Numbers

[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.