Transcript for:
Rule 2, Part 1: The Language That Decides Friday Night

[Music] All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Whistle Talk, the rules edition. Once again, I am joined by my buddy Daniel Chamberlain joining us from OKC. Well, okay, not OKC. I know I'm watching the basketball game behind me, so I got a OKC in the back of my mind. But Daniel joining us again from Oklahoma. From the coach's point of view, as we go through tonight, we're going to go through rule two. We're going to go through about half of rule two because for the fellow officials out there, this is one of the most important segments of the rule book and for the coaches out there, you're going to hear a lot of stuff that you're like, why is this so important? But when we start talking about the jargon later on in the rule book, a lot of this stuff comes back into play. So, Daniel, once again, thank you for taking the time to jump on here tonight. How you doing, man? I'm doing fantastic. Mike D, the referee. Appreciate you having me on. Once again, for you guys that are listening, if you didn't catch the first two episodes, which I think got split. It was one big one. They he cut her down. So, yeah, which is probably good. That's a lot to take in at once. Uh just just remember if you're a coach listening to this, you should be. If you're a coach, you should be listening to this. Um we like to take the rules and weaponize them as much as possible. So, that's why I hooked up with Mike last season and was like, "Hey, how can I do all this ridiculous stuff?" And uh it's not cheating, but it is weaponizing the rules, especially special teams. the kicks as always, right? Like a free kick is is just money. So Oh, it's fun. It's fun. And I say that on the officiating side with a smirk. So yeah, man. I appreciate you letting me come on and and talk a little bit of ball from the other side. Absolutely. And uh before we dive in, I'm going to go and share my screen right now. Daniel, why don't you uh let our listeners give our give them a reminder of where they can find you and how they can get in touch with you uh on what you got going on in the coaching world and with this podcast that you got rolling. Absolutely. Uh the two two biggest places to find me is uh one the football coaching podcast with Joe Daniel. That's where I got my start in this uh online coaching world. I've been on there almost four years and he's had it for almost 14 years. So uh the podcast has a lot of episodes for you to go back and listen to. Don't listen to uh the beginning of season 10. That's where I came on and I was such a noob at this. Um started the coaching 101 podcast with Kenny Simpson almost two years ago. Um I think we published actually we're a few days over two years ago now and um that's been wonderful to get going. We just started posting two episodes a week. Kind of doing some smaller stuff on Thursdays, but uh you get the primary ones on Sundays for that or that show. And then I do consulting on the side. to Chamberlain Football Consulting. Um, you can go over to patreon.com and find Chamberlain Football Consulting, and there's tiers there for everyone. If you need uh maybe if you're a ref, too. I don't know. Whatever you're trying to do, if you're a parent, a ref, coach, uh, there's something there for you. I assure you, if there's not a tier that looks like it's something you need, holler at me and we'll figure something out. And yeah, I could definitely attest to to the officials out there, go on and take a listen to these two shows because it, in my personal opinion, it makes us better officials knowing what's going on inside the mind of a football coach, too. And I know my intro what's going on inside the mind of a football official, but you're going to get some behind thescenes looks of what these coaches are looking and what they're trying to set up and why they come at us with some of these weird questions as we think of them. Yeah, it's definitely a good listen. Two two great shows and uh great things going on there, Daniel. And uh Daniel was also a uh a fellow whiskey drinker, bourbon drinker. I got my bourbon here, a little whistle pig. What do What do we got tonight, Daniel? I started with the wild turkey rare breed a barrel proof. So that beast is at about 116.8 and then um that'll be my first one and then I'll move on to just some Wellers Green label special reserve. Like you got it right behind you. I love that. I got my bar in the other room. My wife would kill me if I brought it in here right now. Oh well, I have to bring them in here because I you know I don't want to be rude and get up and go refill the glass a lot. There you go. All right. So, uh, with that all being said, let's dive into rule two. Rule two is our definitions, terms, phrases defined for later use. And for the officials that are out there, the rule book itself, and again, we're going back to the NFHS rule book here. The rule book itself has all of these different definitions in alphabetical order. Tommy Barlo from my association here in New Jersey. He is the one that put together these this PowerPoint, this Google slide that we're that we're looking at and he uses these to train our cadetses here in the shore area of New Jersey. So Tommy decided to break these up not in just alphabetical order but more so by how it relates to the later rules. And you'll see more of what I'm talking about as we dive into this a little bit more. But here we go. So a quick introduction into two rule. It is the definitions and you can see here important with the be-old exclamation point um used to define playing