I know what you said in your last post, it just doesn't make any sense to me (and I doubt to you either). NF:1-1-2 is not a definition, it does however identify what the measurements of the playing surface (which some consider to equate to "inbounds") actually is.

I do NOT think NF:2-29-1 is irrational, I think your interpretation of what NF: 2-29-1 means is irrational (and thus far you seem unable to even try and correct that conclusion).

I don't want the rules of this game to be anything more than realistic, rational, logical, understandable and explainable and I believe my interpretation of NF: 2-29-1 satisfies all those requirements. Your interpretation falls short on multiple levels.

There's the difference right there. You WANT something from the rules. The rest of us have no such desire to make the rules what we want them to be. Your interp does not satisfy anything at all, as you have to change the words to make the rule mean what you WANT it to mean (is touching becomes has touched) or you have to invent a concept not part of football's rules to fit what you WANT into the rules. Either is simply bad officiating.

Changing the words in a sentence is not "interpreting" - it's changing.
Inventing a concept that doesn't exist at all in the book is not "interpreting" - it's inventing.

Sorry my friend - and I use that term loosely - I agree with Welpe in that it's not your place and certainly none of your business to decide what I will or will not do while I'm on the football field. Furthermore, I'm personally offended that you would call me a liar when you don't even know me. Agreed, before this play was posted, I would have called the player OOB and blown it dead, but now, after having learned the rule and SERIOUSLY considered all the posts, I will have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM flagging the guy for IP in this situation.(Why do I keep feeling like this is going to happen to me?:eek:)
So, unless you have something positive to contribute, keep your offending comments to yourself.

Robert, you usually supply good commentary and well reasoned logic when you post. We don't always agree, but I always get where you're coming from and you sometimes convince me in the error of my ways.

That said - I'm not sure why this particular topic drew your ire as strongly as it seems to, but I really feel your opinions about whether your fellow officials on here are liars or not were inappropriate.

Mike, I don't believe that Robert is an official.

I thought, from another board, that he was an NCAA official. Perhaps he merely shares a name.

A word of general advice, Mike, when you speak for yourself alone, you are on a lot firmer ground. I can tell you for absolute sure, you are not competent to tell me what I'm thinking, or have any idea what I want. Based on your analysis, you are also not competent to lecture me about rules or rule concepts.

You do what you think is right, and I'll continue to do what I think is correct and with some luck we'll both survive without too much agita.

It's the first time I can recall in any online discussion of anything where I thought the people on the other side (other than the trivial cases wherein people troll for flames) weren't just wrong, but insincere. I just can't believe any of you would mess up your sideline and end line calls by a mechanical application of the rules that would result in IP calls for inconsequential plays.

The basic situation is not rare! When you consider that someone running will have neither foot on the ground much of the time, and when you consider all the times someone runs out of bounds trying to catch a ball near a sideline, there's a good likelihood that it will occur several times a game. I don't believe any of you would routinely throw that flag. Any of you seriously entertaining that idea are kidding yourselves, and the rest of you are just lying if you say you would. You're just writing what you've written here for the sake of argument, to say you'd apply the letter of the law, which has brought out some rather goofy play situations that are interesting and curious.

Frequently discussions here have been contentious, and once in a while someone may suspect that others are arguing just for its own sake, but in this case I'm really convinced that's so.

BTW, I don't officiate except in desperate situations, but I do coach.

I would not attempt to tell you what you're thinking. I base what I said on what you SAY, for this is all I have to go on. If you don't think what you say, don't say it. Here's your quote: My point was that from this statement, you say you WANT the rules to be something. The rest of us, fortunately, just base our rulings on the ACTUAL rules, and not what we want them to be.

But in this case it's just obvious the rules writers didn't mean what they wrote. Unless they make an extended statement backing it up, I'm taking anything official written that appears to back it up as just noise.

Look at it this way (jumping off from another thread): The home team was behind, and have just given up another score (FG or TD & try), and you ask their captain if they want to kick off or receive, and the answer you hear is, "Kick off, yeah." Would you just go ahead and make the ball ready for play for them to kick off? Or would you call him close and make really clear that you were asking him which team he wants to kick off?

That's how I'm taking this circumstance. Unfortunately none of you have the att'n of the rules committee that you could get from a team captain. So until there's clarif'n that makes really clear they're taking into account both ordinary and extraordinary cases of people formerly touching the ground having contact with the ball over land that's out of bounds, I don't care what a literal reading of the rules says, they meant it to be a dead ball if a player touches out of bounds and then plays it there before coming back to the ground out of bounds. And they didn't mean it to be a foul if someone just tries to play the ball while trying, but failing, to keep feet in bounds.

No Mike, that's not accurate. You seem to base your remarks on what you have decided I meant by what I actually said.

I don't know exactly "who the rest of us" you reference actually is, but I'm pretty confident, based on the officials I've known and worked with for many years, by and large are also hoping the rules thay are charged with enforcing are, "realistic, rational, logical, understandable and explainable".

If you last long enough, doing this thing we do Mike, hopefully you will learn that "knowing" the rules, although extremely important, is only the start of what we do.

Understanding those rules and how they impact and effect the game and applying them to very specific situations that you may be confronted with to keep things in balance, is a never ending learning process that requires, above all, flexibility and sound common sense that enables the rules to be applied as intended, and is largely why we're there.

If you're willing to enforce anything that you honestly don't understand and despite giving it serious thought cannot explain rationally, (notice I'm not including "like" or "agree with", because neither matters much) perhaps you're on the wrong road.

Somebody help me with this - is there any reason why this interpretation is not still binding on the situation? I changed my position based solely on the fact that this OFFICIAL interpretation was given in the NFHS casebook, and according to what I've read and others have written on this topic, there has never been anything to reverse this interpretation. That being the case, is this not precedent (proof) of the way the powers-that-be intend for officials to apply the rules to this particular situation? Not trying to stir up trouble, just trying to understand.

Robert, I hear what you're saying.
AJ - I appreciate the kinder tone, and promise you I've already lasted "long enough".

And I realize the OP stretches realisticness quite a bit. But the idea that you should ignore a rule because you think it seems unrealistic, or because you personally have decided that the rule as written is not what they meant to write, is an extremely slippery slope.

Further, in THIS case, deciding arbitrarily to either replace the word IS with HAS, or inventing the concept of having to reestablish yourself inbounds once you go out of bounds is contrary to caseplay (the one Welpe has posted a few times.)

No, you do understand.

Then why is it IP in a & b but not c? It would appear that, without exactly saying so, they meant for the sorts of action in both a & b to be considered a "return", i.e. either batting the ball back into play or physically returning to the playing area. The ruling implies that merely being off the ground is not "returning".