouldn't have missed that as well.

They clearly missed this, but I'm wondering: shouldn't the rule be revised? Had this been called correctly, OkSU would have gained a huge advantage -- foul on the last play for which there was no penalty. So go ahead and commit a foul as long as it includes a LOD provision. I would suggest a rules change that says the untimed down will take place if the accepted penalty results in a change of possession.

I'm wondering how the MAC is officiating a Big 12 home game? Doesn't the home conference cover the contest?

So, to my knowledge, no conference has ever done this, and I'm not sure that even here it would be a good idea, but...

The outcome of the game was demonstrably changed by a misapplication of a rule. There is no question about what would have happened if it had been called correctly. If ever there was a time for a conference to overturn a game result, this would be it.

Any chance this happens?

There is no across the board policy. Often the visiting team brings in a crew, but some crews like the Pac-12 do not allow any other crews to come on their fields (at least that has been their policy for some time). Usually the teams not in the Power 5 are allowed to bring their crews in a visiting game. Now that being said, the MAC is apart of the consortium that involves the BIG and the Missouri Valley.

I am sure this entire situation will be talked about at our meeting on Tuesday. I am just wondering are any of the officials on this game from my area?

Peace

Non conference games are covered by the contract between schools. Sometimes, the visiting team's conference covers them, sometimes the home team's and other times they get them from a third conference. A Big 12 crew worked Houston vs. OU and a Pac 12 crew worked UCLA vs. A&M last week -- both road teams' conferences were at the game. Houston and College Station are an hour and a half apart and the crews should have just switched games.

I think the NCAA should require the third conference option.

Side guy got in the way of the deep guy. Mechanics flub as well as a rules flub.

Having said that, the offense deliberately commited a foul and benefitted from it in the most perfect way - winning the game. Logic dictates that the non-offending team should be given something, and if that something is one untimed down where they win on a Hail Mary/lateral, then so be it.

Video : https://streamable.com/z8gs

Twitter : https://www.twitter.com/MikePereira/...96457353895936

Was this even IG? Wasn't done to conserve time or avoid loss of yardage.

Doesn't that seem disproportionate to you?

What does making a pass incomplete do? It can prevent loss of yardage, or it can stop loss of time. What is an untimed down for the other team supposed to be in compensation for?

True. A backward pass to the sideline would've accomplished the same result, and then IG wouldn't've even been considered.

OL let DL by, and two of them were right on the QB. Had to throw or risk being sacked. A sack by definition is a loss of yards.

Still in pocket, no receiver in area. Had he rolled out about 5 feet he would have been fine.

I'd love to know if one of the officials suggested there isn't an untimed down, and that the game is therefore over, yet was "over-ruled" by a majority or convincing comrade.

At least they all know the rule now. As does the whole country. :)

But look at 7-3-2. The relevant provisions are all "The passer to conserve time..." and "The passer to conserve yardage..." What's material to this case is not whether a loss of yardage would've occurred, but what the passer's motiv'n was. The ball was not thrown to conserve either time or field position, but to consume time. So I don't see intentional grounding.

Suppose it were an opposite kind of situation. Time for the half expires during the down before A1 throws an intentionally incomplete forward pass under conditions where it looks like team A would've liked another down. It would not in fact have conserved time, but the passer's purpose was to conserve time, so it's intentional grounding. I doubt anyone would care about the enforcement, because the period ends anyway, but that's what's meant by those "The passer to..." phrases: to outlaw certain passes on the basis of the passer's purpose, not the result.

Those conditions are necessary but not sufficient to call intentional grounding. It still has to be done to conserve time or the spot, and this was for neither.

Supposed to read minds or ask the QB? The throw conserved yards. That's all I, as a WH, care about. Grounding.

On field ACC crew and Big 12 replay crew suspended 2 games

His motivation was to avoid being sacked. That he threw it high, far, and to an area with no receiver is an additional aspect to the play that doesn't remove the fact that two defenders would have easily tackled him without the throw.

Avoiding the sack conserves yardage (item h): the incomplete pass means that B would take over further from A's EZ than if he was sacked.

