Flag on the Sideline

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by grantsrc

The officials manual specifically stated in the past that a flag was not thrown on the first warning. IMO, it was to differentiate between the warning and the penalty.

Up until last year, I "erroniously" threw a flag on the warnings because the coaches responded to it more than a simple warning. When they see the yellow fly, they instantly thought it was something other than a warning. In fact, once I threw it and the coach thought I gave him a 15 USC penalty. Probably hurt my rating... Oh well.

Interesting, I didn't even realize the official NFHS mechanic was to not flag a sideline warning. I think our association's mechanic is different but I would have to check. At any rate, I agree a flag is a good wakeup call. I had one last year that I decided to throw after my sideline's team made a long pass completition. The coach was very relieved to "only" be receiving a warning and what do you know, the sideline was clean as a whistle the rest of the night.