New Series
 

NFHS
Rainy night and the coach asks to change out the game ball. I said you can't until the series has ended. They proceed to get a first down and the coach asks me again to change the ball. I tell him again that you can't change the ball until your series has ended.

Does a series of downs mean an entire drive until they relinquish the ball, or until they get a first down? (Maximum of 4 downs) I read casebook 1.3.2 and my exact situation doesn't apply, but from the other situations explained I'd say I was in error.

I'm not sure of your mechanics, but we will rotate balls any time the ball goes outside the numbers, regardless of the down.

If its particualarly bad out I tend to be little more liberal with ball changes. I try and keep a ball that is relatively "dry" and not covered in mud in the game. Often I will keep the ball covered in my towel then put the ball down when the offense breaks the huddle. There's no sense putting it down so that the ball gets wetter than it is going to get, in effect making it more difficult to snap.

Playing in the rain is enough of a disadvantage for both teams, they don't need anything else to make the game tougher than it is.

A new series starts with a first down. Once the chains move, they can bring in a new ball.
On a rainy night, I'm going to let them change the ball within the series as long as they can quickly get the dry one rotated in to me.

On a rainy night I would change whenever possible. On a dry night, I would let A change whenever they had a first down, which is a new series.

Ditto. We had rain last night and we were changing the ball every other snap.

On a side note, I hate officiating in the rain. :(

Thanks for all your input and this forum. I've been doing this wrong for years and probably would have continued doing it wrong except the coach questioned me and I checked in the rulebook. Thanks for verifying

Had a JV game last Saturday on a field so muddy that we had to change the balls on every play. We only had 3 officials, the other 2 got wise and decided to work the wings and left me in the middle as the R/U combo. They had nearly clean uniforms when it was over...me headed to the showers and laundry!

Starting a new series with a ball has more to do with the type of ball - leather or composition or 8 vs 12 laces. They cannot switch type of ball during a series. With referee discretion, they may swap the same type of referee-approved ball on each down. Rule 5 covers a new series of downs.