Is this legal?

[Ed Hickland]

Originally posted by devdog69
Unfortunately, in the real world, it has been my experience that officials are hesitant to put the quabash on these sort of plays. This year, my first full year of varsity football, a coach tells us before the game of such a play they run during a punting situation, and our white hat just says ok. I ask him after the conference, 'isn't that illegal', he says 'maybe, depends on the interpretation'. I can't remember the exact play, but I remember being frustrated that the majority of officials in my area were lax on the rule, choosing to be wishy-washy on their interpretations, which makes it very hard for the few that wish to uphold the integrity of the game.

I agree and I throw myself on the mercy of this court!

For years I had a JV coach run "where's the puck?" and it appeared to be a legal play until someone in this forum clued me to casebook 9.5.1d. No more, dear coach.

In fact, this season I had a youth league game -- leave to the dad-coaches -- where the player under the snapper, quarterback in the usual sense, starts walking away calling out signals. I did not flag it because it didn't fool anybody including the defense.

All too often white-hats and others not fully cognizant of the rules will let illegal acts go. Of course, now when the white-hat who knows the rule comes along, he is the bad guy.

Of course, that goes both ways. One game a coach is yelling for illegal substitution. When I step over to question him about what is illegal, he states, that in a previous game they were penalized for the eleventh player coming on the field and not being in the huddle. He was perfectly satisfied when I explained the player only needs to be within 15 yards of the ball and the rule is designed to prevent a player from deception by simply stepping one yard on the field.

[sm_bbcoach]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by KWH

Originally posted by bluezebra

Not so fast there Bob...
We have a signal for "Illegal Procedure" (Signal 19 - Page 88), we have a penalty called "Illegal Procedure" (Penalty 11 - Page 77), and we have some acts that by default are called "Illegal Procedure". Examples would include Rule 7-2-1,2 & 3 as described on Page 47 but more importantly please see the PENALTY section on page 48 where these acts are specifically referered to as "Illegal Procedure" or Illegal Formation...

As for the play in question;
It is an UC charged to the head coach just as it is described in Casebook 9.5.1 Situation D.
It is a dead ball foul, the play should be blown dead prior to the snap, hence the ball should never be allowed to become live...

Question then: IF the snap should never get off, hopw can you be sure they are not just getting a player off the field? Even if I count 11, the QB has the right to miss count thinking there are 12, tell someone to get off. As he is running off, I can not be sure of what is going on until I see the snap and the player head up field. THEN, I know what was going on. It very well could be they wll run the play with 10 on.
NOW: Qb mis counts, tells RB to get off. Coach see this, as the RB is running off, yells at him to stay on, he then turns his direction and heads back to assume his position. Obviously, if 2 men in motion at time of snap, BUT how can you tell what is happening before the snap? If I am the white hat, I will see the snap, see the player head up field, STOP the play and asses the 2 penalities. 5 yd decline, mark off the UC 15 yards. Then talk to coach about the play.