PI mechanics question, 4-man crew

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by zm1283

At least two people who have replied said it was not his area.

And at least 4 posters (not counting me) have said that it would be part of his area in a 4-man mechanic.

Why use that crutch? We would never actually say this in baseball or basketball when working 2-man, so why can it be used in football?

A couple of points here.
1) It's not a crutch, it's the truth. More officials = better coverage. Why do you think NCAA and NFL (and some FED) use seven officials for football?

Heck, in the preseason this year the NFL experimented with adding an 8th official to improve coverage, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they added an 8th official permanently in a few years.

Around here, almost all non-varsity games use three officials. The Junior High game I'll be working this afternoon has 2 officials. Do you honestly think we'll be able to make any holding calls on the interior linemen today when we have one official on each sideline?

2) Do a search of the basketball forum and you'll find plenty of threads that talk about the advantages of having three whistle mechanics as opposed to two whistle mechanics. You'll find the same thing in the baseball and softball forums.

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

A fair point in a way... but most of us are of the opinion that with the game's evolution, games at the level that you describe NEED 5 officials, not 4. So the more apt analogy would be comparing to working a baseball or softball game with ONE umpire... i.e. not enough. Coach - she left early from first!!!. Umpire - coach, if you guys want that watched closely, you should pay for a 2nd umpire.

I have this happen on an non-trivial amount of single-umpire baseball games that I've worked:
"What do you mean he's out trying to steal second? He slid around the tag!"
"Coach, from my angle, he was out. If you want to have someone with a better angle making the call, pay for a second umpire"
"..... (walks back to the dugout)"