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...

[Base]

Did you discuss the reason with your referee? If so, what his reason was?

[ref18]

12 players, perfectly legal.

The only time we throw a flag for too many players at the time of the snap, if the extra player does not leave prior to the side guys raising their gates (2 or more team A players breaking the huddle), then we've got a penalty, but the flag is thrown only at the time of the snap.

[Warrenkicker]

I would say that this was a foul. The sustitute coming in must communicate with the player he is replacing to require that player to leave the field but if after a little while something has to be done. I don't know what the R's philosophy was but to me he gave A an out on this one. You might say that you should let A go for a while and see what they are going to do once the get unconfused and get them for a DOG if they can't figure it out in time or get them for IS after a while. So maybe his thinking was going down one of those paths and when you flagged it he decided they weren't far enough yet.

Now you are a U and you are required to count A but maybe he is used to being the only one to throw that flag and wasn't ready to do it yet.

Hard to say what his thoughts were but I would still throw the flag in that situation.

[MJT]

Originally posted by 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...

In NF and NCAA a substitute is considered a player if he "is positioned in a formation", so by what you said, you would have a foul. NF 2-30-15 and NCAA 2-27-9b I would be interested in why the referee said to wave it off? I think he should have told you "why" and if not, I would have asked, at 1/2 time if not at that very moment.

[cdnRef]

I think I would have let the flag stand. Is there any possibility that this substitution mess was by design and intended to confuse the defence? Did the oncoming player talk to more than one of his team mates? Was the oncoming player going to have been within 15 yards of the ball at some point? Too other ugly outcomes. Flag it, march it off, get on with the game. I think your WH's sentiment was to let the kids decide the game and to try to avoid a flagfest in a playoff game.

As officials we have enough judgement calls to concern ourselves with, why would we make something into a judgement call if it doesn't need to be? Having said that, if it were a regular season game I also don't think it's wrong to ask the QB if he's about to take a time out...

12 players, perfectly legal.

I could be wrong but I think you probably would have had a substitution infraction ref18. The huddle had already broken and from the wording of the scenario I think the gates would have been up prior to this player stepping on the field.

Of course, on second reading it could be one of those where the side guys says, "he was on before the gates went up".



[Edited by cdnRef on Dec 20th, 2004 at 02:45 PM]

[kdf5]

Just curious: did you and him make eye contact or give each other signals concerning the 12th man or did you flag it without having some communication with him? I think personally it was a good flag and I'm betting he's a bit embarrassed. Maybe he was counting lights instead of players.

[Mike Simonds]

My referee is a great official: he is going to be working in the Hula Bowl next month.

Its my belief that the style he favors is to wait until the snap is imminent in this situation. Team A did not break the huddle with 12. The substitute came in when they were coming up to the line. Several players seemed confused and nobody was making a move back towards the sideline. I did look at the referee before throwing my flag.

I'm going to check with him again when I see him next month. I believe he wanted to give team A a chance to either get the replaced player off the field, call a time-out, or take the delay of game penalty. The team in question was behind in the score at this point during the second half.

So I believe this was caused by officials not used to working together. We did discuss our counting responsibilities but did not talk about the mechanics regarding throwing the flag for illegal substitution.

One referee I work with on a regular basis suggested this mechanic: count, make eye contact with hand on head to signify 12 or more, nod, put hand on flag, nod again, then throw. I know it sounds like a lot but its a good mechanic to ensure that both officials have their count right and it looks sharp to throw together.

Lastly, perhaps the referee I worked with just wants the umpire to confirm the count and the referee throws the flag. Its something I will not take for granted in the future when I'm working with a referee I've not worked with previously.

Thanks guys. Any other suggestions on mechanics would be greatly appreciated.

[ref18]

Originally posted by cdnRef


I could be wrong but I think you probably would have had a substitution infraction ref18. The huddle had already broken and from the wording of the scenario I think the gates would have been up prior to this player stepping on the field.

Of course, on second reading it could be one of those where the side guys says, "he was on before the gates went up".



[Edited by cdnRef on Dec 20th, 2004 at 02:45 PM]

There would've been a substituion infraction, no question about it. When I work as the LJ, I always talk the players off if they come in after my gates are up, unless they were already moving before A broke the huddle. And everyone's listened, so far I haven't had to throw a flag for illegal substitution because they came on after my gates were up.