Possible Holding

[Rich]

Originally Posted by RochesterRef

He did have ahold of his jersey. It's becoming more apparent to me the more I think about it that I should've thrown it. I'm just glad it didn't affect the outcome. At the time I looked at it and said to myself "the defender knocked over the blocker and now they're both going to the ground." So it's holding because he had his jersey even though in my opinion it wasn't pulling the jersey that caused either player to go down?

No. Having hold of the jersey, in itself, isn't holding.

If the player tries to get away and the jersey separates from the body, yes. Also, if the grab of the jersey in combination with the leverage causes the player to go down (the blocker pulls the defender down on top of him as he's going down) it's holding.

Sounds to me that may have happened in your play, but if not, just chalk it up to a coach seeing something that wasn't there. Happens on just about every play where a defender goes down, BTW.