Weekly question 2 days late.

[Mike Simonds]

Merry Christmas everyone!

In my last game of the season (state play-offs), I was the umpire in a 7 man crew. Offensive team breaks huddle with 11, but one more A player runs onto the field. Offensive team is in formation but they look a bit confused. None of the A players are making an effort to leave the field. I count 12 again and then throw my flag. I even counted 12 a third time as I make my way to talk to my referee. He tells me: "Mike, I'm going to wave-off that flag". I say "Okay".

He is a great guy and a great referee and I know that in a year or two we will be watching him working in college and maybe even the pros someday. Waving off my flag had no impact on the game. And I have no bad feelings about waving off my flag because I enjoyed working with him during the game and look forward to working with him again next season.

My question is this: When the A team has 12 players in the formation, and they seem confused (the backs and ends were milling around and had not yet come to a set position), and no A player is making an effort to leave the field, and it does not appear as though they are going to call a time-out, was I correct in throwing my flag for a dead-ball illegal substitution foul?

From a philosophy viewpoint, if its a Pop Warner game at the lower levels we tell the teams to count their players or that one player has to get off the field or if we are close enough to the coaches we tell them to get one player off the field. But in high school we are told to enforce the substitution rules more firmly.

Anyway, just wanted to throw this one out there for discussion...