Interesting way to think about offsetting fouls
 

This may not be anything new to most of you guys, but tonight a play we had just hit me differently.

I forget the down, but ball on A's 20. A's run breaks loose into the secondary, and he is far downfield. About the B 30 or so, A blocks in the back, then about 10 yards further, another A holds a player (bear hug tackle, actually). A eventually scores. I have the two downfield fouls.

So I turn back to stop the clock and report my stuff to the R (three man), and the LJ is stopping the clock as well. Turns out he had defensive facemask (5 yards) in the backfield on his side before the A player broke loose. So after we clarify fouls on both teams, we offset, and go back to the 20.

At halftime, I tell the guys that the weird part of the play is that B's foul actually helped B. Without the facemask foul, A gets the ball, first down, about the B45 or 50 after the other fouls are enforced. Its just ironic in a lot of these offsetting situations, one team's rule infraction helps, rather than hurts, them.

what if A was able to decline the face mask and have their penalty enforced at the block in the back spot? that would make it interesting.

I talked with someone about this exact situation today. In my mind, it is a flaw in the rulebook.

Perhaps the way to change this is to make an exception to offsetting fouls that if Team A gets a first down and fouls after that, then the fouls against Team A are ignored, and the fouls against Team B are enforced from the previous spot. Sort of a "split the difference" deal with Team A getting an auto first down. So, in this case, Team A has the first down at their own 25.

As one of my partners commented when I pointed this out, "yeah, that's true, but Team A is equally to blame as if they don't foul, they get a TD." In other words, A still has to be responsible for their own fouls and if it costs them a long gain or TD, that's their own problem.

I've been thinking about this for at least 4 years now and continue to scratch my head on how to fix this.

Canadian Ruling
 

This hiccup could never happen with the Canadian ruleset.

B's FM is a 15y foul. There's no 5y variety in Canada. This is also a UR foul - the POA is up to the non-offending team: A.

B has to choose between A's BIB and A's hold. Since the BIB = 15y, and hold = 10y, B will decline the hold and accept the BIB.

The yardage from B's FM and A's BIB will offset, but A will earn an AFD. So it's A1D @ point ball held of the BIB.

Here's a way to solve this:
If A is the home team, wave off the facemask flag and make everybody happy, except B

If B is the home team, pretend that since there are more fouls on A than there were on B, you subtract the total yards penalized on A from the total yards penalized on B, (5 or 15 depending on the degree of the facemask) then you start at the 20 and go backwards.

If we can figure this out, then I can pass algebra!
:eek:

Your abbreviations make no sense to me. What is UR?

On a different note: Thank goodness the NFHS has put in the 5 yard face mask.

Rich, don't speak Canadian, eh?

I'll venture a guess...

UR = Unnecessary Roughness

Oh, I've never thought of a facemask as unnecessary roughness, but then again I guess a 15 yard variety would be.


POA has me confused, too.

Got me there... :confused:

I'll call it Point Of Assessment.

Position of Acceptance??

Bingo. We actually call it Point of (Penalty) Application.

It's interesting becuase anytime there are Fed or NCAA acronyms, I figure them out. Maybe not right away, but soon enough. Then agian, you guys don't see too many Cdn postings. :) (I'm not saying that I'm smarter, I am saying that there are more non-Cdn posts than Cdn posts.)

I'll make a suggestion - y'all can tell me why it would be broken in some other fashion. On a running play, spot the ball at the point of the first flag. On a loose-ball play, we can still go back to the previous spot.