should I have thrown a flag??

[Bubba10Dara]

I was working a varsity game Friday night. This happened on a kickoff. The ball was kicked down the middle of the field and was caught on about the 10 yard line. I was working head linesman and called a holding on R on about the 40 yard line, so I dropped my flag. I would say the holding happened about 7 yards off the visitor sideline. The run ran up the home sideline and ended on about the 25, total return of about 15 yards. So in short I called a hold about 40 yards away from the ball.

Should I have thrown the flag or waived it off, going to The guys in my crew said I should have thrown it, what do you think.

Thanks

[MD Longhorn]

Kickoffs are tough, in that you are encouraged to only call holding penalties when they affect the play ... but on a kickoff you'll never know which holdings may eventually affect the play. At SubV, I'd have probably let it go and informed the coach of the offending side to tell the kid to knock it off (and perhaps flag the 2nd one on the same kid). But at Varsity, they know better - flag it.

Worst thing would be if you didn't flag it, the kid that got held may do exactly the same thing later (or the offender even, thinking it was not going to be called), but be nearer the ball and get flagged - not exactly fair, and confusing to the kids.

[Warrenkicker]

You have to make those calls if you see them. The ball is so far away that you never know if it will affect the play or not.

But now the real question. When was the foul? While the ball was in the air or after the kick. From where did you mark off the penalty?

Loose-ball fouls by R on free-kicks should go back to previous spot. But I think that most of us mark these off from the end of the kick instead of having to re-kick. I know that I have been guilty of that.

[MN BB Ref]

A hold by any other name is still a hold...and they are illegal. If you were to only penalize the ones that "affect the play" you will undoubtedly hear from the opposing coach who didn't receive the call...and he is right. IN fact, I have no qualms about calling a hold (or block in the back for that matter) that is completely out of the play. To me that is stupid football, especially at the varsity level, and the players should realize that there is no need to even initiate contact in most of those cases.

Hopefully they will learn to play smarter football by learning from dumb mistakes.

Just my two cents worth...

[Ed Hickland]

Originally posted by MN BB Ref
A hold by any other name is still a hold...and they are illegal. If you were to only penalize the ones that "affect the play" you will undoubtedly hear from the opposing coach who didn't receive the call...and he is right. IN fact, I have no qualms about calling a hold (or block in the back for that matter) that is completely out of the play. To me that is stupid football, especially at the varsity level, and the players should realize that there is no need to even initiate contact in most of those cases.

Hopefully they will learn to play smarter football by learning from dumb mistakes.

Just my two cents worth...

I agree that a flag should have been thrown because a hold on a free kick could have an affect on coverage.

However, I disagree with the philosophy of throwing flags when the flags have absolutely no affect on the play unless it is unnecessary roughness.

Years ago when I started out I threw flags for almost everything. After working with various officials and observing games it become obvious the idea behind penalties are to keep one team from gaining an advantage. Example, if the play is to the left and a hold occurs 40 yards away on th eopposite side of the field, did the hold cause the offender to gain an advantage? The answer is no. So, why would you or should you throw a flag.

However, if the action on the opposite side of the field were a particularly rough block in the back it should be called because the offender is gaining th eadvantge of intimidation.

[sm_bbcoach]

Originally posted by Ed Hickland

I agree that a flag should have been thrown because a hold on a free kick could have an affect on coverage.

However, I disagree with the philosophy of throwing flags when the flags have absolutely no affect on the play unless it is unnecessary roughness.

Years ago when I started out I threw flags for almost everything. After working with various officials and observing games it become obvious the idea behind penalties are to keep one team from gaining an advantage. Example, if the play is to the left and a hold occurs 40 yards away on th eopposite side of the field, did the hold cause the offender to gain an advantage? The answer is no. So, why would you or should you throw a flag.

However, if the action on the opposite side of the field were a particularly rough block in the back it should be called because the offender is gaining th eadvantge of intimidation.

I agree. But is also a saftey issue as well.

[cowbyfan1]

I would have to say that 40 yards away is a bit far, even for a free kick/punt, unless the person doing the holding tackled the opposing player or held them for an extended period of time.
I would have to see the hold to really get a better idea on it..

[MD Longhorn]

Even if the hold was just for 1 or 2 seconds, it would be enough to slow down the prospective tackler so that either A) he could be blocked by someone else later downfield when he would have been able to get by him had he not been held, or B) he could have been further downfield in position to make a tackle. In either case, the receiving team may easily have an advantage gained by this hold having taken place.

On a kick, even if far away, I'll err on the side of flagging a hold unless the play has already caught up or passed the offender, and it's VERY clear that the hold could not possibly have affected the play.

[MN BB Ref]

Originally posted by sm_bbcoach

I agree. But is also a saftey issue as well.

I do understand what you are saying here, and logically I agree with you. However I see a couple of holes in that argument. First of all, a penalty has still been committed. Although every call is truly a judgment call, I would have a hard time explaining to a coach that the penalty we called against his team earlier is not being called against the opponent because it didn't affect the outcome of the play. A hold is a hold. I'm sure the coach could ask me to cite the rule that states that holds are only holds if they don't affect the outcome of the play. In that case I would be stuck.

Secondly, I decide not to call the hold because it doesn't affect the play, yet the opponent commits a facemask on the tackle. Now I'm going to penalize Team B for their foul, but not penalize Team A? In this case we should have had offsetting penalties that would most certainly affect the outcome of the play. If I didn't flag it would be very difficult to flag it after the play is done so I can make things right.

Lastly, even though the penalty may occur 40 yards from the ball, that still doesn't mean that the player won't become part of the play. What if the runner suddenly reversed direction on the field and weaved around players. Now the player that was fouled doesn't have a chance to be part of the play because of the block/hold that didn't seem to impact the play originally. Again, how do I drop the flag after the fact?

These are my reasons and though I do agree with you, I have a hard time employing this in football. I also ref basketball and I use the "no harm no foul theory" a great deal more as the play is over so much quicker.

Again...my two cents worth.

Peace!

[ABoselli]

If I have to explain to a coach why a hold is not a hold, I can usually cite examples in the game up that point where his players escaped a flag because the play (point of attack) was so far away, it was not thrown. I just think that's common sense officiating.

Every little tug or grab is not a hold. If it were, we'd be out there all night, marking off penalties.

[MN BB Ref]

Originally posted by ABoselli
Every little tug or grab is not a hold. If it were, we'd be out there all night, marking off penalties.

I do agree with this as there probably is a hold on nearly every play. However if the call is a blatant hold, or obvious block in the back, it makes it a little more difficult to be that cavalier.

[Forksref]

On a kickoff return, there can be so many changes of direction by the runner that any hold can affect the play.

On a run up the middle on a scrimmage down, the hold may not have an effect, if it is on the outside.

[Ron_B]

I think on a kickoff, or any return situtaion you must flag this holding. You see the holding and flagged it, you have no way of knowing if it will affect the play or not on a return, until it ends.