Legal?
 

NCAA - No foul

I understand that but I am asking based on NFHS rules.

By rule it is not hurdling because the snappers hand is on the ground. That is why I tell our snappers to vary the pause for extra points. Most teams will tim up the snap. If the defender stepped on the center, is it a foul?

Sounds like a UNS for leverage to me... but I'm very green to football officiating (first year)

First question, why is this not hurdling:

NFHS 2-22 Hurdling is an attempt by a player to jump (hurdle) with one or both feet or knees foremost over an opponent who is contacting the ground with no part of his body except one or both feet.

The snapper is contacting the ground with, at least, his feet.

Second, the snapper still cannot be contacted.

Fifteen yard personal foul for hurdling.

Oh yeah, no unsportsmanlike conduct as there is contact. Unsportsmanlike conduct is reserved for non-contact misbehavior.

How is that relevant? It's "no...except", not "at least".

Go back to bigjohn's quote:

"By rule it is not hurdling because the snappers hand is on the ground. That is why I tell our snappers to vary the pause for extra points. Most teams will tim up the snap. If the defender stepped on the center, is it a foul?"

which implies if the snapper has his hand on the ground you cannot hurdle him. You cannot hurdle a player if the player is in the air but if a player is on the ground it is hurdling (is feet are on the ground).

Right as usual, Ed. If a player is lying on the ground, he probably has both feet on the ground. No way that's hurdling.

Ref, true, lying on the ground and you step, jump, hop, whatever, over him you are not hurdling. Not the case here.

The more I watch it, the more it looks like he puts a hand on a teammates shoulder and also steps onto the snappers back (there is a little stutter step as he goes over the snapper).

So if this was an NCAA Rules game.
It looks like he puts his hand on a teammates shoulder to get a little extra leverage? Can't do that: 9-3-5-b-2
It looks like possibly one of his feet is on the snapper's back as he jumps over?
9-1-2-q says "no player may step, jump or stand on an opponent. No defensive player.........may land on any player(s)."
9-1-2-r says " a defensive player may not initiate contact with the snapper until one second..." A foot on his back sounds like contact to me.


If this is a NFHS game.
9-4-3-e "No player shall position himself on the shoulders or body of a teammate or opponent to gain an advantage."
Exclusively NCAA Rules here in Europe so I only get to work Fed Rules on occasional trips to the USA. Could / should 9-4-3-e be interpreted to cover what the kid does on this film?

As for both the NCAA and Fed definitions of hurdling, I wonder what the intent of those Rules Ctte's really was when they wrote those words.

Interesting that the NCAA definition says "over an opponent who is still on his feet". I could easily take that to mean a player who has not yet fallen over. I could easily regard someone still in a 3 point stance moments after the snap to be "still on his feet and not yet fallen over".

I do not have the same quality video player as BigJ but what I saw was the jumper tapping a teammate on the shoulder after he was already over the line and past it. That is NOT using a teammate to gain leverage to gain height. I also do not see the jumper stepping on the snapper.


NCAA - A player in a 3 point stance is NOT still on his feet by definition as that requires he have nothing except a foot or feet touching the ground In a 3 point stance he has a hand on the ground so he is not "on his feet"

NCAA has defined still "on his feet" on 2-14-1-b. "On his feet" means that no other part of the opponent's body other than one or both feet is in contact with the ground.

What that means is that if the oppenent has a hand on the ground then it would not be hurdling since there is another part of his body contacting the ground.

Think there is one thing everyone can agree, there is a personal foul here. At the 17 second mark it looks as though he vaults himself in the air by stepping on the back of the snapper. His contact with a teammate is slight or incidential.

For us NFHS types we have a choice of roughing the snapper, or, hurdling. Since roughing the snapper has an automatic first down that would be my call.

There isn't a prohibition against "leveraging" in NFHS rules. It isn't even defined in NFHS rules.

The B player may have put his foot on the back of the snapper, but I'm not really sure that he did. If he did, I agree with Ed on ruling roughing the snapper. It appears the snapper doesn't have a hand on the ground when he is hurdled, therefore I believe we have a hurdling foul if the team B player doesn't make contact with the snapper.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in NFHS rules, hurdling is the only personal foul that does not require contact for there to be a foul.

Then why did you write that he had at least his feet on the ground? That was irrelevant.

It should not. The rules on pyramiding and related height-gaining forms of contact have been worked over in the past few decades by the 3 major USAn codes (probably the Canadian ones too) in full cognizance of each other's efforts, and the differences in wording can be presumed to be deliberate. "Position himself" means exactly that, and does not refer to leveraging oneself upward momentarily during play.

Robert

Hard to tell if the defender contacted the snapper on his way over him but at the very least we have a flag for hurdling.

