MATTHEW BROWN: Appreciation of the rules
Published 5:32 pm Friday, October 25, 2024
Old Business: Yes, I am sure we can add the Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers to the short list of those who would love to ‘borrow’ a higher quality of back-up quarterback.
New Business: Maybe you couldn’t see it with all of your attention on the Tennessee upset bid of Alabama, but the coolest uniforms of the season go to the Illinois Fighting Illini taking us back to the days of Red Grange. The graphic designs people can come up with these days is amazing, making the modern helmet look like the leather ones of old. Or maybe that was actual leather … again, amazing work, enough to fool a defending national champion. Take them with you when you face No. 1 Oregon at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, if you don’t get upstaged by another Bama upset.
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Funny how, from Austin, Texas, to the WNBA championship deciding game in Brooklyn, October has been full of Fall Sports Officials Appreciation Weeks. The Georgia High School Association had its week Sept. 30-Oct. 5.
What I really want to focus on this week is sports rules, like how there is no limit on when football officials can wave off a penalty like pass interference before the next snap. Doesn’t matter if the infraction was already announced and marked off. Doesn’t matter how the game was subsequently delayed allowing time to reconsider, and it doesn’t matter what tools were used in helping with the reconsideration.
This was originally inspired in me the weekend before Georgia-Texas and another top 5 college game where a former Georgia assistant used a little gamesmanship to work the rules in his favor. That would be Oregon’s illegal substitution late in its win at home over Ohio State.
Dan Lanning, now leading the Ducks after serving as Kirby Smart’s defensive coordinator, said it was fully intentional, sneaking a 12th player on the field defensively. Out comes the yellow flag, the Buckeyes don’t gain any yards on the actual play, and while they got the five penalty yards, they also lost time off the clock. This was the next-to-last snap of the game, and Ohio State lost 32-31.
Days later, the NCAA decides that with such penalties the offense can opt to reset the game clock … unless that 12th defender is trying to leave the field before the snap. Always a caveat.
The NCAA may or may not take reactionary action to what happened in Austin. The way I see it, that INT did not change the outcome of the game. Georgia dominated in every way except for throwing a few too many picks. Let them play football.
Throwing things from the stands? Nothing new. Cups often flew from the upper deck of Sanford Stadium to celebrate good things done by the Bulldogs, at least in the early ’90s. And if somebody caught you in the act, book-‘em Dan Lanning-O.
The whole Ohio State-Oregon matter brought to mind how a state championship game in high school I covered came to an end. One team had just gone ahead by less than the value of a field goal, but there was enough time for some incredible drama.
The trailing team gets the kickoff, and the leading team committed enough fouls on defense to put the other side in field goal range for the win. One of those fouls was illegal substitution for having 13 players on the field. The next was illegal substitution for having 12 players on the field (a theory is that they put 13 on the field in order to get away with having 12 the next play; didn’t quite work out).
Before continuing, just recently I asked the lead official at Baldwin-Hephzibah to clarify something bothering me since that game I’m describing. “Are there 10-second runoffs in high school?” The answer: no. For one thing, he said clock management in high school is hard enough without trying to do that.
Back to the story. After everyone gets 11 on the field, there’s a play by the leading defense that has at least one of their staff doing video screaming for intentional grounding. Not only that, but he wants a 10-second runoff which would essentially end the game. I’m thinking, ‘This is high school. Do they even do that?’ Even so, there was no flag, so it’s a moot point.
On the next snap, that does run off remaining time, there is a flag, for defensive pass interference. That gives the trailing team an untimed down which they use to make a winning field goal.
Just to be clear, 10-second runoffs can happen in the final two minutes after grounding, illegal forward passes or throwing the football backwards out of bounds. If the offending team has a timeout, that can negate the runoff. There’s also a rule about players being injured on plays that result in first downs and there’s less than 10 seconds remaining in a half.
But it’s just college and the NFL.
Stalling is a long-used tactic in sports. It’s amazing how many times you see wrestlers who have a lead in high school state tournaments penalized for stalling, which awards points to your opponent. A great time waster was substitutions in high school soccer where the clock keeps running.
College soccer actually dealt with that installing a rule for the last 15 minutes of the second half. If you have a lead and you want to sub, the clock stops. It doesn’t stop in that time frame when there’s a tied score or a trailing team wants to sub. Should the score change to a tie or a lead, then the rule changes appropriately.
Speaking of rules, I wonder if anyone thought to write this out on the first page of the books: Only one ball in play at a time?
(If at all possible, give pet adoption a try through the Animal Rescue Foundation in Milledgeville. Donations of any kind are also in great need. ARF is a little red building at 711 S. Wilkinson St., and more information is available at animalrescuefoundation.org.)