Reddings guide illegal participation

[Jim D.]

Several people claim to have the only one and authorized answer, and that therefore all other opinions or views are wrong. However, the rule as written, does not give the answer and there is nothing else from the NFHS that would shed additional light on it. In other words, there is no "right" answer.

There is no need to rehash the different views, they're all buried in the post.

Point 1 - The rule does not tell us the status of this player.
Point 2 - There is no additional comment, interpretation, ruling published by the NFHS that discusses this play.

Until such time as the NFHS re-writes the rule or releases an interpretation, the puppy is open to several conflicting, but valid interpretations. I'm not claiming to have THE answer, I'm just saying no one else has the offical answer either.

I think we're mature enough to live with a little ambiguity.

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by jaybird

Alf,
This is where Kevin gets the rule support to confirm his "interpretation". Whether it satisfies your "logic or common sense" is immaterial.



Simple explanation: If a player is airborne and not touching anything, he is NOT out of bounds.

You would need to discard any of your thought processes that involve your conceived convictions of what is logical and understand the rule as it is simply written. Accept what is written and the fact that your interpretation of what is logical and common sense may not be the accepted norm that everyone lives by.

There, you have the only "proof" that is needed. Either accept it or not, but remember that what KWH advocates has rule support!

Perhaps you are comfortable with, "discard(ing) any of your thought processes that involve your conceived convictions of what is logical", but my problem is NOT with the rule, my problem is with HOW some have elected to interpret it.

As for "rule support", I don't read where NF: 2-29-1 states, or even remotely suggests, that after a player renders himself OOB (by touching anything OOB) he has to maintain contact with what he touched to remain OOB, which is what your interpretation requires.

Under your interpretation, a player could take himself OOB, run the entire length of the football field OOB, then jump up into the air and legally bat a live, loose ball back onto the field from OOB, and you want to argue that is what the rule intends, despite being unable to refute that being illogical. Please don't waste my time with your, "rule support", what you suggest as "rule support" is a figment of your imagination.

If you can suggest some semblance of logic, or reason that such an intent has anything whatsoever to do with the rational flow of the game of football, I'd be really interested in hearing it. Otherwise all you're saying is that "someone" has conjured up a meaning, to the string of words used, that makes absolutely no sense, or has any rational relation to the game of football, and everyone else should simply hold their nose and buy into it, despite the fact it makes no sense.

You might consider, if you accept that the rules of the game, any of them, INTENTIONALLY MAKE NO SENSE, you undermine the credibility of the game.

In the absence of a an official interpretation, You get to choose which interpretation you believe applies, and so do I. Good luck with your selection, I'm just fine with mine.

[KWH]

Originally Posted by ajmc

...a player could take himself OOB, run the entire length of the football field OOB, then jump up into the air and legally bat a live, loose ball back onto the field from OOB...

Legal play!
When the airbourne PLAYER batted the football, such PLAYER, by NFHS definition, is not out of bounds as per: NFHS 2-29-1.
Therefore, by rule, this play is legal as the ball did not touch anything that is out of bounds as per NFHS 2-29-3.

Thanks for the great sample play. It sure gets us all thinking and remembering to:
READ RULE 2, READ RULE 2, READ RULE 2

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by KWH

Legal play!
When the airbourne PLAYER batted the football, such PLAYER, by NFHS definition, is not out of bounds as per: NFHS 2-29-1.
Therefore, by rule, this play is legal as the ball did not touch anything that is out of bounds as per NFHS 2-29-3.

Thanks for the great sample play. It sure gets us all thinking and remembering to:
READ RULE 2, READ RULE 2, READ RULE 2

You are having enough difficuly, KWH, with the words coming out of your mind, to try and put words in mine. As I suggested, IF YOU BUY INTO YOUR INTERPRETATION, that ridiculous sample play could actually appear to be legal. If however, you consider logic, common sense and a familiarity with the basic intent of the game of football, you may likely come to a completely opposite conclusion.

Reading and understanding Rule 2 is very important to comprehending the rules of the game and effectively enforcing them, as is being cautious not to add a lot of unwritten, superflous assumptions, that contradict the foundational basics of the game, such as that a player who has clearly established himself OOB, continues to be OOB as long as he remains OOB.

[mikesears]

Originally Posted by ajmc

You are having enough difficuly, KWH, with the words coming out of your mind, to try and put words in mine. As I suggested, IF YOU BUY INTO YOUR INTERPRETATION, that ridiculous sample play could actually appear to be legal. If however, you consider logic, common sense and a familiarity with the basic intent of the game of football, you may likely come to a completely opposite conclusion.

Reading and understanding Rule 2 is very important to comprehending the rules of the game and effectively enforcing them, as is being cautious not to add a lot of unwritten, superflous assumptions, that contradict the foundational basics of the game, such as that a player who has clearly established himself OOB, continues to be OOB as long as he remains OOB.

I don't know what a superflous interpretation is.

Al, you continue to put forth an appeal to ridicule argument. Basically you are saying that your position is right because the other position is stupid (superfluous, contradict foundational basics, illogical, etc).

