Sugar Bowl Safety

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Why would you need to ask? Whatever the wing ruled he does not need to necessarily tell you. It looked to me like the wing was asking for assistance on if the runner got away. Now none of us know that sitting here, we would have to talk to the officials to know for sure. But they did make eye contact and say something to each other before a signal went up.

And I did not necessarily ask you what you would do. If you feel you need to get on the whistle quickly that is you. My training as told me that can be slow and deliberate and if the play is over my whistle is not going to change that.

Peace

I'd need to ask because the wing official is giving no indication of what he has. He's wandered off the progress spot and he's not giving a safety signal well after the player is down. And if he's looking for help from me on a spot with this play, we have some serious problems.

As for the whistle, I still can't understand why, if you have progress stopped you would not blow the whistle. What does that accomplish other than open you up to a lot of problems? Problems like this play, problems like the ball suddenly coming out of there and a scramble for it, problems like the ball carrier getting hammered by a bunch of players because you have failed to do your job of indicating the play is over. Yeah, there are plays that are "over" with or without a whistle, but I can't see how you can possibly say that on a play that involves YOUR judgement whether it's over or not. It's YOUR judgement. So how are players supposed to know by YOUR judgement the play is over if you fail to indicate that? It could easily go either way as has been indicated on this play and the opinions here. It has nothing to do with whistles in the mouth or so-called quick whistles. It has everything to do with doing one of our primary jobs. There is a very lamentable trend within the officiating community of this "my whistle does not end the play, the play does" being used for not doing one of our jobs that manages the game. We ARE expected to have whistles at the end of plays. We should have whistles at the end of plays. Some plays, it cant' be done because we don't know if that runner in the middle of the pile still has the ball. But that doesn't mean on plays where we clearly must make a ruling, and can see the status of the ball, we get to be lazy and try to pass off our responsibilities.