(Comment) NCAA Football Officiating Point of Emphasis for 2015
 

Spotting the football needs to be a point of emphasis for NCAA football officials for 2015. Hardly a game goes by without at least one spotting miss of over one foot, and gaffes of over a yard are becoming more routine. And the instant replay booth rarely buzzes down to stop play even when replay clearly shows that a spot is way off.

Late in the 4th quarter of today's Conference USA championship game a runner's knee was clearly down at the 36-yard line with the line to gain just past the 35. The ball was spotted with the back nose touching the 35 and a first down was awarded without even a measurement. And play was allowed to continue without the replay booth stopping to take a second look (assuming there was ever a first look).

When it is supposedly the best graded crew in a conference working a championship game and you still have this type of basic mistake, it needs to be addressed across all conferences.

One whole foot you say?

The fields are perfectly marked. First downs tend to start on yardlines. If it's a first down by the length of the football and it's obvious, why would they go through the charade of measuring?

Checking your posting history, do you ever have anything good to say? The forum isn't just for people to come on here and complain every great while.

Where was the ball when his knee hit?

See ya in 2017.

My thoughts exactly.

Just wait until the field is all marked with sensors and a gps unit is placed in the ball. Then and ONLY then will the ball be marked exactly where it's supposed to go every time.:rolleyes:

The player was upright with a knee down right on the 36-yard sideline stripe and no arm was extended from his body to stretch the ball forward.

Since the tackler was making the play from the side, the ball-carrier's forward progress point was at the point the knee touched the ground with the ball just across the 36. The line to gain was exactly on the 35. The head linesman was less than four yards from the play between the 39 and 40 when the knee touched down. And he got no help...that's the bigger issue.

If the play had been reviewed by the replay booth even using just the one TV angle, the ball clearly should not have been spotted for a first down. Other camera angles should have provided better evidence that the spot was off by between a half-yard and a full yard.

Rich, legitimate respectful comment should be welcomed and be used to help improve a sport.

The issue of missed spots in college football has been magnified since implementation of instant replay. I don't expect an official 20 yards directly down a sideline away from a ball-carrier to make a perfect spot every time. I do expect an effort to improve mechanics and get officials into better position to minimize excessively missed spots. I also expect officials who appear to be in proper position not to miss spots by a half-yard or more. And when spots are obviously missed, I expect other crew members to help out and for instant replay to be utilized.

Plays like this one should be used a teaching aid to improve officiating. That is why I brought it to the attention of this forum.

Most of the inbounds spots are actually gotten by the official across the field using cross-field mechanics. Did you know that?

Deep plays -- the deep wings usually get the spots mentally and communicate them to the short wings coming down the field.

Doesn't mean there won't be mistakes, but if a player is stopped inbounds, it's usually not the guy 20 yards back that's making that decision.

Further, officials tend to start with first downs on a yardline. Short wings will decide if it's short or not before putting the ball down. If it's a first down, they'll round it to a yard line every time -- at least at the levels where the fields are well-marked.

Your OP mentions where his knee went down. That has nothing to do with the ball, only in the sense of where the ball was WHEN the knee went down.

Your comment is no different than any of the 500 yahoos in the stands behind me hollering about what a horrible spot something is from time to time. Your "respectful comment" smacks of pompous self-righteousness.

Trust me, you won't be working NCAA long if your supervisor thinks your spots suck. In fact if you're that bad, you probably aren't working it to begin with.

Care to post a video of this "missed spot" so that we can see just how "badly" it was "missed"?

If it's as bad as you claim, there's gotta be some fanboy "the refs screwed us" youtube video of it somewhere.

Is that your only purpose here?

Your name and posting history seem to show an agenda. Do you officiate?

I tried to post the screenshot I have linked below two weeks ago, but the forum won't let me. And that was despite reducing the file size to less than the 100K listed as the maximum allowed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4MzyQaCEAA1glR.jpg

The line to gain is squarely on the 35 as the TV line to gain was just past where the actual line should have been. The ball was spotted squarely on the 35 and no measurement was called for.

I have officiated in the past. But why should that be relevant?

If I had come on this forum and called out crew members by name, that would have crossed the line. Instead I have been called out twice in this thread for bringing a legitimate discussion topic to the forum.

What I want, and what I hope everyone posting here wants, is for officiating to continue to improve. This thread points out an area where there is room for improvement.

