Interesting comment from a coach on Friday

[BoBo]

First half goes very well and as my U,L, and BJ prepare to bring the visiting teams captains out for the second half options.

Coach tells my guys " Hey you guys have got to watch them more closely on when they are punting."

"Why coach"

"Their center is releasing early on every punt and that is an illegal man downfied to early on a punt"

My guys were not sure if he was serious or not but kindly explained that he may be watching to much tv and that would an NFL rule and is not a fed rule.

Coach replies" Well I am not going to argue the point you guys seem to know the rules pretty well but keep your on it"

We gather in the middle before we part to start the second half. BJ tells the story quickly and as the WH I could hardly stop laughing about it long enough to blow my whistle for the second half kickoff.

These sideline guys cease to amaze me.

[waltjp]

In a game earlier tonight - very wet and sloppy field.

K is in punt formation. The snap is low and skips along the ground. R's coach is yelling from the sideline, "You can hit him!"

The punter cleanly fields the snap and gets off a fine punt.

Later in the game, the same team is punting. Again the punt is low and skips to the punter. R's coach is yelling again, "You can hit him."

The punter fields the ball cleanly and punts it away. Bang! He's hit by a K player. R flags it.

The coach goes nuts. "The ball was on the ground! He can be hit."

As I'm walking off the penalty the R players are all protesting, saying that the ball was on the ground and the kicker could be hit. Obviously they're just repeating what the coach told them at some point.

[buckrog64]

I think we're at the time of year where we can tell a coach at the beginning of the game that by now we've heard it all, and nothing they scream at us will affect how we call the game. I'll trust my own eyes, thank you.

[SoGARef]

Waltjp, that is probably one of the most misunderstood occurances in high school football. I once had a game where the ball skipped back to the punter and he began to run. He was able to get off the punt and the pursuing defenders had time to attempt to avoid contact with him. Instead two defenders plowed right over the kicker. I flagged the play for RTK and administered the penalty. The head coach for the defense went bonkers. At halftime he came running up to me saying that I had blown that call and that I would never work another game of his. My response to him was, "Coach, based on you record, that is not much of a threat." He was gone the next season and I still work the team's games still.