The Big 12 plans to increase number of officials working games

[tjones1]

The Big 12 plans to increase number of officials working games - CBSSports.com

"If an eighth official is added, they will line up with the head referee in the offensive backfield"

Not following this.

[maven]

This plan was mentioned in a thread in the Basketball section. There I said:

Hm, what to call that guy? Here are some options.

Front judge
Back Linesman
Schmeferee
The Ocho

I'm sure you can come up with a few more.

[Rich]

U2.

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by Rich

U2.

So the obvious answer then would be "Bono".

Tanner they are putting a second official back probably in the same position as the Umpire in most cases in the NFL.

This seems like the precursor to moving to the NFL mechanic.

[tjones1]

Originally Posted by Welpe

So the obvious answer then would be "Bono".

Tanner they are putting a second official back probably in the same position as the Umpire in most cases in the NFL.

This seems like the precursor to moving to the NFL mechanic.

Yes, that's how I'm picturing it.

However, they said they wanted better coverage for passes. Not sure how this will help.

[HLin NC]

Snickeree

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Welpe

So the obvious answer then would be "Bono".

Tanner they are putting a second official back probably in the same position as the Umpire in most cases in the NFL.

This seems like the precursor to moving to the NFL mechanic.

When we're deciding in a basketball game who's going to be the R and who's going to be U1 and U2, we have a partner who always says, "I'll be Bono" or "I'll be The Edge."

[jTheUmp]

Basically, they're putting the official in the "NFL-umpire" position, without taking away the currently-existing umpire position. My guess is that it's to help with blocking responsibilities that are currently shared by R and U. With a 'second umpire', you could allow the R to become a "quarterback only" official, and let U and U2 handle interior line play.

Or you could have R take QB + opposite tackle, U take C-G, and U2 take G-T.

LOS and Deep-3 officials keep the same keys/responsibilities as before.

I know the NFL's 8th official experiment in preseason a few years back was adding a "deep judge"... basically a second Back Judge to help with pass play/down field coverage. Must've not been enough of an improvement to implement full-time.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the experiment.