Numbers

[Welpe]

In the part of California I came from, we enforced the numbering requirements except in youth games that were blow outs.

[Canned Heat]

The common stance where I work in SE WI is that they have to meet the numbering requirements, regardless of level...even in AAYFL (youth games). If that involves switching jerseys to get between 1-49 & 80-99...so be it. We have had a few instances in recent years where the coach has approached the other coach and asked to let it slide due to very low participation numbers on his team. We also had a kid last week come in with #52 and try to "report as eligible" in a freshman game. Also saw 2 clear mouthguards and pointed it out to the coach when we had our pregame visit. His response was: "Oh, that must be new this year too, eh?"

[Robert Goodman]

The original question appeared to be about interscholastic play. However, in non-scholastic competition using Fed rules as a base, one of the most frequent rules variants, usually below certain ages, is to have no eligible receiver numbering.

However, a lot of the time pertaining to this and other rules, I think officials assume the coaches know the rules of that particular circuit best, and if the other team's coach doesn't know enough to object, you can get away with a lot. For instance, I still doubt that in Big Apple Youth Football in 2007 it was legal for K to advance their own free kick recovery (just because it seems an unlikely variant of USAn rules for a youth league to adopt), but I couldn't prove otherwise, and officials in 2 separate games allowed it, so maybe it was.

Because during the game the other officials must defer to the ref re knowledge of the rules, it seems that before the game the other officials also rely on the ref to brief them on whatever he knows of the local rules.