[Berkut]

Originally Posted by ajmc

You are having enough difficuly, KWH, with the words coming out of your mind, to try and put words in mine. As I suggested, IF YOU BUY INTO YOUR INTERPRETATION, that ridiculous sample play could actually appear to be legal. If however, you consider logic, common sense and a familiarity with the basic intent of the game of football, you may likely come to a completely opposite conclusion.

I am not sure I understand this.

Football is a game defined by the rules under which it is played - there is no "logic" to it, per se - only rules. There is logic in how we draw conclusions from the rules (for example, logic tells us that the ground cannot cause a fumble - there is no rule that says so, per se, but logic means that this is is the certain conclusion of the application of the rules).

The rules seem very clear in how they define a players status as OOB - I don't see any interpretation even needed. That "ridiculous" sample play is legal because that is how the rules are written. Whether it is "logical" that it be legal isn't really relevant, and I think it is a mis-use of the term "logic". Logic deals with rules and how you apply them to reach a conclusion. Logically, the play is legal. There is certainly no logical fallacy involved in concluding that the play is legal based on the rules given.

It is perfectly logical to conclude that a "ridiculous" play is legal, if in fact the rules support the play as being legal. I don't think anyones sense of outrage is really the point.

Now, you can argue that the play should not be legal, perhaps. And maybe that is the case - I don't really see what benefit a team could get from trying to exploit such a loophole though.

[Berkut]

Originally Posted by ajmc

that contradict the foundational basics of the game, such as that a player who has clearly established himself OOB, continues to be OOB as long as he remains OOB.

Where is that in the rules?

The rules state that a player is OOB as long as he is touching something OOB, right?

It doesn't say anything about him staying OOB when he isn't touching something OOB - why would you assume that there is a "foundational basic" of the game that isn't mentioned in the rulebook, when the rulebook specifically does mention the rather specific definition?

I think I must be missing something here - what is it?

[KWH]

I'm with Berkut!
And I would add there is Rules Book support for Berkut's ruling.

As for Alf, I can find no Rules Book support for:
"a player who has clearly established himself OOB, continues to be OOB as long as he remains OOB". and, absent of rules book support, Alf's interpretation is incorrect.


Officials are hired to officiate the Rules of the Game even if they personally do not agree with them.
For example, I personally do not think that a player who has established himself as an OOB player should be able to leap in the air and bat a football and the football remain live as the player is not, by definition OOB. However, since I am hired to officiate the game as written in the NFHS rules book, I do not have the luxury of relying on logic, common sense, familiarity with the basic intent of the game of football, superflous assumptions, foundational basics of the game, or magic 8-balls.
Rather, because I am hired to officiate the game based on NFHS rules, the play must be ruled as legal for there is nothing to specifically state that it is illegal.

How can I arrive at this conclusion? Simple!
The answer is found in the well written and often overlooked Rule 2-37 which is the definition of a Rule.

So, in conclusion, based on Rules 2-29-1, 2-29-3, and 2-37 the play is legal! And for clarification, football officials are not within their juristriction to tell a coach, "Thank you, here's how we going to rule on that today" and then explain your understanding of the rule to him, and how you will enforce it, as doing so would be a violation of the written rules, foolhardy, and a bit askew!

Read Rule 2, Read Rule 2, Read Rule 2

Nuff said

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Berkut

I am not sure I understand this.

Football is a game defined by the rules under which it is played - there is no "logic" to it, per se - only rules. .

Well, I guess I've always considered that the rules of this game were intended to be logical and followed various patterns that make it understandable, somewhat predictable and striving towards logical objectives. I recognize, and appreciate, the fairly consistent difficulty in writing rules to avoid confusion or deliberately create circumstances that may inadvertently create unnecessary confusion.

The rule is question uses the word "touching" in a way that offers multiple possibilities. Interpretations can sometimes be stretched to varying degrees, which doesn't necessitate stretching interpretations to the most outlandish degree, which is where I would place the notion that by jumpimg up into the air (no longer touching) after satisfying the requirements to being OOB creates some momentary return to being inbounds.

I used the word ridiculous because I thought "stupid" would be unnecessarily harsh, but my vocabulary has limits. Rightly or wrongly, I have never considered football, or it's rules, rocket science, and I don't believe the intent of it's rule makers is to make any rule unecessarily complicated, vague or subject to irrational interpretation.

Football has two directional entities; in-bounds and OOB and appears to otherwise consider these two "places" separate and distinct from each other. I see no relevant purpose to support the notion that the otherwise bright line drawn between these two statuses would be intended to be blurred by such a unique interpretation. Therefore, until being persuaded there is some purpose or intent to supprt such an interpretation, I rely on logic and common sense to reject it.

You are obviously free to do as you so choose.

[Berkut]

I don't think it is "outlandish" to say that the word "touching" requires one to actually be touching something to apply. I think that is, in fact, the actual definition of the word.

I would, with all respect, suggest that it is a considerably larger stretch to "interpret" 'touching' to mean 'touching or have touched in the past even if NOT touching now', since I don't think that is at all the definintion of the word in common usage.

Example: Right now I am touching my keyboard. If I remove my finger from the keybord, am I still touching it? I think not.

