Defered Option
 

If the winning team of the coin toss chooses to defer choice to second half, What happens in the first half as far as who recieves the ball?
Again I know it sounds like a stupid question I just want to be sure im getting this right.

Brandon,
some of these things you are asking lately are basic things easily found within the rulebook. It would really be to your benefit to read the book over and over again to get this stuff.

But to answer your question, if the winner defers, then the other team gets the choice of options....which are kick or receive or which goal they wish to defend. In most cases you are going to strongly suggest they take receive.

Keep asking Bradon. Don't let the fact that some of these questions may seem elementary deter you from asking. There are no stupid questions....

Just stupid people ;)


To defer simply means that team opts to make it's choice at the start of the second half. So they can choose to receive/kick or defend a goal to start the second half. The team that did not defer then gets the other option.

And yes, uninformed players sometimes make bad decisions when the other team defers.

I thought it went "There are no stupid questions...just stupid people that ask questions." I keed I keed... :D


One thing you will find, especially at lower levels, is that most good White Hats will not let a captain select the option to "Kick" without making sure he is really sure that is what he wants to do.

I have read the rule 3-2-1, 2, 3. What I don't understand is If the winning team defers, Does the losing team choose both recieve or kick and which goal to defend or just kick or recieve?

If the winning team defers, then the losing team has any of those choices. They can choose to kick, receive or defend a goal.

Brandon,

Do the research and then tell us what you think it should be, and then ask for confirmation or correction. I think you'll learn more than just asking for an answer. The rules and procedures are all in the books.

We appreciate the fact that you want to learn and we are glad to help, but you also need to know how to find the answer yourself.

Lets say the visiting team wins the toss and elects to defer their option until the second half.

Then the home team can choose to kick, receive or defend a goal. More than likely they will choose to receive (if they choose kick, the visiting team will receive the first half and more than likely choose to receive the second half, or, the visiting team can chose to defend a goal, the home team can then choose to receive and have the option to receive the second half.)

Keep the questions coming.

Anytime the word kick comes out of a captains mouth I immediately follow with two lines:

First: (If its the first half) "You mean you want to receive the second half, so you want to defer the first half right?"

Secondly: "You know if you choose to kick this half then they can choose to receive in the second half and you'll be kicking off both times."

Before I learned that trick, I had a couple of upset coaches both of which were more upset at their sons for not being the smartest captains on the field.

Since I got to varsity level I've never really had a problem. Only once did a captain say kick, but his coach told us in our pregame he was going to kick-off if he won. (They were awful on kick returns. I think they would have been better off after giving up a touchdown taking the option to kickoff again. Their defense gave them better field position than their kick return team did. )

There is one way to assure you get it right, in the pregame conference with the head coach ask him what options he wants.

I hope you are not speaking as an official when you say you will suggest what they should do.


As an aside, I think that many coaches don't coach their captains very well as to what they should do. If I were the coach, I'd instruct my speaking captain to only choose between defer or receive, unless there are unusual weather conditions.

When I am whitehat, I ask the capt. winning the toss whether he wants to choose now or defer his choice to the 2nd half.

The mechanics manual specifies almost exactly those words. If the captain chooses to defer I step out, inidcate the captain of the team winning the toss, announce they have won the toss and elected to defer giving signal 10.

Then turn to the other captain and get the choices, etc.

Actually, yes I am. I am going to suggest they receive the ball, usually by simply stating to the losing team "you want the ball, right?". If they try to go with kick I'll ask them if they really want to kick both halves. Amazingly, I've never had any coach ever question it from either side. You can go strictly by the book here and possibly buy yourself a shtstorm, or you can practice a little game management. Your choice.

The winner of the toss may choose to defer to the second half or take their options in the first half. The options are to 1)receive, or 2)kick, or 3)chose an end zone to defend. If the winner defers, then the "loser" gets the choice of the options, any one of the three.

That is what I do as well, including the direction they want to defend if they lose the toss. If a coach says they want to defer and the captain says "kick", I will ask him if he is sure and remind him that his coach wanted to defer. This is not something you want the captain to screw up because it will only cause you issues later. I do the same thing with penalty enforcement, especially if there is a loss of down and they are looking at me with that deer in the headlights look.

We ask the coaches in the pre-game conference as well. If one says receive and the other says defer, I know who is going to have the ball first. If I'm in a jovial mood, I will tell the captains that I am escorting to the R that they will definitely be kicking or receiving the opening kick off (depending on which team I have). They look at me like I'm crazy and laugh when they realize I was right. It's my own inside joke. The things we do to entertain ourselves.

Interesting. Two seasons ago we had a visiting team win the toss and elect to kick. The WH essentially did what you say and talked them out of it. It cost us a possession. Why should one team lose a possession because the other coaching staff didn't do their job?

