Replacing Time on Clock with Knowledge

[Lee Jones]

I heard about this play the other day....Team A, down by 7 points late in the 4th period, has one time out remaining. They run the ball on second down, and then request a time out. The side official thought they were out of time outs, and would not allow it. Team A then spikes the ball to stop the clock on third down (54 seconds remaining). At this point Team B calls time out. The officials came together and the side official was told that Team A had one time out left. The back judge told the referee that there was 1:09 on the clock when the T.O. request was made. The referee, using the "definite knowledge" clause, resets the clock to 1:09, and then erases the 3rd down spike play. His rationale was that the only reason that Team A spiked the ball was to stop the clock, which they should have been able to do using the time out that they still had.

Comments???

[James Neil]

sounds rigut to me

[BktBallRef]

I don't believe this qualifies as a timing error. Yes, the official who refused to grant the time out erred but there wasn't a timing error. There isn't anything in the rulebook that would allow the referee to scratch a play and say let's pretend this never happened. About all you can really do is say, "Coach, we screwed up."