On the Field Mechanics

[falcettik]

The following events happened late in the first half of a game last night. There appear to be numerous errors in the mechanics of the officials and for my own education could someone with more knowledge comment on what happened? Admittedly, a lot happened on this series. Further complicating matters is that the on field crew only had four officials, not six, so there were no back or line judges (that plays into a third quarter TD where the ball carrier lunged for the goal line and lost the ball, but with no back or line judges the side/down judge was far, far behind the play-but that is not for this question).

The scenario: Team A returns a fumble and is pushed out of bounds at Team B's 2 yard line with about 1:35 on the clock. Being a change of possession the clock should have stopped (correct?) but it did not. Neither did any of the officials signal to stop the clock, nor did I hear a whistle. With Team A now in possession of the ball both teams began changing out their offense/defense - but the clock keeps running and is now down close to a minute. Team A fans are screaming but the clock keeps running. Team A's head coach, with only one time out left, chooses not to call time out (he might need it later and this was a critical point in the game with his team trailing by a TD with an opportunity to tie the game) so he runs onto the field to the side/down judge and points out the clock is still running. The side/down judge does not signal the clock to stop, nor use his whistle, but he does start jogging across the field to the far hash where the white hat is setting the ball. The refs finally stop the clock with 41 seconds left, costing Team A almost a minute. Team A runs their first play with 0:37 on the clock, first and goal from the two and the ball carrier takes the handoff and runs behind the left tackle and does not see any contact until at the goal line, then lunges forward into the end zone-but the side/down judge marks him down inches short of the goal (being a running play, the clock keeps running). At this point, something happened in the scrum of players and flags start flying - and the clock keeps running, all the way down to 9 seconds, before it is stopped. When all is said and done, the refs mark off three distinct penalties (I have no idea what they were) and the ball ends up on Team B's 7 yard line. Team A then attempts a second down pass that is flagged for defensive PI and now has the ball on Team B's 4 yard line. With only one second left on the clock, Team A attempts a short FG but the snap is bad. End of half.

Later, just prior to starting the second half the white hat is overheard telling Team A's head coach that he should have used his timeout to request a rules interpretation, but since he did not there was nothing they could do.

I am not questioning any of the decisions, just the mechanics and why the clock ran so much time off.

 

[White hat]

You're right, there is a lot going on here.

First and foremost, the clock operator is technically a part of the officiating crew, even when it's a person provided by the home team. The CO is just like the chain crew in this regard.

It's up to him or her to know the timing rules enough to prevent a situation like this. If a clock operator says "I only stop it when I'm told to by signal," then that's a complete and total dereliction of duty, which is exactly wht I would call the scenario described.

If there is a change of possession, the runner clearly goes out of bounds, a score, a pass falls incomplete or there's a flag on the field, the clock is stopped by rule and the clock operator absolutely has the responsibility of stopping it, signal or not.

(Side note: The lack of a whistle means nothing. A whistle is not needed to play football. Deaf people play football all the time and they can be clock operators. Im trying to guess how many plays in my game Friday night had no whistle at the end. I'll guess 10-12, but that might be low.)

As for the crew, somebody has to be looking at the clock and know what kind of time is on the clock when a play, especially a change of possession, happens. When the coach pointed out the clock was running when it should have been stopped, it's imperative that it gets stopped and the crew decide what time should be added back. Even if they don't know for sure, I would think a good guess would be in order.

After the first time the clock kept running when it should have stopped, I'm not sure how four guys didn't look at it as soon as they put flags in the air on the first down play.

I would think the head coach would be asking for time to be put back on the clock. Even if he has to call the time out, do what you have to do to try to get the time restored or, at the very least, get it stopped and get some explanation then (not after halftime) as to what is going on.

I guess I should also ask, what was the score at this point? Not that it matters, but it kind of does. At least it might help me undersand the thinking -- even if I disagee with it -- if it was 45-0 or something like that.

 

[falcettik]

Thanks, White Hat. The score was 14-7 in favor of Team B with Team A trying to tie it. Team A ended up losing by 8 points, so later (second half) game decisions could certainly have been impacted if the score had been tied at the half. And great point about not needing a whistle-I never thought of that but that makes a lot of sense.

 

[757FridayNiteZ]

Does a team get the Time Out back if they alert about a CO or down count problem?

I can add to the above comments about clock management issues at other games I've attended.

 

[White hat]

Do they get the time out back? I can't answer that because I can only say what SHOULD happen if things are done correctly. In the OP, there were many things that were not done right.

A coach should not have to call time out to get a clock stopped when it should have stopped by rule. Once the crew decides there is a timing error, they should decide among themselves how much time to put back on the clock.

In the OP, there is a r3feree "overheard" saying something that is not correct, but that's a lot of hearsay. I'm not saying the original poster is not accurate, but I bet there are other accounts to the story and I'd love to hear them. The things I write about my own plays are still my personal views of them and woul have some detail disputed by other observers with other information.

 

[White hat]

As for other timing issues. I drop most of those squarely on the shoulders of ADs. An AD's job is tough and thankless and most do an outstanding job. But one of their responsibilites is to provide clock operators who know what they're doing, or contract with the officials' association to provide the COs. I don't know how it is across the state, but in the areas I have worked, only about 10 percent of schools use officials as COs. The rest are provided by the home team -- with varying results