Stop the clock?
 

In my game last Saturday night we had the following play:

Late in the second quarter (maybe 20 seconds left), A on B's 25 yard line. A has no time outs remaining. QB A8 is sacked on B's 31 yard line and the ball appears to come loose. The R eventually ruled that the QB was downed. A's coach immediately begins yelling "KICKING TEAM!!"

By this time there are under 10 seconds left in the half, R hurriedly gets the ball spotted and blows the ready. Due to the semi-confusion about the possible fumble, I (HL) was not in position on the line, and neither the BJ nor the LJ were in position under the goal posts. Somehow, A gets their kicking team on the field, in position, set and snapped in about five seconds to kick the field goal attempt. The ball sailed wide right, so we luckily averted an ugly situation.

In my opinion, the R should have waited until all officials were in position prior to blowing the ready, and consequently A would probably never have gotten the kick off as time would have expired for the half.

In our weekly meetings there was a huge discussion, and many of the veterans had different takes on it. While all agreed that the covering officials must be in place, a few of them said that the game clock should be stopped to allow the officials to get in proper position - I COMPLETELY disagree with that, and I think its just too bad if A doesn't have time.

Opinions?

How fast did he mark the ball ready in all the plays in the game prior to that. The same pace should be kept from start to finish. "Hurry Up" is something the teams do, not the officials. If it takes you 7 secs. to mark the ball ready for play on the first play in the first quarter, then it should take 7 secs. on the last play of the last quarter. My routine is the same. Once the ball is set, I look at each official and verify the down, then I mark it ready. If the R is rushing, he is assisting the offense in helping them get another play. We aren't there to help them get another play.

I agree with Jason, but to answer your other question ... no, R should not take EXTRA time solely to get an official under the uprights. It's our responsibility to get ready to officiate, even in bizarre circumstances like this. R should not hurry, but he should not delay either.

The umpire should be over the ball and the R should make sure the other officials are in position to officiate, this shouldn't take extra time but the R must allow time for his crew to get where they need to be. If the clock run out too bad, they should have saved a time out. There is no way I am going to make a ball RFP if the guys are not uner the goal to make the call.

mbcrowder,

If R would have used his normal cadence on that play (which he didn't - he went pretty fast), the covering officials would NOT have been in proper position. The overall question is, what to do? Allow the play to go off w/o proper coverage? ...or wait for proper coverage and possibly run out of time? ...or stop time in order to get proper coverage?

By the way, I know R is supposed to keep a steady cadence, BUT the RFP will most probably be blown a lot quicker following a 1 yard run on second down than following a 30-yard incomplete pass (with a scrimmage kick to follow) on third down. It will quite naturally take the covering officials a bit longer to get in position for the latter scenario.

If any official sees that they are rushing to get a kicking tee in or hear the coach calling for a field goal unit, then the officials should begin communicating and the covering officials should be moving into position. We always shout out, "we gotta tee, we gotta tee" along with using the "T" hand signal to the officials. Once they are in position, then the R can make it ready. If time runs out during the process then that's too bad. Not sure on the Fed rule, but the NCAA has a rule that allows the officials to stop the clock if there is undue delay by officials in placing the ball for the next snap. I don't believe this would apply here. This rule would apply when perhaps the ball goes out of bounds and the ball boy isn't around to get a new ball. At that time we'd stop the clock. Under NCAA it is also specific that the ball shall be declared ready for play consistently throughout the game. I'd be interested to know if the Fed has a rule like that.

"While all agreed that the covering officials must be in place, a few of them said that the game clock should be stopped to allow the officials to get in proper position..."

If you are following your normal timing between downs (which as JasonTX notes we should always be doing), and the ONLY reason you are not ready after both teams are in position to run play, is that officials are not in place, IMO we stop clock, get in position, and then give RFP w/wind.

Also, if we are in a situation (which I believe is described here) where for some number of seconds we are attempting to decide who actually has possession, then IMO the clock should be stopped until that decision is made. But, as stated previously, the key should be consistent timing on the RFP after each play throughout the game.

Roy,
there really wasn't much time elapsed because the R pretty much immediately signaled that the QB was down - I probably shouldn't have muddied up the scenario with that statement, but I guess I mentioned it because the BJ stated that that was one of the reasons why he was confused and didn't get under quickly enough.

But to clarify, in your opinion you think the game clock should be stopped? Do you not feel that A would be getting an unfair advantage?

Stop the clock? absolutely not.
This will give team-A an advantage they do not deserve.
In a 5-man game, there already should be an official near enough to the posts to cover a kick even alone if need be.
In a 4-man game, we would only have one official at the post and it's his job to know the situation and be on his horse about the time the last play ended.
Stop the Clock... NO.

The key here is really the consistency of the RFP timing between plays. If for whatever the reason, we need to delay the RFP from our "standard" timing, then we should charge the "extra time" as an official's timeout and not allow that "extended delay" between RFP's to allow the clock to run out. If the only reason that we're not in position to judge the FG is due to some confusion among the crew (as I believe we have described here), and we're going to exceed our normal "between plays" time then IMO official's timeout.

IMO we should not stop the clock in this situation, and we must wait for our fellow crewmates to get into proper position to officiate the FG. The rules allow them 3 TO per half and they may also spike the ball or throw an incomplete pass to stop the clock. The coach of the offensive team knew the risks of running an additional play in this situation and he gamble back fired. This is a coaching error and some of us think we should stop the clock to let them try a FG since we didn't get our official under the GP in 5 seconds...not in my game. Let’s not penalize the defensive team for sacking the QB and making a good play.

"Due to the semi-confusion about the possible fumble, I (HL) was not in position on the line, and neither the BJ nor the LJ were in position under the goal posts."

If we're keeping consistent timing between plays and as described in the original post the delay in getting the officials into their proper locations to cover a FG was due to "semi-confusion about the possible fumble" then IMO we should be calling an official's TO. If there was enough time for A & B to substitute and line up, then we should avoid the confusion, call a OTO, and move on.

Perhaps the best response to this thread. I agree.

A has the right to get the play off and, in this case, proved that they could, so stopping the clock would not give them an unfair advantage (I realize this is hindsight). To have the U stand over the ball and not have a RFP would be unfair to A.

Now the next question is, if A is likely to get the kick off, how bad do we want to be in position to rule on the kick? I'm not talking about if the guys should have been in position, it was evident to the R that they weren't and the kick is immanent.

Stopping the clock will give A a small advantage but it is the better option here to ensure proper coverage. It's the same priciple as stopping the clock to let players unpile or to retreive the ball.

The original post says they (HL and BJ) were not under the GP when the ball was kicked, call me crazy but during a FG it helps to have officials under the GP. What is the avg. time between plays? I thought I read some where that the BIG 10 was at anywhere from 12-16 seconds on avg.