teams and terms and provide references for other rules. An example of that is you'll hear us say rule 9-2 which is going to be on page 68. Uh then we're going to have different references penalties etc. Um, and again in the book themselves, they are in alphabetical order, but Tommy did a great job here of kind of breaking them down for us. And, uh, Daniel and I are going to kind of banter back and forth about them. So, as Daniel mentioned before, we've already talked about rule one. So, we got a couple of just quick reminders, additional definitions for rule one. The line to gain, more commonly referred to as the first down marker. It's a line established 10 yards for a new new series of downs. and out of bounds. When a player with the possession or without possession touching any other thing that is outside of the field of play, our end lines and our sidelines is going to be considered out- of- bounds. And a player remains out of bounds until they return to the field with any body part touching the field and no body part touching the out- of- bounds. And that's actually new from 2023. So, as long as that player reestablishes themselves inbounds, they are now considered inbounds. So again, just kind of piggybacking off, we were going over rule one with the field play and different things like that, equipment. So these are ones that kind of dive into that. Daniel, you know what the line of scrimmage is? Hey, it's that pretend line that my offensive lineman can never get far enough away from and the defensive linemen try to crowd. That's the one, right? You betcha. Line of scrimmage, vertical plane through the point of the ball. Through the point of the ball. Now, it doesn't say the front or the back point of the ball. Mike, I need I need this is government official stuff. I need it to say nearest the team's goal line. There we go. Which team determined by at ready for play and remains until the next what is RFP? Yeah. Oh, ready for play. RP ready for play whistle. Yep. So, you know, that is worded a little bit weird with the point of the ball nearest the team's goal line, but there's two teams. They each have a goal line, right? So, it's kind of a little bit odd, but let's see. Offensive player is on the line of scrimmage when he complies with position requirements of a lineman number, position, etc. Defensive player is on the line of scrimmage when he's within one yard of his scrimmage line at the snap. These will be important when talking about free blocking zone or legal or illegal blocks later in the presentation. So, question for you, Daniel. Have you ever seen a team snap the ball with the ball turned sideways? I have. So, would there be a point to that ball? I assume just you would just pick the nearest one of the goals and and not make too big a deal of it, right? Yep. So that's that's where you mentioned which point are we referring to. So that's why we're we're not going to truly give it a true point because it can be through basically the outside of the ball if the center has it sideways. And again, it's going to be determined for the ready for play. You're talking about the the nearest team's goal line. Well, that's going to be the offense and the defense. So the the line of scrimmage is going to kind of be defined by both sides of the ball. All right. So now some general definitions here, basic definitions of the game. They don't necessarily apply to a specific rule. They're going to apply to multiple rules basically. And and some of them are really really basic. So rule 2-37, the rule, the definition is what is a rule? It's a group of regulations that govern the game. So sometimes state what a player may do. If an act is not specifically prohibited, then it is pro then it is permitted. So that one's a good one right there. If an act is not specifically denoted as not being allowed, well then it is allowed. And if the rule does not specific specify that the ball is dead or that a foul is involved, then the ball is live and no foul has occurred. So that one is kind of important, but again kind of seems basic just as a rule, but we got it. 2-37. Your um quarterback crossing the line of scrimmage and then coming back behind it. I remember you telling me about that one last year. Right. Your quarterback can scramble, run down the field, come back, and then still throw a pass because he's still behind the line of scrimmage. Right. 100%. And again, that's one of those ones where it's not specified where in the collegiate and the and the NFL rules it is specified. So that would be an illegal forward pass in that scenario. But well, I know in the NFHS it is not an illegal forward pass. So, I I don't want to speak for the other ones because I'm not as well-versed in the other rules, but it's not specific in the rule book. So, that means you can do it and we've seen it. So, if you toss the ball back behind the line of scrimmage and then let another person throw it, you're saying you've gotten past the line of scrimmage and you toss it backwards. Yep. And then he throws it. It's not in the rule book. There we go. Secret play. Commit. Go past the line. Send it backwards. I love it. All right. So you want to take this one here? Absolutely. A thousand penalties 2-16. So a foul which is 216 and two. A rule or infraction for which a penalty is prescribed. A56 is holding. He is committing a foul. So it's a holding foul, not a holding penalty. Is that what it's saying here? Well, um, not just yet. Okay. Penalty. A result imposed by rule against a team or team member that has committed a foul. So team A was given a 10 yard penalty for A56 holding