MAC, not ACC

That's what intentional grounding's always been about.
It shouldn't be all you care about, because there are plenty of incomplete passes that conserve yards but that you'd never call intentional grounding because they weren't intended to conserve yards. For instance, the passer & receiver get crossed up as to the route, so the ball winds up going nowhere near a receiver. You'd call intentional grounding only if it looked like the passer's purpose in throwing it was to avoid a loss or to stop the clock. That was manifestly not the case here. The player throwing the pass cared nothing about where the ball would be spotted for the next down, and did not care to leave any time on the period clock.

But throwing the ball to avoid being tackled is immaterial unless it's to (the word used in the book) conserve time or get a more favorable spot. The word "to" requires purpose. The player did not care where the next spot would be. He didn't want to leave time on the game clock, either. So the conditions for IG don't apply.

This is a tactic which is not against the rules: throwing the ball high (in any direction), not trying for a completed pass, to consume time.

Try this: A1 on 4th & 20 runs 10 yards past his LOS, then throws the ball forward, high, and far out of bounds to use up an extra 2 seconds to end either half. It's still an illegal forward pass. Still loss of down. Does the player care where the next spot is going to be? No. So why would you penalize for IG if he were behind the LOS and threw a forward pass for the same purpose? He still doesn't care what the next spot was going to be.

How about if he throws it nearly directly sideways? Are you going to take pains to figure out whether it was a forward or backward pass, so you can see whether you could call IG?

This is not a situation for which the IG provisions were adopted.

Robert, you're trying to float a LEAD canoe. The IG call by the crew was a technically correct call, unfortunately a really GLARING mistake was made on the enforcement.

Occasional mistakes are something each and everyone of has made, somewhat repeatedly, but thankfully not as highlighted as this one. The crew was wrong, is accountable, will suffer some consequences and hopefully get past the embarrassment and second guessing before their next on field assignment, and God willing, "the beat will go on".

This is what happened to me and why my initial post sided with how it was handled on the field. I assumed that guys at that level had to be right. As I posted in another thread, my gut reaction was that it wasn't right and I said as much to my son. He questioned me because he knows I usually reserve those kind of statements until I know with certainty that a mistake was made. By the time I posted the OP in this thread, I had convinced myself I was wrong and that I must be missing something in the NCAA rules.

That's not the NCAA (or NFHS) rule. If there is an accepted live ball foul (or offsetting fouls) by either team and it does not specify a loss of down, then an untimed down will be played.

No, it's not. CT1 got it right. IG can occur only when a passer tries to prevent a loss of field position (between being down there and the previous spot) or of time in the period. You can throw the ball to a space with no receivers if you're not doing so intentionally for either purpose -- I gave the example above of a cross-up regarding the receiver's route. I've seen plenty of passes like that that were correctly not flagged for that reason. If this weren't the case, those "to conserve" provisions wouldn't've been written into paras. f-h.

Baseball guy. Question: Can a football coach lodge a protest of a rule missaplication after a play?

Result of the game is final.

Letter of the rule vs spirit. It's grounding by the spirit. I'd flag this every time.

I know that. The question is whether at the end of the play where IG was called can the coach go to the official and protest that the untimed down is not correct?

No, it's completely against the spirit of IG. The IG provisions were there just to keep teams from taking unfair advantage of the rules on incomplete forward passes that give you back the previous spot & stop the clock. This is a play that would've worked just as well had it been a backward pass.

Maybe what there should be is a rule specifically to keep a team from using up a few extra secs. by throwing the ball high in the air and/or far out of bounds, but there isn't any right now.

Yes, he can -- IF he realizes that the officials are in error. (Even if a coach doesn't ask for a conference, replay should have caught such an egregious error.)

In this case, OKSt Coach Mike Gundy admitted in his post-game press conference that he didn't know the rule. Maybe if they paid him a little more......

No, it is not baseball and they go back and replay that portion of the game. That would be the same with most sports that I am aware of.

Peace

I thought about this, but the only down where this would ever be an issue is 4th down as it was in this game. I think adding a rule to somehow make what OSU did a penalty that would include an untimed down is unnecessary because there are other methods of burning 4 seconds from the clock on 4th down. Unless the offense is taking the snap inside the 5 yard line, a QB can usually run around for 4 seconds and just slide down. With a 3 point lead, the OSU QB could have ran the 40 yard dash through the back of the end zone and taken a safety. I'm confident he's not running a sub-4 second 40, and I think between the head start he would have had and even minimal blocking, he would have won that race.

