How does the saying go..."if the hat fits, wear it" :D

I thought it was "If the glove does not fit..."? :p

Don't you have an excess score rule whereby the clock runs except for a score, timeout or an officals time out? The game would have been done pretty quickly in the second half.

Texas has no blowout rule (except in 6-man football) But guys use common sense in regular ganes once the game is a blowout

No ... this was an attempt at humor. Sorry you didn't get it, and I suppose it should have been accompanied by some sort of icon.

Regarding your "preventative officiating", I did consult some people in the chapter and found that while the opinions were split, the majority seems to be on the side you were endorsing, specifically including my crew chief, so in the future I will warn coaches of I overhear that they are about to run an illegal play. I have always believed in preventative officiating, but didn't think it applied to telling the coaches what plays they can run (at least not DURING the game as opposed to beforehand). But I will now. To me, PO was helping a wideout get "on" or "off", warning players when things start getting chippy, etc.

regarding this OP, of course we should just simply officiate the game presented to us. It's not our call to decide when enough is enough regarding a score. For all we know, the team that's up by 40 may actually be the inferior team and eventually need the points it's still trying to accumulate.

There's a reason we have to buy bigger hats here...

My bad. I shoulda realized the obvious sarcasm. No way a feller from Little Elm would have done as you suggested.

PS Did you boys get them size 9 caps in yet?

Where in Texas are you? NO ONE knows where Little Elm is. Which chapter are you in?

Check your private messages

I wouldn't say anything...
 

...but if it continued in the third qtr. EVERY little thing that team did would get flagged, I wouldn't hear requests for TOs and my white hat would probably be winding the clock every chance he gets.

I understand that mentality, and confess that when I see a coach doing what I would consider "running up the score", I get irritated. So I understand your motivation.

But I think you're asking for more headache than it's worth, and you're overstepping your bounds when you start becoming the arbiter of this sort of thing.

True story from my 1st year:

Two teams playing early in the season, call them Blue and White. Blue was up big quickly, mostly because of their defense. Defense had scored a couple of times, and set up most of the offense's scoring with turnovers, big sacks, etc. Game was something like 42-0 as we near halftime and they are still trying their darndest to get every point on the board, and i believe they did score once again right before halftime.

WH spends the entire halftime grumbling about his lack of sportsmanship, he should know better, etc, and instructs us to call the ticky-tack stuff - holding away from the play, the slightest little wiggle on the line, etc, even saying something like, "If you seem them break another one off, I'm SURE there was holding behind that play." And remember, I (and the other linesman) were rookies, so we do as we're told.

Turns out, however, that several of the members of the defense on Blue had to leave for some sort of school function (I don't remember if it was a dance, a concert, play, show, whatever, and I'm not sure I ever knew for sure). Anyway, we start calling the ticky tack stuff and probably thwart a drive. Everything close is in-bounds - trying to "Save White some pain" and get the game overwith. Lo and behold White scores. Again, we run a little clock and cause Blue some grief. White scores again and again. It's near the end of the 3rd quarter before WH calls us together and tells us to call things more normally.

White lost this game by less than a TD, and it bothers me to this day that my "veteran" leadership on that day caused me to do what I know now was probably wrong. We possibly cost the White team players quite a memory.

mbcrowder, I understand completely...
 

but I think your example is the exception and an extreme one at that. Plus for clarification, I would never do this in a varsity game. At that level it's up to the coaches to take care of it.

I agree that it's extreme. But I think it does illustrate that there may be reasons for things that are going on, that we don't know anything about. I would say at the very least that if we are going to try to steer things as mentioned above, we wait until much later than just halftime. Consider Houston vs Buffalo.

I'm speechless
 

I can't believe the discourse I just witnessed.

The fact that the thought of officiating a football game any different than fairly, with unflinching concentration on the rules, entered into your mind screams for you to get out of this vocation.

Those of us that have played at ANY level, and have the passion and love for the greatest game EVER, are puking in our hats at hearing just a hint that a football official would even fathom changing the way they officiate due to any circumstance.

You keep your focus on your keys, you see big, and you keep the kids safe to the best of your ability.

J

To whom are you replying, Jay?