foul. So the penalty is the the outcome, right? The retribution for the foul is what you did to get a flag thrown. Throw a flag on a foul and then you assess a penalty and a penalty gives you yardage, loss of down, automatic first down, disqualification, etc. So that's good. It's good to know. Yep. And again, it's just basic terminology. It's not really going to have a major outcome in the game. And coaches tend to throw these back and forth kind of loosely and it doesn't doesn't really have that major of a deal. But for us officials, we got to understand, okay, we we threw the flag on the foul, but you could decline it. So there is no penalty for that foul. So we're moving on. All right. So we kind of break down our fouls. And you can see here five on the list here from a dead ball foul and a live ball foul. A dead ball foul is going to happen after the play is over. So, in between those live ball plays and a live ball foul is going to occur during the down. Now, this one does come into play, especially when you have a late hit. If you think about the wording of a late hit, a late hit is a hit after the play is over. So, that's going to be a dead ball penalty. So, uh a big one that we do go over is your late hit on fourth down or a hit out of bounds on fourth down. If the runner doesn't get the line to gain, doesn't gain a first down and then their hit while being well out of bounds. Well, yeah, you got a foul. They are going to get penalized, but because it was after the play was over, fourth down has ended, it's now going to be first down for the other team, and now we're going to tack on that 15 yards for the other team. So, that's where knowing what kind of play we have and where this this occurred does make a big difference. simultaneous with the snap, an act which becomes a foul when the ball is snapped or free kicked. So illegal motion, that's going to be one that's simultaneous because it's technically not illegal motion until the ball is snapped. So they motion two guys going in motion at the same time. Well, then they both reset and are paused. We got nothing. But if the snap happens, now we got something. Illegal formation, all those fit in this rule as well, right? Yes, sir. So ones like that that we're not going to throw until now breaking the neutral zone, false start, your encroachment, those are going to be ones that are going to be dead ball fouls. And you're going to see referee put their hand straight up in the air. That's going to signify that it's a dead ball false start or whatever encroachment on the defense, but you'll see that initial hand going up for the dead ball signal. So tell me this, Mike, just coach's point of view. I've seen it kind of go different in different places. You come up with a hard snap and you get the defense to jump into the neutral zone, but they don't touch anyone and you don't snap the ball. They get to reset. I've seen both and I I don't know which is correct. There should not be a foul until the ball is snapped, right? Nope. That is incorrect. So, in high school, you are not allowed to break the neutral zone no matter what. Soon as you break that neutral zone, it is a it is a foul. So, yep. College and the NFL, you are allowed to reset. Now, this is where you are going to see some good defensive teams where they may flinch. They may kind of look like they're stepping, but you'll see a guy on the wing, nope, didn't cross, didn't cross, and the coaches are going nuts, but you'll see us something I always did is I would literally shake my head so that people up in the press box, the coaches on the side. So, notice that I saw it, but we didn't have anything on there. So, that's where you're going to get the difference. College, you can reset and get back. Now, your hard count one, that one is a little bit tricky now of the deception fouls and different things like that. We're looking to see did the quarterback do any sudden movements, not just with a a vocal cadence, but was there a a a lunge, a movement, something like that where they're looking to try to draw them off sides. So, that we get into the offense. Yeah, I can't wait till we get into that portion of this because I have so many questions about the old hard count and turn and get your, you know, your next play. Everyone does it at the same time. have the whole O line stand up and look like we're just getting the play. But I'm excited to get into those kind of craziness. I think we may have to have a a separate episode just on that specific play because there are so many nuances to that. It's and I know you as a coach know that. Yes. All right. So then we got double fouls and multiple fouls. A double foul is going to be one or more live fouls committed by each team. So, this typically offsets, just so everybody understands, what would be a 15ard face mask penalty and maybe a 10 yard uh illegal block by the offense, 15 yards on the defense, 10 yards on the offense, there's offset. You're not getting five yards out of that scenario. A multiple foul is going to be two or more live ball fouls committed by the same team. So, the offended team now is permitted to choose their penalty. So if it's a a five yard and a 15 yard both on the offense, well the defense is probably going to pick the 15 yard penalty because it absolutely penalizes them the most. Talk to me about can you multiple and double? Can you get multiple? So like if you had double and they offset but one team committed two penalties, could you then accept the second penalty? Nope. It would still offset in that scenario unless one of those penalties was a dead ball. And we'll