Missing tailbone pad puts team in the playoffs
 

A similar play involving a towel happened last year. We discussed it at our clinic and the consensus was not to penalize it if we did not catch it before the game started. It was suggested that we have the player leave until he was legal. The coach had a rule book and demanded the crew enforce it. I guess they could have checked his team and came up with a missing tag on someone’s glove to make it offset. What do you think of this?


Lodi Cloverleaf sneaked into the playoffs — by the seat of an opposing player's pants.

Medina Highland recovered a fumble in the first overtime and was about to kick what would be the game-winning field goal when Cloverleaf's coaching staff pointed out to officials that kicker Eric Duale wasn't wearing the required tailbone pad. After a 15-yard penalty, the 30-yard kick became a 45-yarder and Duale missed it wide right.

Highland fumbled in the second overtime, Cloverleaf's Allen Bittaker recovering, to set up Kyle Juszczyk's 16-yard touchdown run which put the Colts in the Division II, Regional 6 playoffs for the very first time.

Cloverleaf's coaches had noticed Duale wasn't wearing the pad earlier in the game but waited to tell the referees.

"That was the game right there," said Cloverleaf coach Kevin Gault. "It was the turning point. It's hard to come back when that happens."

Highland coach Tom Lombardo was mystified by the turn of events.

"I'm as baffled as you guys," Lombardo said to reporters

The Courier,Findlay, Ohio: SPORTS Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Is that the correct administration of the situation under Fed rules? Seems a little harsh

I'd be sorely tempted to...."OK coach, but since you saw fit not to bring a safety issue up when you knew it was there, I'm also about to go thru every one of your players to see how many equipment violations I can find. Do we really want to go there?"

Good call by the officials!

Since when do we allow coaches to point out the fouls that we call. Let them complain all they want, but if they insist then call a timeout and check everyone of their players to. I guarantee you that we can find something wrong. There's just know way, if I didn't find fault during the pregame walk thru, that I then penalized them at the end of the game like that. Let alone, flag it because a coach points it out. We'll do the officiating and let them do the coaching.

If a player is not properly equipped, it's an USC foul on the head coach, since he confirmed before the game that they were all properly equipped.

I don't know how it is in Texas, but around here most teams wear all the required equipment. Saying your are going to check one team (you are only checking players, not reserves) and find something wrong is a stretch

So you make sure that each player is wearing the 7 required pads in his pants? You really don't think that there is a chance that one of the 70 players on the team is only wearing 6 and you missed it before the game?

And if you're not calling a foul at the end of the game, what are you going to do? Allow this player to play when you know he isn't legal? That isn't a good idea. Your best choice would be to call the foul, if teams don't want to be penalized they can wear the required equipment.

I'm just saying I don't think it is right for the coach to tell the official what to enforce. Do we call everything "by the book". No. We use common sense in certain situations. The intent of any required equipment rule is to prevent a player from being injured. As I commented on another forum about this subject, I think that we should do everything possible to get the situation corrected. If we've gone all game long without doing penalizing them and apparently that coach knew about it all game long and waited until the end of the game to point it out is just plain wrong. If he was truly concerned about the well-being of that player then he would have pointed it out when he first noticed it. I'd have to have some proof he wasn't wearing one. Call a timeout and walk the kid to his bench to "check" and see if he has the pad on. Don't just take the other coaches word. Let them correct it and move on with the game. Then go to the other coach and tell him, "Coach we appreciate you pointing out the potentional unsafe condition of that player. Safety is our number one goal and we got it corrected thanks to your help. Without you pointing that out he could have suffered a serious injury. The coach of the other team asked me to thank you looking out for his players." At least under NCAA rules, if we are going to flag this then it will be just a charged timeout to that team and only a 5 yard penalty if they don't have timeouts.

Wow! Not a good situation to be in.

Jason, like it or not, if the opposing coach points out that a player is not wearing the required equipment and he participated in the previous play I don't see how you can't enforce the penalty. The coach was probably told by one of his own players that the opposing player was lacking the piece of equipment. The coach has now informed you that he suspects that the equipment is missing and your inspection confirms it to be true.

Are you going to tell the coach that he's right but you're going to ignore the rule and not penalize?

It's not an enviable position to be in but the opposing coach was asked before the game if all of his players were properly equipped. Presumably, he said 'yes'.

The coach isn't telling the officials what to enforce. The other team isn't following the rules and the coach pointed it out to the official.

I think if this player did not participate in the previous down, you have rule support from case book play 1.5.1G (a) to send the player off to have it corrected. If he did participate and you know for a fact he did, you don't have much choice on this by rule.

I agree except I would state, "I think if we did not specifically see this player participate on the previous down, and if we did not specifically see during at time that the equipment was missing..." Heck, with a coach like this, I wouldn't put it past him to have stolen the pad on the last play.

How do you steal a tailbone pad when a guy is wearing it? :confused:

As a referee, I would stop the play and send the kicker off to get a new tailbone pad. This is a safety foul and it needs to be fixed before the next play, but the 15yard USC is overkill. Lets not forget, we're out there to insure the players safety and to proveide a fair contest. We need to look for ways to have a good game and NOT impact the outcome.