Because if the snapper's feet are on the ground, he is not lying on the ground or in the air; therefore, the player is hurdling.

You cannot be on the ground or in the air if your feet are on the ground which is extremely relevant when determining if a player has been hurdled.

I was referring to 9-4-3e

You must be kidding. Unless you're doing a handstand or on your back with your feet in the air or something else "pathologic", you're guaranteed to have a foot on the ground if "you" are "on the ground". Hence the criterion in the definition that the feet be the only body parts on the ground.

Robert

Gotcha...two things:

1) To avoid confusion, make sure you use precise rule book terminology and definitions when discussing plays

and;

2) Violation of 9-4-3e is a personal foul, not unsportsmanlike conduct. :)

Robert, I find it incomprehensible a man of your intelligence cannot comprehend such a simple statement.

A foot on the ground means standing upright on the ground. I did not mean a foot on the ground would be such that the heel is touching the ground or you are lying on your side such that a foot or both feet touch the ground on their sides. I truly meant standing upright with the entire sole of the shoe touching the ground.

If you still have a problem I will be happy to post a picture of "feet on the ground."

I hate to say it, but I think I got nothing.
It appears the snapper has either one or both hands on the ground. That means he can be hurdled. It also appears the defender jumped over the gap between the snapper and the guard. Even if there was slight contact with the snapper, I can't see how you can call roughing as "a defender shall not charge directly into the snapper", which I don't see here at all. Also, it appears the defender may use a hand on his teammate's shoulder to help propel himself up and over. I think trying to use the "no player shall position himself on the shoulders or body of a teammate" rule is a stretch.
Bottom line for me, somebody should teach the snapper his job is not to duck so low out of the way after the snap that somebody could pull this off.

Thanks! I'm new to football, so cut me a little slack :)

Good catch on the PF vs UNS

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

Legal.

Understood. I have only been doing this a couple of years myself and still have much to learn but I know you and I are both a experienced baseball umpires so I'm going to give you a bit of a hard time over using proper definitions. ;)

Have fun, working football is a blast!

The important point is what meaning it has in the rules. I'm sure they mean it to have its literal meaning. If they wanted to say "upright" or "erect" -- as indeed the rules formerly did without clarif'n -- they wouldn't've clarified by adding the detail about no other part of the body touching the ground.

But in determining whether hurdling has occurred, as long as some other part of the surmounted player was touching the ground, it doesn't matter whether any part of either foot was also touching the ground.

Robert

I think he stepped on the snappers back.

9-4-3e

e. Position himself on the shoulders or body of a teammate or opponent to
gain an advantage.

BigJohn.
For what its worth, I believe your right on the money with this call.

2009 casebook

ADVANTAGE GAINED ILLEGALLY
9.4.3 SITUATION E: (a) End A1 goes 5 yards downfield and stops. Wide receiver
A2 jumps on his back and catches a pass; or (b) B1 steps on the back of snapper
A1 immediately after the snap as he propels himself into the air to block a
punt; or (c) B1 jumps on B2’s shoulders in an effort to block a field-goal attempt.
RULING: A personal foul in (a), (b) and (c). In all cases, an advantage has been
gained illegally.

Fighting. 9-4-1.

It appears it is a try therefore the play was being blown dead. However at the very end of the play, the R could have gotten #3 for a BIB, or a personal foul since the whistle may have sounded.

It certainly looks like a hurdle to me.

Since I can't see the video, I have to ask whether the player who blocked the kick appeared to propel himself into the air off the snapper's back (using the contact to gain or maintain altitude), or stepped on his back in an effort to get past him. The first would fit case (b) above, but the second would not be any of those cases. In other words, was the snapper's presence an advantage to the defender, or would he have been just as well (or better) off to have been able to plant that foot on the ground?

Robert

I'm with Big John too.

Thanks for that Robert. Hadn't even considered the human pyramid situation. We've only had football over here in the UK for 25 years, so that has never been an issue.

I only watched it once.

If the hand is on the ground, it's not hurdling. Lots of twisted logic above in this thread, but "only" means "only". If the hand is on the ground then "only the feet" is not true.

It looks like the guy stepped on the back on the snapper, which should be RTS. Half the distance and retry.

I see it the second way. He came off the back and never used the step to gain an advantage other than a quick way through the line play.

ART. 6 . . . Roughing the snapper. A defensive player shall not charge directly
into the snapper when the offensive team is in a scrimmage-kick formation.


No way it is roughing the snapper!

If BAFRA's been using NCAA rules for that long, then you might've started when they outlawed only standing on teammates' shoulders and said that other forms of pyramid formation were still legal. It was strange to have a passage in the rules that said something was legal (rather than just an exception to something illegal), but that extraordinary language was in there at least as late as 1983.