talk about that where one's a live ball and one's a dead ball. But if they're all live ball, if you've got one on each team, three on the offense, two on the defense, which you got ugly football going on there, but uh if they're all live ball penalties that are not an unsportsmanlike or non-player type of foul, they're going to offset. So, and that leads us to our next slide here of non-player unportsmanlike conduct. These are non-cont fouls while the ball is dead or during the down. Again, this can be something that our officials are going to enforce. So say a taunting play that that could be dictated that could be put as a dead ball play even though it happened during the field or during the play itself. So somebody running down the sidelines and pulling to Deion Sanders and high stepping it and pointing up to to their friends up in the stands. Well that's a taunting penalty as they're going. We're not pulling the touchdown back on that. So that would in essence turn into a dead ball penalty that's going to be enforced after the touchdown even though it happened in the field of play. It's good to know. Now, we got our flagrant fouls and then our postcrimmage kick fouls, which I'm not going to dive into that too much today cuz rule six really dives into the PSK type of fouls, but it's a foul by the receiving team during a scrimmage kick before the kick ends and we're going to talk about that later on. So, I don't want to get into that one again. That's one can be a whole another episode. All right, Dan, you want to take this one? Absolutely. Continuing here with fouls and penalties. So no foul causes loss of the ball. Example, the foul would loss of down penalty on fourth down. So you wouldn't get turnover on downs because of the penalty. So this be like what would be an example there actually because I'm thinking a loss of downs is is which ones give us loss of downs? So the most common one is going to be an illegal forward pass. So intentional grounding for example. If it's an intentional grounding on fourth down, you're most likely going to decline it. You may accept it and get take the yardage with it. Some people a lot of times do decline it. But if you decline, if you do accept it and the result is a loss of down, well, it's still an incomplete pass. So, the penalty didn't cause the turnover on downs. The incomplete being downed. Cool. Yep. Uh no fall foul causes a live ball to become dead. For example, 12 men on the field participating or face mask on runner and helmet comes off. So, with the 12 men, so or or live ball to come dead. So 12 men you could just you could play the down or does it automatically just be a what's it saying here? So the at no point are we going to kill a play when the ball is live for it to become dead. So unless it so so that that's simultaneous with the snap. We're letting that play out. 12 men on the field. If we can catch it before the snap, we want to do that. So, we want to get it before this snap is eminent because that turns into a 5-yard penalty of an illegal substitution. 12 men on the field. Now, you have illegal participation. That's a 15 yard penalty. But, we're going to let that play play out. So, I I've seen teams have 12 men on the field and us not catching it and all of a sudden you got a 60 yard touchdown and then we're sitting there and we're counting. We're like, "Oh, we missed that one. We're going to throw the flag and coach n decline. But we're not going to kill that if in the middle of the play we realize we have 12. So if I load it up with 14 on defense like Oregon did to stop a crucial I mean it just is what it is, right? That's just a high IQ play. You take the five yards but you burn off some clock. Yeah. And there's a lot of discussions going on with that. You're talking the collegiate level, but I know talking with some other collegiate officials, there's a lot of discussion going on with with plays like that. Would that be feasible at the high school level? I mean, that's what you're saying is the clock would run, the play would continue. If you bat the ball down, who cares? Now there's a five- yard penalty, right? Yeah. Yeah. Good to know the rule book. Yes. With the helmet coming off, I know here it's saying it can't become caused to become dead. Isn't there a If my helmet comes off and I continue playing, isn't that a penalty for illegal participation? 15 yard. Unfortunately, we we we let it play out and it's a 15 yard penalty. Say for for the safety aspect, if your helmet comes off, you should be pulling up and disengaging or not getting yourself. Now, if your helmet pops off as you're making the tackle or if you're the ball carrier and you're running and your helmet gets knocked off as you're going down, it's it is what it is. It's just you have to be removed for one play in that scenario unless it comes off because of a penalty. But if you're uh blocking a guy and your helmet comes off and then you continue downfield and block a second player, well now you got an illegal participation penalty. So that's a 15 yard. Perfect. Situations that produce result that produce results similar to penalties but are not fouls. Disqualification of a player can also be the result of a foul. First touching of a kick by the kicker, onside kick touched before 10 yards, and forfeite of a game. Now talk to me about this first touching of a kick by the kicker. So if he kicks and it doesn't go 10 yards, it's not a foul. Yeah. It's not necessarily that it's by the kicker, but by the kicking team. So when we refer to K and R, we got the kicking team and the receiving team. So if you go for an onside