Wind the clock or not!!

[jack015]

Originally posted by Warrenkicker

But what would you do if when A got the ball back was tackled OOB, ran OOB, or recovered the fumble in their EZ for a touchback? When does the clock start for these?
I would say that they all start on the snap as the action that ended the previous play also stopped the clock.

By rule, on the snap for all these situations.

[Warrenkicker]

I was a little surprised to not see this brought up earlier in this thread. Usually little twists like this are brought up early in these discussions. I just wanted to make the point that just because A gets the ball back that the clock may start on either the ready or the snap.

My thought is that if you're not sure if the clock should start on the ready or the snap, let it start on the snap. It's always better to get it right but sometimes we just forget.

Sometimes a good clock operator will help you out. A couple of weeks ago my game had an incompletion and an injury. Before the next snap we had a dead-ball foul. On the next ready I had a brain-cramp and wound it but instantly realized I just screwed up. I waved the clock stopped immediatly and looked at the clock. The clock had never started. He was paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing instead of what I told him.

[Middleman]

Originally posted by jack015

Ususally On a change of posession play, B or K is in posession when the down ends. However on this play, there were two changes of posession, B's interception and A's recovery of the fumble, but there was not a legal kick nor was B awarded a new series, so by rule the clock starts on the ready. It is not a change of posession that causes the clock to start on the snap - it is because there was a legal kick or B in posession when the down ends.

This play occured in a game that I was R in a few years ago. 3 of my crew thought I was wrong to start the clock on the ready and one thought I was correct but was not sure. We had a Supervisor (Scout) at the game and he thought I was correct.

Platooning and Special Teams ...

That is the reason for the change in the timing rule, which occurred in 1996. Prior to that season, the clock started on the ready for play whenever a new series was awarded for either team (because an officials time-out was taken to set the chains, and the clock started on the ready following an officials time-out, unless the clock was stopped for another reason listed in 3-4-2b.) The rules committee cited inconsistency by referees in marking the ball ready for play as the reason for changing the rule. They felt that referees were delaying the ready for play following a change of possession or following a kick, "... thus giving the offensive team an advantage by allowing them more time to get onto the playing field." So they added "other than when Team B is awarded a new series or when either team is awarded a new series following a legal kick." to 3-4-2a. This theoretically created consistency in timing, allowing the defense to get their offense on the field, or to allow the kicking team to get their regular offense back on the field if they somehow retained or regained possession following a legal kick.

There was no need to change the timing when the offense was already on the field, as would be the case following an interception and subsequent fumble recovery by Team A.

There was a questionaire in 1994 which indicated more than 50% of the respondents in favor of the concept.

We squawked a lot about the length of games following the change. There were some states that experimented with the change reportedly finding "the increase in the length of game time to be minimal." We found that games were often up to twenty minutes longer, depending on the number of possession changes. We are used to it by now.