Illegal motion

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by Refsmitty

I get real tired at the JV and V level of telling them their on or off - they should know that if I punch into backfield they are off and be able to look down the line of scrimmage to see if they are on or encroaching. Thoughts?

My crew goes over this with the head coach in our pre-game meeting. We inform them that the punch into the backfield means "off the line" and anything else means "on the line" for the nearest receiver. We also explicitly mention that if a receiver asks "am I good?" we can't answer that question, because we don't know where they're supposed to be lined up.

When I was a wing (I'm an umpire now), I would respond with "yes" or "no" if the receiver explicitly asked "am I on/off?". If they just point or look at me, I don't say anything.