kick and the ball doesn't go 10 yards and somebody from the kicking team touches it before 10 yards in the high school level it is it is not a penalty but it is first touching and the kicking team will not be able to gain possession of that at that point in time because even if R then touches it R has the option of taking it at where K touched it first. So first touch. So and a lot of people do think that that is a penalty but it's not. it's just going to go back to where the first touching occurred. And your disqualification of a player, there's typically going to be a foul and a penalty that is going along with those. So, that's one that's uh usually not a standalone in that aspect. Team designations rule 2-43. This is the offense. The team is in possession of the ball. The defense is the opponent of the offense. Team A, team which puts the ball in play. Team B is the opposite or the opponent of team A. Team K team which legally kicks the ball during the down which we just saw on that last rule of discussing you know the the first touch. I misrepresented that as the kicking team but it's actually or I'm sorry I misrepresent as the kicker but it's actually the kicking team. Team R is the opponent of team K. So the receiving team designations are retained until the ball is next ready for play. So, if you intercept the ball, you are still the defense. And if you score on that play, it's still a defensive score. You wouldn't you wouldn't switch those designations just because a touchdown was scored. All right. Uh player designations. Player 20, excuse me, a player rule 2-32-1, one of 22 team members who is designated to start either half or sub subsequently replaces another player. Players are designated by team and number. For example, uh A1, K 56, B 20, R0. So that would be team A, which is how it's often in the rule book. You're going to see A versus B or K versus R. Offense and defense is still there, just not as much. So A1 is going to be generally the offensive player or team player because they put the ball in the play. Number one, jersey number one. K56 would be kicking team jersey number 56. The captain player designated represent his team during the coin toss max of four captains in uniform. Penalty decisions if designated by the head coach. So generally obviously the head coach is going to make those calls. And then ball placement in certain situations. Um we'll have to wait on Mike. This is the one that I want to know. And once again I think it usually comes back to the coach but if you get to pick your hash stuff like that replaced player. So, rule 2-32-12 notified by substitute that he is to leave the field. So, the player is also considered replaced when the substitute becomes a player. Mike made it back. I do. Talking about the captain making the decision on ball placement. Is that like getting to pick your hash uh for a two-point conversion or after a free kick? 100%. Yep. So, you're fair captain. What else can What other What other uh ball placement can a captain choose? Well, really quickly, um, a lot of this stuff here that the captain's, uh, rules are kind of our, well, null and void, uh, typically we defer to the coach instead because a lot of times it's a 16, 17, 18 year old kid. Um, but so there are five typical situations where a coach or captain has the opportunity to get the ball placed, and that's after a fair catch, uh, after a touchback, on your extra point, on your kickoff, or on a basically an illegal fair catch scenario where maybe it was running into the receiver or something like that on a okay punch. So different scenarios like that. Those are those are really good ones to know especially I feel like a lot of guys don't know that they can move the ball on a two-point conversion and like we have plays designated for the left hash, designated for the right hash, center, uh right center, left center. Like there's times that we want spacing to be different depend on what we want to do with the ball. So understanding that you get that choice is big time. Yeah. Especially with the high level. The same one with coming out of you know change of possession like uh after a kick I may want to start running a hash from or a play from the right hash right and so I can make that designation. So now understand when you're talking kickoffs and things like that if the ball is kicked off out of bounds the ball's going to that near hash. You don't get the option in that scenario. But if the ball is kicked for a touchback, you will then have the option in that scenario or if there is a fair catch. So on your scrimmage kick or on your free kicks, you will have opportunities for that. Our player designations here, we got our replace player and our substitute. Now, a lot of these are basically one and the same. 2-12 and 232-15. A replace player is notified by a substitute that he is to leave the field. a player is considered replaced when that substitute becomes a player. So, this is where a lot of people with the 12 men in the huddle type of scenario. We usually give some leeway with it. Some some officials are very very stringent with it and strict with it. Some people talk about a two second count, a 3-se second count. Basically, we don't want them. You could have a 12th guy in the huddle, but if that guy comes out and then sprints straight off to the sideline, we're letting that go. They're not trying to do any type of deception or anything like that. Now, a substitute is a team member who replaces a teammate, fills a vacancy, they become a player when they communicate with the teammate or game official, they enter the