Absent some specific instruction from the rulebook or relevant interpretation from the rules committee, I don't see how we can presume that logic, reason, or common sense would suggest that we re-define a word to mean something almost exactly the opposite of what it actually means.

I would further suggest that if in fact the rules committee decides this is an important enough problem to warrant a "fix" (I cannot possibly imagine how it could be), they need to change the verbiage of the rule, since an interpretation that involves actually changing the definition of a commonly known word to mean almost the opposite of its actual meaning would be needlessly confusing.

I don't see why they could not, if they wished, simply adopt the basketball-type rule on this issue.

[Jim D.]

Originally Posted by Berkut

Where is that in the rules?

The rules state that a player is OOB as long as he is touching something OOB, right?

It doesn't say anything about him staying OOB when he isn't touching something OOB - why would you assume that there is a "foundational basic" of the game that isn't mentioned in the rulebook, when the rulebook specifically does mention the rather specific definition?

I think I must be missing something here - what is it?

I think here is what's missing - There is no defenition of inbounds in the rule book.

This whole discussion revolves around a player who is out of bounds and who then jumps in the air. Unfortunately, there is no rule coverage to define his status.

Is he inbounds? Don't know. He could be based on a logic assumption that if he isn't out, then he must be in (the only two states the rules acknowlege).

Is he still out? Not sure - he's not touching anything so presumably he's not still out, although that would seem the most logical conclusion. Did the rules writers mean to be that restrictive when they wrote the rule or were they just trying to define when he should be considered to have gone out?

Is he in some in-between state? That seems the most unlikely. There is no rule support for the existance of a neither-in-nor-out state, and it seems unlikely the rules makers ever imagined such a state. If they did have such an odd state in mind, I would think they would have mentioned it. I think this status is the least likely possibility.

Anyway, because of the above, the play is open to individual interpretation. I've yet to see a reference to an NF rule or interpretation that clears it up. I know KWH strongly feels this is a legal play, and I'm fine with that. I'd call it "incomplete" because that's what I think is the proper call. I may well be wrong, but I don't think so.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong, except when they say their answer is the "correct or approved" rule. There isn't one that I've seen yet.

[Berkut]

If we agree that there is no such thing as "not in but not out of bounds" (and I don't see how one can claim that there is any such thing), then the only choices there are are "out of bounds" and "in bounds".

The rule does in fact specifially state what makes someone out of bounds. If we accept that they must be out or in, then if the rule specifically states that they are our under specific circumstances, then barring those specific circumstances, reason would dictate that they are in bounds.

Now, perhaps this is an oversight in the rules that ought to be cleared up - but the rules as written, I think, are in fact very clear. The only way to argue that someone in air is NOT in bounds is to either

1. Argue that there exists some kind of alternate status to in and out of bounds, or
2. Argue that the rule which defines out of bounds has changed the meaning of the word "touching" to mean something rather different from what we understand it to mean.

If the rule writers meant to say that the player *remains* out of bounds until he touches something in bounds, then they should have said so - imagining that they meant to say so when they did not is taking us outside the realm of the rules, and into the realm of what we think the rules ought to be - a different discussion entirely.

I wonder what the NCAA and NFL rulebooks say about this?

Personally, I agree that this is a rather silly idea - that someone can go out of bounds and then legally touch a ball. I don't really think it will ever come up though.

You could deal with this specific play by defining IP to include touching the ball after going OOB as well.

[Jim D.]

Berkut, I agree with your comments but then here is the rub. If the player who is no longer out-of-bounds is in-bounds because he jumped:

a) he is guilty of IP (even if he doesn't touch the ball) because he has returned inbounds after having gone out.

b) any sub on the sideline would be guilty of IP if he jumped in the air while cheering on a great play.

Because of that, I've ruled out in-bounds as a choice and I already ruled out the "neither-in-nor-out" state so I'm sticking with out of bounds as the best call.

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by Jim D.

Berkut, I agree with your comments but then here is the rub. If the player who is no longer out-of-bounds is in-bounds because he jumped:


b) any sub on the sideline would be guilty of IP if he jumped in the air while cheering on a great play.

No, they wouldn't be guilty of IP because they are non-players and they did not participate in the play. This is not the same as a player leaving and entering the field again during a play.

This, along with both the Redding Guide currently ruling this way and the NFHS casebook having done so at one time (with no published change), I am comfortable in going with the majority on this play.

That makes the most sense to me. To argue that the present tense verb "touching" also includes the past tense does not make much sense to me at all.

[KWH]

Alf-
You post above has two incorrect statements:

1) You wrote: "The rule is question uses the word "touching"..."
The actual wording in the rule in question is: ...is touching...

2) You wrote: "Football has two directional entities; in-bounds and OOB and appears to otherwise consider these two "places" separate and distinct from each other".
In actuality, NFHS Football does not have a definition of IN BOUNDS which I believe IS likely the reasoning for your confusion.

So, and while you may continue to find it to be stupid, because there is no definition of inbounds, and since we only have a definition of out of bounds again then, by definition a player can either be "out of bounds" or "not out of bounds".