REPLY: No...you <b>must</b> have a flag on the ground if you intend to apply NF 3-6-3. It says, <i>"When a team attempts to conserve or consume time <b>illegally</b>, the referee shall order the clock started or stopped."</i> About ten years ago or so the word "illegally" was added because of referees "abusing" 3-6-3 and applying it even when a team used a perfectly legal means of conserving or consuming time.

And I agree with Doc and mcrowder. You must give the benefit of the doubt to the offended team in situations like this. Whether OSU's false start was intentional or not is immaterial in my opinion. They used an illegal act in a manner that would consume time.

Of course you have the flag for intentional grounding. Your not going to wind the clock on the ready when you have an incomplete pass and no foul. But when you have a question as to whether the pass was intentionally grounded to save yardage OR intentionally grounded to save time and whether or not to wind the clock on the ready, I tend to favor not giving the team that committed an illegal act the benefit of the doubt. I believe that your on much more solid ground in that case.

REPLY: For those who might care...I was off by about six years in this prior post. The Fed changed NF 3-6-3 back in 1987 to add the word "illegally." This was to ensure that the R did not invoke the timing discretion rule unless there was a foul involved.

Your local rules historian (along with Mr. Heisey),

Are we going to complain about the other false starts in the prior three quarters when OSU was ahead and the clock was wound. They had the same impact on the clock. Why worry so much about the time left on the clock. There is a fixed amount of time in a game. There are also timing rules and exceptions to those rules. In this rule the referee must believe the offense is intentionally jumped in order to deviate from the rule. Obviously he didn't. Should we deviate from all the rules at the end of the game (ie "you can't call holding in the final two minutes")?

No - we're not deviating from anything. Simply calling the rules as written, which DO allow R to stop or start the clock if an illegal activity helped the offending team regarding conserving or consuming time.

The reason it doesn't matter in the middle of the game is that while you are correct that it still consumes the same amount of extra time, neither team benefits from such consumption at that time (or at least - the team that might eventually benefit from that is not known).

By your logic, EVERY team that's trying to waste time down the stretch should "accidentally" have a false start (or 2, if R doesn't catch on) with around 1:30 - 2:00 to go in the game or half.

NCAA 3-4-3: ”The referee shall order the game clock started or stopped whenever either team conserves or consumes playing time by tactics obviously unfair. This includes starting the clock on the snap if the foul is by the team ahead in the score. The clock will start on the ready-for-play signal after an illegal forward or backward pass that conserves time for Team A (A.R. 3-4-3-I-IV).”

Here’s the only AR that even comes close to the situation that we’re talking about: AR 3.4.3 I: “In an attempt to consume time in the fourth period, Team A “stalls’’ and exceeds the 25-second count. RULING: Penalty—Five yards from the succeeding spot. The clock starts on the snap.”

No-my point is that there must be a determination that one team is "using tactics obviously unfair". I challenge you to show that a false start is un unfair tactic unless you can believe that it was done on purpose.

The rule refers to situations where the offending team is ahead, but does not say only at the end of the game. Should we never start the clock when the winning team false starts.

If you believe that the false start itself is an "obviously unfair tactic" then you would not start the clock.

If, like me, you believe that you need more proof of an "obviously unfair tactic", then this play gets a winding of the clock.

For those of you that think that the clock should not start, at what point in the game do you think we should start implementing this treatment, and why?

Lastly, aren't we to assume that actions of the players are within the rules rather than the other way around.



For

To answer your last question first, I'd "assume that actions of the players are within the rules rather than the other way around" except when the actions of the players are not within the rules. The player committed an infraction of the rules (false start) - not within the rules.

To answer your other question - once you get to the point in the game (or half) where one team is obviously trying to (or would benefit from being able to) either A) conserve time or B) consume time, then this (stopping or starting the clock by R) comes into play.

This is amazingly straightforward, and I really am surprised there's ANYone disagreeing here.

You do have a point in that the rulebook would probably benefit from a stricter wording that takes away any judgement on the part of the official. But in this particular case, I don't think it's even necessary to judge the intent of the player committing the false start. It's obvious that the team fouling gains a significant advantage from committing that foul if you decide to start the clock after the foul. This is specifically the kind of case where you'd not start the clock after the foul.