huddle, they're positioned in the formation, which is more of the one that we're looking for, or they participate in the play. So, that is is a huge element. And the last one, we're not going to call encroachment on a substitute on somebody that's coming on the field and they're entering on the defensive side of the ball because if the ball's on your own 5 yardd line, everybody's entering the field on the defensive side of the ball. So they're breaking the neutral zone. We're letting them get to the offensive side of the ball. And even if they're sprinting onto the field and lining up inside the numbers and then the ball is snapped, we're letting that go. There's no encroachment on that or anything. That's a good one to know. Talk to me about the players becoming a player. Does he have to cross the numbers? Because so, you know, last year we tried to run a guy on late. He just set up outside the numbers. We got a penalty or whatever, right? Because he hadn't gone past the nines, I believe, is what you called it last week. Yep. So, so talking about that scenario, what rule is there a rule that we're going to cover later or is this the rule that covers it? So, it's it's more so as an illegal substitution rule. So when we start talking about that foul for illegal substitution and illegal participation that's where that is going to fall in basically the player has to check in and in order for them to check in they have to get to that nine yard mark. So, at the top of the numbers and what this is trying to take away is that deception play where a player literally steps onto the field and we just had a scenario that happens. I don't exactly remember where, but I got the film of it where it happened where a player literally just stepped onto the sideline. Defense didn't recognize them because they were literally a half yard in the field of play and they snapped the ball, threw it to him and he was racing down the side. It's in our playbook, Mike. Yes, that's in our playbook. we're running that. That would be illegal. So, yeah, we do it with more of a he slowly jogs off the field to be, you know, because then he's never actually left the field and then converses with the coach. He never left the field. Like, if you don't cover him, I realize it could be deception, but you know, and a good crew is going to hit you on that one. Well, good. No, they should. Another crew might not, unfortunately. But yeah, that that definitely falls into the deception rule because now if they're so you break the huddle and we used to have a play called hey stupid. The center the the quarterback would be looking to get go under center and then he would turn to the sideline and saying hey stupid you're get get off the field get off the field and then all of a sudden we'd snap the ball to the running back and now we're running a a wildcat play I guess now you would call it to the other other direction. Well, that technically is called deception, which as a coach, I loved it. Especially at the JV and freshman levels when we did that, let kids have some fun. But for sure, as a varsity coach or a varsity official now, I got to tell you that that's deception and it takes away from the uh the nuances of the game. The inte Thank you. the integrity of the game. So, I don't personally like it, but it is a rule that is out there. Ours was called Hey Justin because our tight end was this is pro football back then. You know, you had to have your tight end on the ball. So, we just line him up as an Hback. What today would be Hback off the ball and then snap it to the running back. Hey, scoot up. Scoot up. Scoot up. And then snap it. As long as they were in a legal formation. There we go. Um, player designations still here. Passer 2-32-12. Player who throws a legal forward pass continues to be a passer until pass ends or he moves to participate in the play. So this like when you're talking about roughing the passer, if I do run triple option and then throw the ball after I've pitched it to a running back, he is still can gain a roughing the passer. Absolutely. Because he threw the ball. Correct. Okay. Um runner player who is in or simulates possession of a live ball or simulates his fancy. Yep. So now you you brought up the triple option team. So that quarterback that gives on gives the fullback on the dive and then they continue running that that toss to the side and they get blasted. They're simulating the run. So there's no roughing the passer because he's a runner and there's no there's no Yeah. And that's what Oh, that's our quarterback. No, coach, he was simulating running the ball. And that's what a good option team wants to do because they want and as a defense for the defenses out there that are going against the the flex bone, tackle everybody. Tackle everybody. practice without the football. Yeah, for sure. A back uh team A player. Here we get back in that A and B versus uh KN&R versus O and D. Yep. Uh team A player, so the people who put it into play with no part of his body breaking the waist of the nearest teammate on the line exception player in position to receive hand-to-hand snap. Talk to me about this one. What does that mean? What are we identifying as a back? So, how many guys do you have to have on the line of scrimmage? Seven. Correct. And then the other four are going to be backs. So it could be the quarterback, the flanker, your Hback, whomever it may be that is not in that position that they are defined as being on the line of scrimmage. Now so a slot receiver is a back by the rules. Correct? Because for the people the normal the the nomenclature the slot receiver is