12 men on the field - deadball?

[BulldogMcC]

We do it is if the offense has 12 men in the huddle or in the formation, we kill the play and call deadball illegal substitution. If the defense has 12 men in their formation we make the same dead ball call on the defense. We also ignore any replaced player that is beyond the wing on the side he is exiting. At lower levels we are more likely to tell the teams the problem and give them a quick second to get a player moving to the sideline, but we are consistent with our enforcement at the Varisty level.

Anytime we have to pin an illegal participation on a team because they had 12 in formation and thus playing at the snap we take that a failure of the team to follow their mechanics properly as the team should have been counted before the snap. If any official counts >11 players they throw a flag. If they somehow miscounted, we can wave off the flag for the 5 yard penalty instead of having to enforce a 15 yarder.

McC