neutral zone
 

I had my dad (A retired official) at my game tonight who questioned me on this.

When a wide receiver breaks the huddle and then accidentally runs past the neutral zone, realizes it immediately, and then gets back on his side of the ball, should we flag it? Given that the center's hands were on the ball, by the letter of the rule, we should. However, this is something we've always let go (Until the snap is imminent), even at the varsity level.

First couple of times, we would warn him. After that, he's gotta wake up and pay attention. Flag.

Really not sure how long preventative officiating has been around and maybe something your father was not introduced to during his days. No way, this is not getting a flag unless the ball is snapped and the kid is in la la land. I will verbally let them not to get back. Of course, coaches will not say anything as long as you treat both sides in this manner.

Why throw the flag, stop the clock on a 5 yarder, talk and correct it prior to the snap. If you eliminate some of these small clock stopping fouls, the game will run smoother. It all goes back to your philosophy and I'm sure others here will disagree with this but many will agree.

I agree with the above posters and have one other suggestion. I am the R, but have my wings extend their finger outward showing the wide outs where the LOS is, which definitely helps in getting them in not going in the NZ. They do not extend their arms all the way out, but kind of have their elbow touching their side and the forearm extends out with the middle and index fingers pointing to show the LOS.

Preventative officiating is great and I believe in it 100%, but sometimes it doesn't prevent things like this like a flag would. At the subvarsity level, I'm going to warn a couple of times before flagging it. At the jr. high level, I'm probably not going to flag it, but at the varsity level, we will probably flag this. I say probably because my inclination is to warn once and then flag, but it is something we always discuss in the pregame. So we'll decide what to do, but the most we do is warn once.

This happens in college games, too. Tell them to back up and move on.