Anyway, the human pyramid to block kicks used to be a common tactic in American and Canadian football. I think the original reason for outlawing it might've been safety, considering what happens when the pyramid falls, there being no prohibition on knocking out its props. So now they leave that to the cheerleaders on the hard surface off the field. But I think the competitive cheerleading rulesmakers now limit human pyramids to 3 levels.

On the other other hand, lifting in the lineout used to be illegal in rugby, and now you can hurl players into the air to play the ball.

Robert

That's what I'd been writing, but somebody in the thread was making my head spin when he wrote otherwise, and then was ostensibly backed up by others who actually contradicted him but didn't acknowledge so!

I don't see how that's roughing the snapper any more than by a rusher who in trying to penetrate the A gap makes incidental contact with the snapper. Or even more than incidental, if it's an attempt to get around him rather than to run thru him or shake him up, as implied by Fed's "charge directly into" wording.

Robert

I don't have hurdling. The snapper had at least one hand on the ground and possibly both. That excludes this action from the rule.

I also did not see any contact between the jumper's foot and the snapper. There may have possibly been a touch but the jumper did not gain elevation at or after the contact and the snapper was not forced down toward the ground at the same instant. If you stepped on someone there would be a visible result of that contact and I saw none. I think this was more of a "Michael Jordan" move where the foot paused in mid-air while the body passed over it.

This type of block doesn't work that often as it is very difficult to time it up that well and the jumper is quite vulnerable in the air.

I'm really ambivalent about flagging this for RTS, but I'm also looking at the spirit and intent of the rule.

The snapper is protected because he's not in a position to protect himself. If a 200+ pound linebacker is stepping in the middle of his back, isn't this something we should be protecting the snapper from?

I understand why this wasn't flagged, though. From the video, it's hard to tell if he just went clean over the top or not. And if it was clean, it was *not* hurdling as the snapper's hand was on the ground. We agree on that.

I think if you see this live you should call it hurdling though based on the intent of the hurdling rule. The only reason the snappers hand is on the ground is to steady himself as someone is stepping on his back!

I'll call this hurdling every time I see it.

Maybe, but I don't think that was the intent of the RTS provision. It was installed to counter the intimidation factor of teams that would sacrifice some of their rush just to make the snapper think he has to protect himself against something he can't see, and therefore he'll hurry the snap, or snap with his head up or raising it too soon, and not have good form. Since being stepped on the back of was never part of that intimidation factor, it would take a separate rule to outlaw. Even if the snapper had his head up, there's nothing he could do about being stepped on, so the threat of it wouldn't mess up his form. A rusher who timed the snap perfectly could do the same even to a snapper in regular formation -- or for that matter any other OL in 3- or 4-pt.

Seems to outlaw this danger the simplest thing would be to amend the definition of hurdling to include a snapper who hadn't had time to get out of a 3- or 4-pt. stance. But then why just the snapper?

Robert

A snapper should be coming up to block and defend himself as soon as the snap is away. He has some time to defend himself but only enough to actually defend himself.

The rule protects the snapper because he is vulnerable. I think this fits within the spirt of roughing the snapper.

Becareful with an RTS call.

There is a big difference between a hurdling call (15 yards) and a RTS call (15 Yards + Automatic 1st down)

to summarize:
Hurdling = going over
RTS = Charging into.

I understand the difference. I'm not talking about hurdling per se, I'm talking about putting a player putting a foot and his weight on the back of a vulnerable snapper.

There's an easier way to distinguish:

hurdling: no touching
RTS: touching

Not that word again! :eek:

Except if the snapper's hand is on the ground, this cannot be hurdling. See: definition of hurdling.

True, but that's not what my statement was in regards to, only that RTS and Hurdling are not the same from an enforcement perspective.

The position of the Snapper's hand and his percieved vulnerability is what makes this such an interesting intellectual discussion. I suspect that if you give this situation to 100 sufficently qualified officials I expect that you could possibly see all three answers, No call, Hurdling, or RTS.

The real issue that I see here is that we have entered the gray area between the rules and this is where our officating philosophy takes over. Did this guy gain an unfair advantage? Did he take an unecessarilly risky action that could have resulted in serious injury? Did he do something that could comprimize our ability to officiate the remainder of the game? If you answer yes then I think you call something. Situation and instinct will dictate what you call or don't call (and what you must sell)

Good luck

No Ed, it implies you can hurdle if the snapper has his hand on the ground and is a correct implication by rule. Hurdling is allowed if the defender has another part of his body other than his feet touching the ground. If he does not, it is an illegal hurdle if he only has his feet on the ground.

Now that's funny! :D