Spot enforcement

[Rich]

Originally Posted by waltjp

Go ahead, start. This is bad thinking. Everyone on the field is responsible for knowing penalty enforcement.

I was thrust into a 3-man game last Saturday. I haven't knowingly taken a 3-man game in years, but the 4th official backed out....

I prefer 2 wings and an R 3-man, so that's what we did. I was the Referpire. On a dead ball personal foul that I flagged (on the offense), the play had already reached the LTG. Because I knew I had to signal and also march off the yardage, I hurried and didn't (at first) notice the chains. My L called across and made me aware and as soon as I saw the chains knew why he was calling across.

Rules mistakes are crew mistakes. All 5 officials (or 3 or 4) should know enforcements of every flag they could possibly throw (which means they should know the rules as well as I do).

And I hate to admit it, I had fun working 3-man as I got a good workout (although I'm sure things were missed in the middle, which on a Saturday JV game isn't the worst thing in the world).