12 men breaking the huddle

[sloth]

I wanted to give this thread a big old bump for my white hat who frequents this site.

We had a spirited discussion during halftime of our game last night (which was televised as the game of the week...very cool experience seeing yourself on TV). The crew maintained that you can't break the huddle with 12 players. I insisted that was an NCAA rule and that in federation the simple act of breaking the huddle with over 11 players isn't a penalty itself nor is it automatically a substitution infraction. I understand the concerns of a replaced player not leaving the field in a timely fashion; but furthering a misnomer, that most all coaches hold about the rules, only serves to make our job harder.

[Bob M.]

REPLY: sloth...you're correct and your crew needs to get on the right page with this: There is only one foul that might be called in this type of situation. It is simply for failure of a replaced player to leave the field 'immediately' after being informed that he's been replaced. There is no Federation foul specifically specified for breaking the huddle with twelve players. There is in NCAA, but not in Federation! So if a substitute enters a huddle just before they are about to break and as the huddle breaks, the replaced player heads off to his sideline and off the field, there is no foul!

[Zebra in NV]

In general, this is a judgement call regarding the "immediately". Our association prefers we flag them as a substitution violation, rather than have it develop into a participation violation. If I hear the sub tell 62 Jones "you're out" and Jones is having a brain fart, I'm cutting them some slack on the "immediately".

[Theisey]

an acceptable time for "immediate" is 3 to 5 seconds.

[sloth]

I agree with the 3 to 5 second window. I think it really is up to the white hat to watch the situation and make the call based on his opinion as to what "immediate" is considered.

I really don't want to give coaches that easially quantifable criteria if its wrong. Thats where I think as officials we ALWAYS need to avoid the term "breaking the huddle with 12 players". Its not the rule, and while the spirit of the federation rule is very similar, its not the same absolute cut and dry measurement as to if a foul has occured. There is that discression allowed to the referee to let it pass if it wasn't intended to gain an advantage or deliberate in nature.