Illegal Equipment?
 

Can players play without a shoe? I have seen players toss a shoe to the sideline and continue to play.

Is this a foul (the participation not the tossing)? If so, what would be the penalty?

Thanks.

John

Shoes are mandatory equipment (1-5-1f). He would not be permitted to play without a shoe on at the snap. If he is participating, it is an USC foul on the HC (9-8-1h).

I must lead a sheltered existence. In over 20 years of doing this, I have never seen that.

You can kill it before the snap and only hit them with 5 (similar to IS/IP), right?

It's not IS because there was no sub. It's not IP because the ball was not snapped.

You should kill it for a brief "equipment repair" official's timeout. If the kid can't get his shoe on in 20 seconds, send him off and get a sub. Handle it the same as a helmet issue.

The OP reads as if the player makes no attempt to put his shoe on, throws it to his side line and lines up for the next play. This is no different than not wearing a mouth piece and should be a foul prior to the snap.

3-6-2d ... Failure to properly wear legal or required player equipment when the ball is about to become live. Penalty: Delay of Game (S7-S21-S23)

If the shoe came off during live ball play, you got nothing. Just make sure it's back on before he participates again.
If the shoe came off during a dead ball, he better get his required equipment back on or off he goes. Depending on the timing of when you notice it gone, you could hit him for a delay penalty. If he does it again (and how stupid would he have to be to do that?), then I'd have a conversation with his coach about how it's about to be 15 yds if he doesn't take care of the problem.
I've never seen anyone, other than one of those crazy kickers, who attempts to play without shoes though.

A long time ago I saw a field goal kicker run onto the field barefooted to kick a FG. I was a fairly young official and thought nothing more of it than, "Wow, he must be cold" (it was like 5 degrees). An old experienced vet, told him he could not kick barefooted. Coach yelled "We been doing it all year!" Ref yells, back, "Your not doing it today!" So, they ran a shoe out in record time and he kicked a 35 yarder...
I do think there was a bit of reasonable delay in the RFP as I recall.

I'm looking at a different rule, and following its instructions. You want preventive officiating here: if a kid throws his shoe off, I'm killing it and giving him a brief time out to fix it.