Fed: shifts involving potential snapper

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

That's not true. The LOS is established when the U spots the ball. It doesn't have anything to do with when the snapper touches the ball.

The lines of scrimmage themselves are established then, but by Fed 2-25-2...

An offensive player is on his line of scrimmage when he complies
with the position requirements of a lineman.

...and by 2-32-9...

A lineman is any A player who is facing his opponent’s goal line with
the line of his shoulders approximately parallel thereto and with his head or foot
breaking an imaginary plane drawn parallel to the line of scrimmage through the
waist of the snapper when the ball is snapped.

Unfortunately Fed has provisions applying to linemen of A between the time the ball is ready for play and the time the snap begins, but, unlike NCAA, no definition of lineman during that interval if you take the above literally. It being inconceivable that Fed has such rules that could never have application, one must assume there to be some way to qualify a team A player as on his line during that interval. Since a player of A who touches the ball with a hand during that interval is not allowed to let go of it, eventually that player will snap the ball unless it becomes not ready for play first (or unless some other player of A also puts a hand on the ball and eventually snaps it out of the first one's grasp--another can of worms). Therefore it seems reasonable to consider that player the snapper from that instant on (which is explicit in NCAA), and so from that instant a player of A can be on his line.