Officiating Questions

[Favpack]

Two ref questions gang (both from last night)

1) Nac. kicks at a fieldgoal. The kick is blocked. The Nac holder picks up the ball and throws into the end zone. It is intercepted by Hewitt in the end zone who runs it out to the 7. What's the call? The refs spent a good 10 minutes deciding. I say the ball was dead at the point of the block because an offensive team cannot advance any blocked kick. The refs went with me, then changed their mind and put the ball on the 7 where Leonard ran it out.

2) A defender jumps offsides - touches no one, draws no one off, gets back and resets (easily - no debate there) and the ball is snapped. Refs throw flag for an off-sides. I'm assuming here that they said the defender caused an o-lineman to flinch. What's the correct call in hs? Can a defender get in the neutral zone without touching anyone, reset and still be called for offsides?

Really sad when refs don't know the rules - a sad reflection on HS ball at any level. The refs also called an offensive off-sides - I'm not kidding. There's illegal procedure - but I don't believe the offense can be off-sides. Thoughts?

[Favpack]

Ok - the ruling I got on the blocked fg attempt confirmed the right call was made, but sad it took the refs 5 minutes to make it.

A fg/punt blocked behind the line of scrimmage that stays behind the los can be advanced by the offense. So, the holder picking up the blocked ball and throwing it is allowed, or he could have run it. If the ball is blocked, but advances behond the los (partially blocked punt), the offense/kicking team cannot advance the ball.

[ktCarl]

I think the only way an offense player can be offside is if he is lined up in the neutral zone. The flag will be thrown at the snap. But you're right(I think) you don't have an offensive 'offsides' call. Just illegal motion or neutral zone violation.
I don't think the quality of refs are there for high school football. There's just too many games with too many teams playing (6-man thru 5A) to have enough really good refs. I think during the course of a game they do a pretty decent job. It stinks, though, when they blow calls and with sub-par officials, it's gonna happen.
It happened at Katy's game with Humble last week. Humble lined up for a 2-point conversion with their big 6'-6" QB lined up in the slot as a receiver. The receiver went to the corner of the endzone for a tall pass (too high for Katy's DB) but the receiver still pushed off the DB in the back, knocking the DB down, and made the catch. We waited for the offensive pass interference call but no flag was thrown. There was much booing and Coach Joseph gave the ref an earful for about 5 mins. It didn't affect the outcome of the game but you gotta throw a flag for the obvious violations, I think.
I find more questionable ball placements than bad calls with high school refs.

[svstate05]

1) Nac. kicks at a fieldgoal. The kick is blocked. The Nac holder picks up the ball and throws into the end zone. It is intercepted by Hewitt in the end zone who runs it out to the 7. What's the call? The refs spent a good 10 minutes deciding. I say the ball was dead at the point of the block because an offensive team cannot advance any blocked kick. The refs went with me, then changed their mind and put the ball on the 7 where Leonard ran it out.


as long as the blocked kick is still behind the line of scrimmage its a live ball so the call would just be that the conversion was no good

[svstate05]

i think the worst called i've ever seen made is at the TCU v. Utah game. with the scored tied at 17-17, Utah's driving with 38 seconds left in regulation, they pass the ball to a reciver who clearly has possesion of the ball and then steps out of bounce, the ref then spots the ball but keeps the clock running and forces Utah to burn a T.O......even the commentators were stumped on this one and i still haven't figured it out yet

[STJL41]

2) A defender jumps offsides - touches no one, draws no one off, gets back and resets (easily - no debate there) and the ball is snapped. Refs throw flag for an off-sides. I'm assuming here that they said the defender caused an o-lineman to flinch. What's the correct call in hs? Can a defender get in the neutral zone without touching anyone, reset and still be called for offsides?

As far as I know, he should have been able to jump offsides and reset without a penalty, assuming he didn't make contact with any players on the offense. I've seen it happen that way before, so I don't see any reason for the flag to be thrown if that is what happened. If he made an o-lineman flinch, then shouldn't the flag be on the offense?

[Favpack]

As far as I know, he should have been able to jump offsides and reset without a penalty, assuming he didn't make contact with any players on the offense. I've seen it happen that way before, so I don't see any reason for the flag to be thrown if that is what happened. If he made an o-lineman flinch, then shouldn't the flag be on the offense?

Yeah, it was a blown call - and a bad one at that - but that's life with the zebras.

The TCU/Utah call was one of the worst I've ever seen - ever. I think these guys are going in reverse these days - maybe it's fear of instant replay. but, I thought the Ohio St/UT game was well called.

Most in the know people I talk to say many districts are doing good just to field a full crew for all district games these days. We had two middle school games here in Lufkin last year with 2 refs only, and one with 1 ref for a full half before they begged someone to help out after half. Alot of quality refs have left the sport and they're not being replaced.

[rich_pack]

Not only that, but I know some people that were at the Nac-Lufkin game that took their camcorder recording from the endzone view. Two or three times they called the Lufkin recievers and runningbacks out of bounds. It was close on a couple, but one play showed Bryant was in by a good two feet and they blew the whistle just because it looked like he was going to run out of bounds. These refs are from Rusk I think