A player, substitute or the head coach my request a conference between the head coach and the referee if the coach believes a rule has been enforced improperly. This request must occur before the next play begins (snap or free kick) and before the end of the half. If the ruling is not changed, the team is charged a time out or a delay penalty if no timeouts remain.

So, no, it's not a protest like baseball would handle it. But, there is a method for the coach to ask if he believes the officials are making a rules error.

Forgive me, but what part of NFHS 7-5-2-e "An illegal forward pass is a foul. Illegal forward passes include:
a
b
c
d
e. A pass intentionally thrown incomplete to save loss of yardage or to conserve time."

does NOT apply specifically to the action described in this situation? The key differential between this play and your example seems to be intent, as determined by the covering official (duly empowered to render such judgments).

Well, to be fair, they weren't trying to conserve time(they wanted time to elapse), Were they really trying to save yardage? Not really, the intent of the pass was to run out the clock. I believe the only reason this was called was he was still in the pocket, and no receiver in area of pass. Now by the letter of the law, those are factors in IG, however, I'm not 100% sure I would have called IG on this play, but can certainly understand why it was. The real error was the misapplication of the penalty allowing an untimed down.

Depends on your definition of conserve time. They wanted to keep more of the game time for themselves instead of sharing it with the other team :-)

I would interpret conserve time as save time. They didn't want to save game time, they wanted it to run out.

If you want to conserve energy are you wanting to use up the small amount that you have or do want to save as much as you can?

Here is the play and the ending embedded.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0SjFnVN8sXk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x4hwVBefy_I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Peace

yea, it wasn't to conserve time, quite the opposite...but it WAS to conserve yardage in a sense; that is, not getting sacked and giving the other team any yardage. I'm perfectly fine with the call, but the enforcement? Oy.

But it made choosing a topic for our pre-game this week pretty easy!

None of them do.
Exactly, that's what I'm saying. It was not intended to save yardage or time.

No, it wasn't to conserve yardage. They'd've been happy to concede the yardage had time already elapsed. What not getting sacked did was keep the ball live for a few more secs.

Robert, it was intended to DEPRIVE the opponent with the opportunity to make a play during the time remaining in the contest, by throwing what was clearly an Illegal pass.

The could have (perhaps should have) elected to take the snap and choose to elude the opponent, on the field of play, until time legitimately expired. Sometimes the "easy answer" can surprise with unanticipated consequences.

It wasn't an illegal pass. That is irrelevant, it doesn't even matter if it is intentional grounding, the crew still erred and misapplyed a penalty.

What made the pass illegal?
Or they could've done the same pass backwards, to exactly the same effect, and then nobody would've even raised illegal forward pass as a possibility.

For the record, the U on this game came to our meeting tonight and talked about the situation. I know I learned from his speaking on the matter.

For the record, the crew did not know they made the mistake until they were in the locker room for about 5 minutes. The guy that does the media timeouts apparently relayed to them that Mike Pereira was going off about this in the broadcast and quoting the rule. Then the crew started looking it up in the rulebook for themselves to read what he was referencing.

The bottom line the crew feels awful and this official wanted to make sure we all learned from their mistake. So now this is why you have to be able to step up and take the lead or raise the questions so that the crew does not look bad. One of the 10 might have saved this crew if they just stopped for a second to think about what they were going to do.

Peace

In the NCAA rules, intentional grounding IS an illegal forward pass, so the fact that a grounding foul was called made it illegal.

There are different enforcement procedures for different kinds of illegal forward passes, but 7-3-2 talks about illegal forward passes and the intentional grounding rule is in that section.

But it didn't satisfy the requirements to call it intentional grounding.

Thanks for relaying this, Jeff. It's still hard for me to believe that a crew of D-I officials could get this wrong. If it could happen to them, it could certainly happen to my crew on a Friday night.

Yes

Often when a team plays on the road out of conference, their league officials come with. The replay was big 12.

As you now know, yes.

Maybe not, but I thought you were making a distinction between an illegal forward pass and intentional grounding. IG is a form of an illegal forward pass. Many don't know this, especially as it relates to using this rule instead of an illegal touching foul -- when there is no eligible receiver in the area and the QB throws it to a guard or tackle. If the QB is still in the pocket or the pass doesn't cross the line, the correct call is illegal forward pass rather than illegal touching.

That just came up a week ago or so in a discussion of Fed rules, which are substantially the same on this point.

According to the MAC website all 10 officials received a 2 game suspension.