QB-Taking a knee

[Warrenkicker]

Originally posted by my3sons
I had a similar situation this past Saturday in a youth league. Score A 19 and B 6. A has the ball on their own 45 yard line with 30 seconds left in the game. B has no more time outs. 3 man crew. A tells the Referee that they are going to take a knee. We tell the defense the QB is going to take a knee. Referee takes a position near the QB to protect him. QB takes the snap, pitches the ball back to the running back and off he goes to score a touchdown.
I threw a flag for unsportsmen like behavior on A. Is that an appropriate call. By the way B declined the penalty and the game ended.

I would agree that this is USC. You can't run off of the field yelling "Where's the tee" or "This is the wrong ball". These are illegal due to the verbage. When A tells you that they are taking a knee they have to know that some officials will pass that info along to the other team. They are telling you what they are doing to protect themselves. If after you tell the other team of what A intends to do they don't do it you have gotten yourself in a bad spot but due to info provided by A. At no other time in the game did they tell you that they were running a sweep to the left so you might want to get positioned over there to cover it better.

If I had (but I never would) told B that A was taking a knee and then didn't they might just get an IW and a flag. I tell them to play hard but not to do anything cheap.