This still shot is nowhere near enough information to spot the ball properly. Learn to officiate ... then you can come complain with an understanding of all the principles involved. The mere fact that you think this post is enough to spot the ball clearly indicates you don't understand everything involved in spotting the ball.

I found the game highlights on YouTube. The play starts at about the 36:05 mark into the video, :54 sec game time. It is 3-9 for Marshall (green) from just inside the B45 yard line.

Marshall intercepted the ball and the interceptor was downed at the then A30 yard line. Marshall was penalized after the play 15 yards for USC and the ball would have been spotted at the now B45 yl.

Now if you want to argue that the Marshall receiver didn't get any part of the ball to the B35 yl, which would be all that he had to do as the ball would have been spotted with the nose on the B45 as any good NCAA umpire on down would do, then I'll grant you the argument there.

If your argument is he didn't get to the superimposed yellow line, that has nothing to do with it and is unofficial and would not have been the line to gain.

http://youtu.be/PZv9Y2a-AGc?t=36m5s

Just out of curiosity, why is this still shot nowhere near enough information?

What happened the frame before? The frame after?

Essentially it removes context. It is one split second in continuous action.

In this instance, in following frames, do you see the ball carrier reach across the LTG? Is this forward progress?? Does he even have the ball?

What does it tell you about a live play, other than one team is green and one team is white?

I've seen gobs of still pictures you would swear there was a block in the back but in reality there wasn't.

I was basically asking if it was something specific he saw in this shot, or a more general statement against using still images to demonstrate a point. I understand that in a lot of cases, but if you have a clear shot of a player with his knee down and the location of the ball is clear, is that not enough to make a judgment(knowing that he didn't lose the ball)? And I don't think that's the case in that screenshot. Even watching the video link in an above post I can't tell for sure where the ball was from the angle provided.

The biggest reason is that we have no clue, from this still shot, if the play is moving backward at the moment of the photo ... which would mean there's a forward progress spot already established before the photo.

Very rarely is a still shot going to provide enough information to make a ruling. In this case the still doesn't give us any information about what happened prior to this. Had he reached the ball out or been pushed backward to this spot.

When I watch the video I can't tell how far forward he is leaning when the knee hits the ground. It looks very possible he's leaning far enough to reach the line to gain. The angle isn't the greatest from the wing official, but he has seen that play 1000s of times and has a pretty good feel for where the ball is when the runner's knee is down. That doesn't mean they aren't occasionally wrong, but they are more than likely right. There is no clear evidence they are wrong so thus it wasn't overturned. This looks close enough at a critical spot I think they should have had a longer review.

I think that part of the OP's problem is that this play (and others like it) doesn't appear to have been reviewed at all.

Every play is reviewed. The only time the game is interrupted for a replay is if the replay folks either can't determine if the call is correct, or if they can tell that the call is incorrect.

So, that likely means that the replay folks think the officials on the field got it right.

It's also possible that the replay equipment was malfunctioning at the time (it happens), leaving the replay officials unable to review the play.

Again ... supposition in absence of evidence. They don't stop things down for every review in NCAA. 95% of the plays that are reviewed in NCAA don't stop play at all.

Every single play is reviewed under NCAA rules...but even so, if the coach feels so adamantly that a play needs to be stopped to give a play full examination, he can challenge a play.

Reread my posts through this thread.

This frame of the video with the runner's knee down was at the point of furthest forward progress on this play as I indicated. The ball is dead at (or before) this point because the knee is already down, so nothing after this frame should matter regarding the spot of the ball. The line to gain as I stated previously was squarely on the 35, not at the TV line to gain. The ball was never stretched forward at any point on the play, so the ball position when the knee touched the ground was the point where the ball should have been spotted.

Was the ball advanced to the 35 based on this frame? I would state pretty clearly no. But is this conclusive evidence by itself?...absolutely not.

Is it enough evidence to indicate that the play deserved additional video review, especially when the difference was between potentially 4th down and a half-yard (or more) and a 1st down? I firmly believe it is.

The game situation alone should have dictated closer scrutiny than if it would have been the difference between a 2nd down and a half-yard or a 1st down. Scoring plays, turnovers, and 1st down/no 1st down spots on possession downs (3rd and 4th) deserve at least a "thumbs-up" from the replay booth when there could be doubt before play should be allowed to continue.

I believe college football would benefit if the play clock rules only after a first down is gained reverted back to the old rule of 25 seconds from the ready for play signal. The ready signal could be withheld until the "thumbs-up" is given on plays that could be in doubt. That would be needed only a handful of times a game with on average maybe one or two extra booth reviews being required.

