Know that enforcement well but never heard it called the "umpire rule".

I think Texas and Massachuessets have proven that high school officials CAN learn NCAA rules. Those of us who first learn HS rules and then learn NCAA rules may get confused because they are different than what we know. If you start with NCAA rules they are all just new. It's not a major issue for me but I definitely enjoy working games under NCAA rules over HS rules.

Keep in mind when I say, "High School Officials" I am not talking about people from those states. For one I bet many of the people played in those states are have a familiarity to what happens in those rules. And I am also not talking about just officials handling the game from a pure understanding standpoint. I think a problem would be how many officials you have on the field as well. NCAA has all the time. I do not want 3 newer officials working a Sophomore B game and having to decide things like 10 second run offs and substitution situations and 40 and 25 second clocks, when we have no play clock at all. Yeah, I do not want that one.

You say it works, but are you sure? Those are relative small samples to the country. We have a lot of guys in our state that cannot handle rules when they come from the other levels. Just the horse collar rule alone was so inconsistently enforced and misapplied, even with clarifications. It would take several years to not have simple mistakes as people would have some expectation of NCAA rules from all sides. And even when you try to incorporate college philosophies, officials have a hard time because "The rule did not say it that way." There are a lot of philosophies that would have to be adopted as well.

The most important part would be the blocking and other safety rules that would not exist. I showed a video where officials called a BBW on a legal play and a TD was called back. Now imagine a 10 to 2 block and how that would be officiated by a similar crew? Then I was talking to an HS official that wants to get into college that wanted to enforce a rule on socks being decorative at a college game and could not understand why it was not called by others. Yep, that is the guy you would have to constantly deal with. Be careful what you ask for.

Peace

But isn't this more attitude than knowledge/skill? Every association has the guy that brings a pressure gauge to the game and checks the ball pressure, or the guy that stops every play because a player's jersey isn't completely tucked in, etc. But these aren't specific to rules.

Are saying that the overall attitude of officials doing a game by the NCAA ruleset also need to be adjusted to an NCAA mindset in terms of enforcement? Is the battle against overzealous pedants any better in MA/TX than in other states? I'm not so sure.

The state where officials have to monitor a handshake line? No, they have their issues there, too.

NCAA rules are more complicated. When you include exceptions and other areas where a rule constantly changes like the crackback blocking, yes I think it is more about knowledge then skill. It takes a lot of study and experience to understand NCAA rules when you have not dealt with them most of your life.

I belong to an association that focuses on college heavily and all you hear is people complain how they get the two mixed up or do not understand rules for the NCAA.

Peace

That's a deficiency on the part of those officials. Those same officials probably do not know NFHS rules terribly well, either.

I, like you, have to go back and forth from Friday to Saturday. It's a lot of work and you have to know the rules and interpretations cold (or as close as you can). But that's part of the gig.

If those officials needed to work NCAA only, there'd only be one set of rules to deal with and you'd eliminate complaints about keeping the rules straight.

Bad example, IMO. My crew does this every week. Too many 7 pound footballs. Too many footballs inflated specifically to be "kicking balls."

We bring a gauge and a pump and every football presented to us is checked and fixed, if necessary. It only takes a few minutes. Not a single coach has complained about us doing this in the 4 or so years we've done it.

You say this like it's a bad thing. My entire crew had a gauge in their bag.

Don't get me wrong. We have gauges and pumps as well, but we don't break them out unless the ball feels too soft. A good U can tell if a ball is in the proper range. The guy I know measures the balls, marks them, and if an unmarked ball comes in during the game he refuses it. The latter little bit doesn't bug me too much (except in less than varsity games). But the gauge on every single ball at all levels (even junior high)? Too much.

But anyway, I was just trying to point out there are pedantic officials out there (we have a few in our association) that nit-pick every little thing, especially the non-safety related items (like jerseys tucked in, wristband colors, holding away from the point of attack, PI away from the ball being thrown).

See above.

I'm trying to remember whether the year NCAA most recently (it's one of those back-&-forth changes) adopted previous spot enforcement for DPI in relationship to the year they abolished the LD for OPI. It might've been a similar balancing deal.

All of that might be true. But I am not understanding why would this be better for the kids? After all this is what the rules are ultimately made for. The NCAA has resources and can school their officials on things that come up. Many states cannot or do not have the opportunity to update rules or philosophy to the officials or coaches in a similar manner. Even if the states went to those rules, you still would have growing pains and instead of one or two rules changes, you would have a couple of hundred off the bat that all officials would have to be aware of. Just the play clock situation would be a nightmare as most schools I doubt have a play clock anywhere near a field.

And for the record I have never brought a gauge to a high school field. We usually use one football anyway and there is no need to go there. To each his own.

Peace

It was in Illinois, in a suburban (Chicago) conference, where I saw the most egregious attempt by a punter and his coach to introduce an over-inflated, old, wornout football specifically as his "kicking ball." When our ball checker disallowed the football as not meeting proper specs, the kid and his coach went crazy -- they used this special ball the kid's entire career! Apparently on fourth down, officials were letting the team change footballs so this kid could punt "his" ball. I'm not sure I believed them, but they were putting on a huge act if they were acting.

I thought I was transported back in time.

We only use the gauge and pump for varsity contests, and every team is asked to check in at least 2 footballs (if not 3). If a long pass is thrown out of bounds or even incomplete to the BJ, I want another football ready to bring in from the wing so we can get it spotted -- the other ball then goes out to the ball boy.

That said, all the teams use the same footballs anyway, so I do not understand why we need to have balls from each team. I'll never get that. It would be like baseball teams being allowed to check in their own baseballs...

I tossed a "kicking ball" out a couple of times in a game so I warned the coach that if a ball boy handed it to me again, we were going to have a problem. He pulled out a knife from his pocket and stabbed the ball and asked me if that fixed my problem. "Why yes it does:eek:"

Biggest problem I've noticed lately is the kicker bringing "his" ball out with him. The wings have already gotten a game ball to the BJ just after the coin toss or halftime ends but they still wander out there with a ball of their own. They look so perplexed when the BJ tosses it back to their sideline.:p

I think you have a separate problem - team personnel with a knife handy?

Not everywhere is like inner city Houston. ;)

In a soccer recertification once, a ball was passed around and we were asked if the ball had enough pressure. I said it was a little light and everyone else said it was fine. It was half flat. I've used a gauge ever since.

In some 50 soccer games so far this season, I have only once been presented with game balls that weren't flat.

Maybe football is different but in my experience, hands aren't reliable pressure gauges.