Should umpire signal touch-back?

[Mike Simonds]

Fellow football officials: I apologize for not being on top of my weekly postings. I took a short break for the Holidays but now I'm back.

We had lots of discussion about the umpire signaling a touchdown. I agree that the umpire should not signal a touchdown but give a subtle signal to the wings to let them know that the ball is in the possession of the runner in the end-zone.

I'm going to turn this around and ask a similar question: Real play in the last game of the season for me: I'm the umpire. Team A is snapping the ball from within B's 5 yard line. I watch the blocking at the point of attack between the right guard and tackle. I see the loose ball bounce on the ground around the 2 yard line and roll into the end-zone where B falls on it. After I look up at the head linesman who is closest to the play, he gives no touch-down signal so I signal touchback and then he does also.

I was talking about this after the game with my referee and he said that I probably should not have signaled anything. But I felt good about the call because there was no whistle, touchdown signal, or anything. In other words, I hesitated the proper amount of time before making a call even though the umpire should stay out of these goal-line calls 99.9% of the time. I'm glad I signaled because any more delay on the part of our crew would probably have created some uncertainty on the field.

Just interesting to think about when you have a fumble into the end-zone by A.

[Edited by Mike Simonds on Jan 11th, 2005 at 03:26 PM]