Numbers
 

Freshman game. On a try K runs a fake and throws the ball to #55 who is lined up at end. Coach screams inelligible. I told him we don't enforce numbering restrictions at the lower level (which we don't). Question is whether there is support for this in the official's manual, rule book etc or is this a matter of custom. If it is custom, what do you guys do with numbering in lower level games? This happened in Ohio.

Well I'm not much help. I was going to say "That's how we do it in Ohio," but you already know that.

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

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?"

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.

I've never understood why there are areas that don't enforce this rules. We enforcing numbering requirements at all level. It has never been a problem. Coaches know the rules and they comply.

If you don't require it, they have no reason to do it. But I bet they could if you did.

We have a league that doesn't use the numbering rules, nor do they have the ineligibles wear bright leg bands, like other leagues do.

We simply tell the coach that "this league doesn't use those rules".

What point in the game was it? Was this the first time #55 (or other normally ineligible numbers) had gone out for passes? Or did the coach try this for the first time late in the game?

Even if you typically don't enforce numbering restrictions, I would flag this if you'd played three quarters of the game with normal numbers, and then a coach tried to get cute and take advantage of the unwritten rule of not enforcing it in frosh games.

In my area of CA (Central Valley)
 

we enforce the numbering requirement at all levels except for pee wees.

We would enforce this number restriction mentioned in the original post. It's not fair for a team to believe #55 is ineligible, not cover him and then have him catch a pass. However, if the local rules are number restrictions are ignored, then so sorry for him.

Here, there are some things we let slip at sub-varsity levels. Today we had #98 and #99 as the offensive tackles in a middle school game. They were brothers I think and both "obviously linemen"... as I am obviously an umpire... if you know what I mean. :D

Their team was a little short of players and we just told both coaches that these guys would be considered linemen and ineligible for the game and thus did not "officially" have five on the line 50-79.

In MI we've been told that we only enforce the numbering rules for varsity games. The logic is supposed to be that younger kids are able to move around and try out different positions.

Both in Nebraska and Iowa, we've been told to be flexible with the numbering at the sub-varsity level. However, the coaches are "encouraged" to let the officials know if there's a quirk in their numbering.

We had a freshman game last night with a charter school from Youngstown, Ohio. There were only about 16 players on the entire squad, and it is only their second year of football at the school, Their uniforms looked like they may have been hand-me-downs from somewhere else. As you can imagine, most of the players had to play both sides of the ball, and one of the players wore #00. The rest wore whatever fit. Nobody said a word about numbering, nor should they have in this situation.