Touchdown Signals

[With_Two_Flakes]

Originally Posted by Jim D.

Another tip is to move the goal line sign (the orange pyramid marker) back farther away as you check the field before the game. They often put them too close to the pylon and you can trip over them as you're trying to get a good postion for a play at the pylon. Make sure you have plenty of room to work - you're not going to look too sharp if, as you're backing into position you tumble over one of those and end up making the call while seated.

Absolutely! I make sure the 10...10 markers are a min of 12 feet back, we don't often have the 12 ft limit lines marked on our fields here in the UK. I'll have the G markers even further back. Any stats people, photographers etc, I'll be sure to brief them to stay outside the pyramids, especially at the GL.

As for the tough GL call, I feel it is all about proper communication, particularly eye contact.
The 1st eye contact is wing to wing. A wing can have one of three things -
(1) a TD
(2) a spot short of the GL that he is selling
(3) he has nothing and so is wearing what I call the Forrest Gump expression and should be jogging in toward the pile (on the field side of the GL as mentioned earlier).

The next eye contact is Umpire to wings.
If the Umpire sees (1) or (2), he has nothing to do. If he sees both wings with a Forrest face, that triggers him into action. If he saw the ball over the line, he communicates to the wings (some favour a subtle signal, some do it verbally - whatever you favour in your association). If he has no clue if the ball was over the line, then his action is to start digging!

The final one is Referee to Umpire. If the Refereee sees the Umpire start digging in the pile, that triggers him to get close enough to the pile so that he can help unpile 'em and the Umpire can tell him the result of the play. The last thing you want is an Umpire on his knees giving a TD signal, the Referee can give that on his behalf.