Flag on the Sideline
 

Reading the Referee magazine summary of NF rules changes:

A flag shall be thrown on all sideline warnings and penalties.

Who doesn't throw the flag for the warning?

I'm not so sure of the LJ not required to go to mid-field to set the Rs on a free kick. (Hash mark is OK.) Why should the BJ have all the fun?

It was never clear at the NFHS level that a flag was or wasn't to be tossed for the warnings. After all, "it was just a warning" so some said. NF has finally clarified this. Flag it.

I see no real need for the LJ to be out there in the middle. There used to be years ago when the receiving team had to have five guys up near the 50. Of course that restriction was removed, hence no need to be there to remind them of that fact. Even going in as far as the in-bounds line is not really needed, but I'll not argue for or against staying on the sidelines.

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.

I like the change. The flag really does change the message or the warning.

As for coming to the center, I never did that in the first place. I simply came to the hash at most anyway. No sense going all the way to the middle. Most of the time no need to go to the hash unless a kid gets confused.

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. :D