I'm not talking about 3-inch or 6-inch spotting differences here. If reviewed those plays would result in the calls on the field standing or being confirmed about 99 times out of 100, and they should. But every effort should be made to eliminate significant spotting errors (minimum a foot to half-yard) when that spot is critical to the game situation.

On a related point, there was another example of replay not jumping in to correct a spot in the Miami Beach Bowl. Indisputable video evidence showed the runner's knee was down on the 3-yard line with the ball at best barely past the 2 on a run that was ruled a touchdown. Play wasn't stopped for a review.

Ok , I read through your posts and all you contend are two things. Twice you mention the LTG is the 35. In the OP you allege the knee is down at the 36. You never mention the location of the ball at the time. You post a still photo of one moment in time with no explanation of what it is you want everyone to look for. Those two different statements explain nothing of what you contend, by themselves.

I actually go retrieve the video and as I posted, concede you can argue the spot.

Had you not announced some national need for spotting POE and actually made your point, with the video, you might have garnered a little more support for your point instead of leaving it for us to divine on our own.

They do.

It was reviewed. It just wasn't stopped. And coaches can insist on a review if they feel it necessary - that didn't happen either. Probably for a reason.

Lack of adequate booth reviews don't do coaches any good with no timeouts left. Challenges should not be totally dependent on having a timeout left if the review process is going to be a failure on basic things like the spot of the football. Coaches without timeouts should still be allowed to challenge and take a delay of game penalty if the challenge fails, something that is currently not allowed.

And to be clear my comments in this thread are directed more at what instant replay is not doing more than anything with on-field crews, even though there is room for on-field improvement.

A play just happened at the end of the first half of the Rose Bowl, and there is absolute indisputable video evidence that the spot was missed by more than a yard on the Florida State interception with 18 seconds left in the first half that could have given FSU an extra 3 points.

The FSU defender is on the ground as soon as he makes the interception with his helmet just short of the 48 yard line. His elbow is on the ground just past the 47, and his knees are down just short of the 47. There is no way that ball should have been spotted past about the 47 and a half given the position where the ball had to be when the interception was made. When the player rolled over sitting on the ground with the ball facing the camera, the ball was barely at the 48 and that was long after the player was clearly down with possession. The ball didn't get to the 49 until after the player stood up with the ball and took a step.

Guess where the ball was spotted?....squarely on the 49.

The intercepting player was just outside the far hash mark from the pressbox, and no other player was within 5 yards of him at the point of interception. No excuse for both the crew on the field to miss the spot that badly and for replay to then ignore the miss.

If my suggestion earlier in this thread had been in effect, play should not have continued until a thumbs-up. No thumbs-up should have been given with the spot off by over a yard.

I keep reading denials of a problem and keep routinely seeing spotting snafus like this one not get a sniff from the replay booth. That extra yard and a half could have given Florida State an extra 3 points since the missed FG that ended the half hit only about two feet up on the left upright. A straight kick that would have scored 3 might have been short or hit the crossbar from 4 feet further back.

Do you have a favorite windmill?

You do know the ball must be spotted on a yard line on a COP. That's in the mechanics manual. So you're saying it should be on the 48 not the 49? I can't be bothered to look at this play.

I'm not sure what you want -- you realize the spot on an interception belongs to the deep wings who could be 15-20 yards even further downfield? The short wings are at / near the LOS. So you have 4 officials, none of whom are even close to the spot. 1 yard is a reasonable margin of error here unless you think every spot should be reviewed, which is not reasonable.

I can't imagine there's anyone else seriously bothered by this particular result, BTW.

I almost refuse to answer because it sounds like a discussion with someone who wants an argument. One of the criteria for review is that the play has a significant impact. That had serious implications for the spotting of the ball and it relies on the judgment of the replay official, yes he gets judgment and he gets graded on his judgment like the other 7 or 8 field officials.

In the rose bowl game the 47-49 is not worth delaying the game to split that hair. You can tell us where his helmet, hands, elbows, knees and everything else is, but it is all irrelevant. FIND THE BALL.

The "thumbs up" replay system is NOT an NCAA system. If replay or a coach does not stop the play then it stands like it did for a few decades before replay was instituted to correct egregious mistakes.

This is pointless and there is nothing to be solved here. Please find another windmill to tilt at.