Late to the field??

[BoBo]

What is the penalty for being late to the field under NFHS rules. For example: Halftime is 15:00 minutes clock reaches 0:00 and team not on field. Obviuosly we still have 3:00 minute warmup but team has was not on the field before 0:00.
We had last night and were not sure between delay of game and unsportsmanlike. We went with unsportsmanlike 15 yards on the second half kickoff. I guess you could have a similar situation before the game as well.
Any comments??

[kdf5]

9-8-1g: Failure of a team to be ready to start either half is a noncontact unsportsmanlike by nonplayers. Sounds like you got it right!

[Ed Hickland]

You got it right!

The penalty for the team not being on the field at the end of halftime is unsportsmanlike conduct -- 15 yards.

If the team is on the field but the field is not ready -- the band is still on the field -- the penalty is 5 yards for delay of game by home team management.

The team MUST be on the field for the three minute warmup.

[BoBo]

On Thursday of last week we had the team late to field. The VERY next night the home team was having senior night and the band failed to get off the field on time. Both teams were in the end zones waiting. We threw a flag on the home team because management was responsible for the band actions.

We were not sure off the penalty but went with a 5 yard delay penalty. Won't lie we guessed between Unsportsmanlike and Delay and felt the team itself was not at fault and went with DELAY.

According to Ed we lucked out.