Question #2: Official error during play

[ljudge]

Here's my weekly post. Again, it's a kicking game question with an officiating error. How would you handle?

K's ball 4th and 10 from K's 20. K punts the ball to midfield. During the kick R signals for an invalid fair catch and ultimately recovers the ball at his own 45. The back judge and line judge forget to whistle the play dead. R advances for a TD. During the run R clips a team K player at K's 40 and then during the advance team K's coach is on the field screaming at the officials for letting the play advance.

[cdnRef]

There isn't much that can be done if the crew let the play go.

Because your back judge bean bagged the spot of the recovery it should be pretty easy to go back to the spot of the reception and deal with the fouls.

Ignoring the screaming coach for a second, the foul that hurts R the most is the invalid fair catch leaving R at their own 40 after application.

Now dealing with the K coach - he donated 15 yards to the R cause. If the coach wants to have a conference with the WH he has ways to do that and standing on the field screaming is not one of them. Tack that on from the R 40.

1st and 10 R on the K 45.


How'd I do?

[IAUMP]

I would say that if the BJ and LJ didn't recognize the invalid fair catch signal they probably didn't flag it either. Therefore, you enforce the clip from the spot of the foul, K40. Since you probably have an USC on the K Coach it would negate the distance on the clip (yes, I know you still have to march each of them off). Ultimately, you would have R ball 1 & 10 at K40.

[ljudge]

I wasn't to clear on this. The BJ and LJ realized there was an invalid fair catch, flagged it, but didn't blow the whistle. In other words they kicked the call because they screwed up on the ruling and let the play continue. They then reported to the R they had an invalid fair catch and the astute referee realized they should have blown the whistle knowing the ball should have became dead by rule.

I don't have a specific ruling on this. I thought it would stimulate some conversation because we need to deal with an official kicking a rule and discuss how we deal with a clip that shouldn't have happened in the first place and it wouldn't have happened if the LJ & BJ had done their jobs. Glad I haven't had this situation occur in a game yet but there's always that first time.

[mcrowder]

I'm assuming that since we "have" an invalid fair catch, that it was flagged --- otherwise it wouldn't have come up at all in this post.

You ignore the clip, as it didn't happen. The play was dead regardless of the lack of a whistle at the R45, penalize K's coach from there. He has a little latitude (since WE screwed up, and HE is actually right), but that doesn't extend to marching out on the field yelling. He would gently be reminded how to alert the official to a mistaken ruling sometime between the time we mark off the 15 and the time he gets another 15 for blowing up at us because of the 15 he had already earned.

[waltjp]

Originally posted by ljudge
The BJ and LJ realized there was an invalid fair catch, flagged it, but didn't blow the whistle.

What's the opposite of an Inadvertent Whistle?

I have a problem with saying we ignore the clip. Maybe it's just because it's a clip. If you tell me it was holding, no problem. If we're truly talking about a clip we're talking about a safety issue. I still enforce it.

[Opie]

Isn't the ball dead whether the whistle blows or not, like mcrowder said? The only whistle that makes a ball dead is an IW. So since the runner was advancing a dead ball, isn't the clip really a dead ball PF?

[cdnRef]

Making the clip a dead ball PF would give the WH the ability to negate the (understandable) USC from the K bench ... may not be a bad way to go and neither coach is likely to get too excitable over something reasonable like that...

[Warrenkicker]

I would agree. Even though the whistle has not blown the ball is dead. Now I don't think you will find any players who would recognize that this ball is dead and would continue with the play. So the correction would be to penalize the invalid fair-catch signal from the end of the kick. Then mark off both DB penalties. Reset the clock for some amount of time run off after the kick ended.

[Jim S]

That's what I was thinking also. Gives a good out to molify both coaches, may teach the guy to stay off the field even when (gulp) he's right (can't believe I had to say that).
Also, don't forget to reset the clock for the time lost. This may not be necessary if it's still early, but is stops any questions later, and ties the whole paskage up together.

[Edited by Jim S on Dec 9th, 2004 at 05:20 PM]

[JugglingReferee]

Originally posted by cdnRef

Making the clip a dead ball PF would give the WH the ability to negate the (understandable) USC from the K bench ... may not be a bad way to go and neither coach is likely to get too excitable over something reasonable like that...

I believe that you once mentioned you're out west. Do non-CIS school (minor or high school) use non-Canadian rules?

After all, you used the term personal foul, which doesn't exist in Canada. Same for USC and "clip".

[cdnRef]

Do non-CIS school (minor or high school) use non-Canadian rules?

Once you get into BC:

CIS and CJFL use the Canadian community rules (same as the rest of Canada)

Community Ball uses Canadian community rules

Highschool (11&12) uses Federation (American highschool) rules

Jr. Varsity (9&10) uses Federation rules

Grade 8's use Federation rules

I've heard a lot of reasons why the highschools have gone with federation ball and it always involves the phrase, "years and years ago when [ubc/sfu] started...blah blah blah" Simon Fraser was playing against Jr. Colleges from the pacific northwest up until they joined CIS 5 (or so) years ago. Highschools will never change to Canadian tho - they've built their facilities for the smaller fields and the cost would be enormous.

Interesting note - once upon a time we used to use Southern California rules (that goes back 15 years or so before my time) but the membership of our associations were listed in the rule book.

If we're having a Canadian discussion I'll use Canadian terminology. When talking Federation I'll use Federation terminology. It helps me keep the two games straight. In case you're curious, I view the two games as two sepearate sports that just happen to use the same equipment (and yes, I WH each of them)

I would love to do some ball south of the border to see how we're doing compared to the rest of the Ntl. Federation world.

[Edited by cdnRef on Dec 9th, 2004 at 07:15 PM]

[MJT]

Originally posted by ljudge
Here's my weekly post. Again, it's a kicking game question with an officiating error. How would you handle?

K's ball 4th and 10 from K's 20. K punts the ball to midfield. During the kick R signals for an invalid fair catch and ultimately recovers the ball at his own 45. The back judge and line judge forget to whistle the play dead. R advances for a TD. During the run R clips a team K player at K's 40 and then during the advance team K's coach is on the field screaming at the officials for letting the play advance.

I agree as mentioned above, the ball was dead, by rule, even though the whistle did not blow.
Now if have a different take on the rest. Can we not pick up the clip since the ball was dead??? I am giving the coach A TON of leway since WE messed up pretty big. Unless he is past the numbers, or cursing loudly and personally, I would probably not flag him. If he is only out on the field a few yards, I would go explain what happened, and have no flag.
I would be inclined to only have the invalid fair catch foul be called and enforced. Your opinions on my take!?

[JugglingReferee]

Originally posted by cdnRef

I saw the BC HS final on Sportsnet Pacific. #47 was the WH.

Looked odd on a larger field. Only 4 guys on that game?

[cdnRef]

Looked odd on a larger field. Only 4 guys on that game?

Yup. BC Highschool will only let us field a 4-man crew. Some schools have expressed the opinion that there would be too many flags with a 5th man on the field + they don't want to pay for the 5th man.

This is bad forum ettiquite - holding two discussions in one thread. Email me [email protected] and we can talk. It's always great to meet up with officials from other parts of the country.