NF: Illegal Participation
 

If a non-player comes onto the field during the down and does not impact the actual play in progress/runner/defense, but does get in the way of a wing official in that the official either contacts or has to obviously move around the non-players, is this technically "influencing" the play in that it may cause the official to be out of position and therefore possibly not able to accurately rule on the play and therefore be a live-ball, basic-spot foul instead of a succeeding spot UC foul as in 9-8-1-i?

thanks

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

0-yard ejection foul.

That maybe the world's longest run-on sentence.

My head hurts. :)

You seem to be wanting to go with rule 9-6-3 on IP. That is a tough sell I think. It will be interesting to hear others thoughts, but I would lean towards no.

DITTO! :)

REPLY: I'm with MJT. I think it's a stretch to look to 'upgrade' this to IP because of inadvertent contact with the official. He didn't influence the play at all.

Ok good. I didn't think that this was the intent of the rule and a 15 yard succeeding spot foul should probably get the job done as far as sending a message. thanks

REPLY: Personally, I think this should be left the 5-yd illegal substitution penalty it deserves. The fact that he somehow interfered with the official is not that significant unless there was an obvious intent to impede or contact the official. If it was inadvertent, let it go at the 5-yd penalty. JMO

I would say 5-yd IS too if it was one or two substitutes....but in this case I'm talking about 10-20 players and 5-6 coaches being 1-2 yards on the field. Like when their team intercepts a pass and as a wing you have to switch directions quickly and all of a sudden you're going through a mass of bodies because they're all excited and want to see the score.

REPLY: Oh...that's different. From your original post, I thought you were talking about a single substitute entering the field after the snap because he thoght he was the 11th guy or something like that.

sorry about that...I thought I covered it all in that run-on sentence. But that's kind of where I was going with this--in theory. I still believe in the intent like you were saying earlier that it's about true influence, but imagine all of those non-players on the field and now you can't rule on a foot touching the sideline as their guy sprints down the sideline. In a 5-man crew, the wing is it as far as sideline OOB goes.
I'm really not trying to create a penalty that isn't there or make up a foul or an interpretation, just trying to debate for fun. Like I said, I still think what was discussed earlier about this on the being a SS foul is the right enforcement and intent.