We never "talk" them out of it. If they truly want to kick, we will allow it. What we do is make sure that they fully understand what their choice entails. When a captain says they want to kick, I will say, "you realize it is your choice this half. They will have the choice in the second half and could end up receiving both halves. Are you sure you don't want to defer instead?" If they still insist on kicking that is their right. It didn't really cost you a possession.

And I'm sure you don't mind when the officials try to keep your captains from making a poor penalty choice or even maybe come directly to you on a difficult one. It is amazing how ones perspective changes depending on just who is getting the help, huh?

My perspective doesn't change much on it at all...we teach our captains what to do and say. If they aren't sure, they are taught to turn to our sideline and yell at us - and we yell back what we want them to do. Again, if the other coaches don't do it this way, that's not our fault...if our captains make a poor choice, then we will deal with them at our next practice.

Sounds like another example of why, "One size NEVER fits all". Some coaches want to be involved in Captain's decisions, others want their Captains to learn to make decisions, and there are all sorts of increments inbetween.

The Referee's job is to explain options as clearly and completely as possible and deciding whether the explanation has satisfied those requirements is the responsibility of the Referee, alone. If a Captain makes a decision that causes the Referee to question whether his explanation was as clear as he intended, he can, and in fact should, choose to amplify that explanation to whatever depth he believes the situation calls for to satisfy the requirements of clear and complete.

If you want to get technical, the procedure outlined in NF: 10.1.1 doesn't mention coaches or officials being involved in the decision process. It instructs, clearly, that the captain(s) be notified and that, "The Captain's choice of options may not be revoked.".

It's the Referee's responsibility to insure that the Captain is given the necessary and correct information from which to make a decision, and the coach's responsibility to insure that the Captain is prepared to make the right decision.

NF: 2.32.5.c designates the "Captain" as the designated team representative during (c) Penalty decisions following a foul."

Sometimes a Referee's job requires multiple explanations before a Captain fully understans his options, or a coach may feel providing additional instructions, from the sideline is necessary, to assist the Captain's decision making.

The common objective should simply be that the Captain has all the information necessary to make his best choice. How that plays out may differ from game to game or even penalty to penalty.

It seems the coaches around here are happy to avoid the whole I explain it to their captain who barely remembers he's the captain, who hopefully can then repeat the explanation correctly, so that the coach can hear it and make a decision, to have said confused 18 year old figure it out again & repeat it to me.
We just go with cutting out the unnecessary middle man and getting the game moving along.

Ha!

Good explanation...and I get it. I'm really not trying to argue the point or anything...I like this explanation and ajmc's. It's an attempt to stop a stupid mistake - I get that. Thanks for explaining it.

Change this to read: "(m)ost good White Hats will not let a captain select the option to 'Kick.'"

If the weather is very bad, or something really weird is at work (which I'm sure the coach will tell either me or my umpire before we go out to the field), only then is the kick option a rational choice under any circumstances. Defer, receive, or field position are the only rational choices. Kicking would fall under defer and field side virtually all the time and I'm hard pressed to think of a situation of when a team MUST kick the ball to start the game. I guess if they have a near perfect onside kick recovery unit, but if that's the case, the coach will tell me prior to the game when I ask for such things.

Both my umpire and I always ask our captains, "do you know what you want to do if you win the toss" prior to walking out to the middle. So I guess in the absolute worst case scenario, we'll have confirmed a kick option with the coach before leaving the sideline.

Once had a captain choose to kick, tried talking him out of it, but he would not have it. Their record was 0-6 coming into the game.

Before the kickoff asked the coach if he told his captain to kickoff and the told proudly said yes, they were a defensive team. Of which, they went on to lose 61-0.

Guess their defense was better than their offense! :rolleyes:

A pretty successful, now retired, long time High School coach often chose to kick off for the opening Kick Off. His contention was that playing defense is more natural than playing offense and that at the start of a game, when young players are nervous or excited, instincts will serve them better, when they are cold, hitting than being hit.

He claimed to have field position statistics that bore out his theory.

Canadian Mechanic
 

CANADIAN MECHANIC:

if the team winning the toss defers to the second half, the team entitled to the first half choice has one of three choices:

1. to receive the kick-off
2. to kick-off
3. to choose which end zone to defend for the first quarter

If they choose 1 or 2, the other team (the team choosing in the second half) chooses which end zone they wish to defend in the first quarter.

If they choose 3, the other team (the team choosing in the second half) must choose between option 1 and 2.

Then he chooses to DEFER, not kick. Even if the other coach is wise to what he wants to do, he is NOT going to make the kick choice, so as to kick off both halves. In the one or two times a career that what Ed speaks of happens, just get the game over as fast as possible and get out of there -- regardless of what you have to do! Besides, remember I used the term, rational. If the coach decides to be irrational, then we get into another issue.

I second that.

If a coach for whatever reason decides it is better to essentially kick off both halves, let them do it and don't slow down the clock.