Wow - please read - contraversy in my game...

[JimNayzium]

What makes a player down? Our punter went to one knee in the endzone (even though he had been told not to) to field a bad snap. While he was on one knee the ball bounced and hit his arm and he bobbled it on his way up...he was touching the ball while his knee was down, but he did not gain full possesion until he was off his knee....no big deal if they missed this call and gave us the safety, except for the fact that we lost .... get this.. 2-0. i know seems unlikely, i have quicktime movie of this play i could post a link to if you would view it.....

[SOWB_Ref]

Not to be overly anal, but the question should be rephrased to say, "When does the down end?"
Among others
Rule 4 Section 2 ART. 2 . . . The ball becomes dead and the down is ended:
a. When a runner goes out of bounds, is held so his forward progress is stopped or allows any part of his person other than hand or foot to touch the ground.

And for the purposes of your question the punter is still considered to be a runner.

So did the punter ever have possession with a part of the body other than a foot or hand touching the ground? If they did then the ball becomes dead and the down is over. If not, well you got yourself an inadvertant whistle.

So it all comes down to a judgement call on possession and the timing of a knee. If it was a bang-bang play, well those happen. From the play you described it sounds like an indavertant whistle, but on the field sometimes things look different.

[Theisey]

Regardless of what happened, it is truely a judgement call. It's one that is called right (or wrong) just about 50% of the time depending on whose team it was happening too.

Here is a suggestion. Many officials have discussed this one and most thought it would be a workable change. That is to send in a rules change proposal to the NFHS to allow an exception for the knee being down while fielding a snap while in scrimmage kick formation or fielding a grounded free kick.

You will have to be very specific with details regarding such a change to make it easy for officials to call it and player/coaches to understand it.

See what they say! Got nothing to lose.

[bluezebra]

I don't see where judgement has anything to do with this situation. The punter either has possession of the ball, or he doesn't. If he has possession while his knee's touching, he's down. If he's bobbling the ball, then rises, he's not down.

Bob

[BktBallRef]

Originally posted by bluezebra
The punter either has possession of the ball, or he doesn't.

You don't think a person would have to make a judment to decide?

It's certainly up to the referee to judge when the punter gained possession and where the knee was at that time.

That is a judgment.

[JimNayzium]

It was a definite judgement call on the referee's part, he was at an angle as to not see the bobbling, becuase the bobbling would blocked from his view by the punters other shoulder...so the way i see it, if the ref could not see the bobble, how does he conclusively know the punter had possession....he told me that he did not see the bobble, which means he did not see the ball.....anyway, it is 48 hours later now and that is my statute of limitations for being upset about, lets win this week....

Another question all together is when does a referee signal that a field goal is no good? at the end of the play while blowing whistle or as soon as it is blocked...because on the game winning fg attempt that we had blocked the same white hat that called the safety signals no good as soon as it is blocked...i mean he comes running in saying no good, which it was obviously no good, but my guard picked it up and was running with it and being tackled during his no good signal....he never even saw the guard running with it....had we scooped and scored i believe he would have replayed the down under inadvertant whistle...when we got it blocked theier bench poored on the field, and 10 of hte defenders started celebrating..the balls was one yard in our backfield and our guard picked it up and their one player paying attention wrestled him to the ground two yards from the goalline, but the white hat, nor any other ref seemed to acknowledge this as even happening.....i know a PAT blows dead on the block, but seems we have jumpy referees on the game winning fg...on the road nonetheless.....

[Theisey]

The officials will blow the whistle on a field goal attempt when the ball becomes dead by rule.

Normal Scrimmage Kick rules apply to field goal attempts. Just because the field goal might have been blocked is NOT a reason to kill the play.

TRYs attempted by the kick are a different animal. They are whistled dead when is apparent the kick will not score. Being blocked is one of those reasons.

[snrmike]

I have taken note of the fact that you are truly a student of the game so that you can be a better coach/teacher for your players. That's an admirable trait. Hopefully you will always have the attitude that you'll never be to old to learn.

As far as the calls in your game go: did you have anyone making a game video tape for you? If so, this tape can be a very helpful tool in several ways.

#1 Do the officials working your game have an association football chairman, supervisor,whatever??
In my area, we have a "Football Chairman" who just happens to be a Big Ten linesman. When he's asked to, (and sometimes on his own) he reviews game tapes and writes a pretty objective and painfully honest evaluation of the game officials' performance. It's not always what we want to hear, but it makes us think about improving our performance.

#2 Did the crew give you a tape to make a copy for their subsequent review of their performance?
My crew chief always hands a blank tape (and a self addressed, stamped envelope) to the home team head coach and politely begs for a copy of the game film. We always find the tape very educational. We always look for ways to look better, be in better position, show more hustle and find ways to have a "zero mistake" game. So far, we have found that the more we do right, the more we need to improve.

I don't know what to make of the calls your ref-crew judged to be correct since I didn't witness the game. Watching the game on the field is a very different perspective than officiating the game and watching from the stands.

There may have been extenuating circumstances - maybe a blocker was in the referee's way. Maybe, from his viewpoint, he was right! I don't know what to make of the FG attempt, but we're all human and prone to error. That's why we have game officials in the first place.

I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone, but if a mistake was made, I don't know of ANY officials that wouldn't want to work harder at getting the call right the next time.

Good luck with the rest of your season!

[JimNayzium]

thanks for the advice, and BTW, our league refs have never asked for tape of the game...and yes I have a DVD of the game, a digital copy at 30 frames per second....

These guys did a good job for the night, just the judgement call of the safety, which is not really worth arguing, and the FG inadvertant whistle, which definitely had no bearing at all on the outcome of the play. I would have just benefitted from a bad whistle from the white cap, but after what I thought was apoor judgement call by the same guy, i would have been willing to benefit from a mishap..hahahahaha

as far as their desire to get better...no chance around here, i just need to caoch my punter better....ha