going to be usually a yard off the ball and they're punched back where your flanker is typically going to be on the ball or your X receiver your Z's your however whatever terminology you may use but your interior guys typically are off the ball again I'm saying basics a lot of people do the reverse slot with it but yeah so a lineman and we're going to talk about this one a lot with the defense but team a player who is facing the opponent's goal line whose head or foot is breaking the plane through the waist of the snapper. And I've got a diagram of this one on the next slide. The snapper is the team a lineman who snaps the ball. That one's kind of uh kind of obvious, but now the example is the plane of the snapper's waist and being on the line. Again, this one goes back to a lot of the option teams where especially the old flex bone. flexible and wanted their offensive lineman as deep as possible because they wanted to create that space because they were looking for spacing for the quarterback to get the read. And so now if you go to the next slide, you'll see an example of it here. So on the image to the left, you've got you could see that the guard and the tackle up top, their helmets are breaking basically the belt of the center. And on the image to the right, their helmets are basically at the butt of the center. So technically their backs. So you have an illegal formation in that scenario. You're going to have it's just it's not enough people on the line of scrimmage. So you're going to have five in the back field basically. Could be six, seven, eight, but we're calling it five in the back field. Legal formation. I smell GT counter coming. Yeah, a good defensive coordinator picks up on those quick. There we go. Good linebacker. talking about a lineman. So, technically, I guess it doesn't matter, but your X and Z receivers are linemen because they're breaking the waist to be on the line of scrimmage, correct? It's good to know. So, it's just linemen and linemen and backs. This is the old rugby style, right? Like, is that where this comes from? Uh, there's a lot of different different ideas behind it. And just so everybody knows, especially the coaches that are out there, we're going to honor what a kid tells us that they are. So those outside receivers, punch on or punch back. It's it's the easiest way for you to identify where you are because we don't want to move you. If you tell me that you're on, I'm going to honor you that you're on, but then after the play, I'm going to say, "Hey son, next time just be a little bit closer." And I always identify, "Hey, my back legs are line of scrimmage. Here you go. Here you go." Because I don't want to move them up. And then all of a sudden, the ball is snapped. And now on the far sideline, the coach sees that the kid was moving. Um, and now, well, that's a false start. And it's it's the ref's fault for moving him. It gets into a whole thing. Right. You betcha. So, punch yourself on and I'll say, "Okay, you're on." So, now I know. Or punch yourself back. Give me a back. Don't give me a look. Am I good? Don't give me a thumbs up, thumbs down. No. No. Tell me, "I'm on. I'm on. I'm on. I'm off. I'm off. I'm off." And now we're going to honor that so that we now can get our true count because in the picture here that we still have to the right, well, I don't know what that guy up top is. I don't got a punch. So, I'm assuming he's on the line of scrimmage. We don't see an official on the bottom of the screen. So, I'm assuming he's punching this receiver back. So, now you got your receiver below one, your quarterback, two, you got a fullback next to him, and a tail back behind him. So, there's your four men in the back field. That's illegal formation. But then you got your guard and tackle also off. So there's your illegal formation. All right. Player player designations. Uh the snapper during scrimmage kicks remains a snapper until he has had reasonable opportunity to protect himself or moves to participate. So this is really good on like we can't cover the snapper or you can't what what is the exact ruling there? You can't hit the snapper. So basically both. Um as an umpire being on the defensive side of the ball, anytime we have a scrimmage kick going on, you hear me echoing stay off the snapper holder kicker. Now, I have this so so ingrained in my head. I say this during punch, too. And there's no holder on a punch, but it's just it's a scrimmage kick. I'm getting ready to say that. So, I'm just reminding him, stay off the snapper. Stay off the holder. Stay off the kicker. It's actually a 15 yard penalty for roughing the snapper. If you are making direct contact with the long snapper, especially when their head is down as they're looking between their legs to try to find either the punter or the holder in that scenario, it's a 15 yard penalty. But now if the snap goes and he lifts his head up and now all of a sudden he's looking to go and cover the field on their kick, well now they're a football player. They're not just a snapper. Okay? And so they're no longer basically a defenseless player in that scenario. So if they're very very quick about popping up and getting into the blocking scheme, then we have the ability to pull a twist, a stunt, a technique, something to get around him. Yes. But I would be very very weary of that because it's few and far between at the high school level. I have seen some really really good ones. But a lot of kids are looking through their legs for the last minute. Now, can you blitz or can you rush the A gap? Can you rush, especially on an extra point or a field goal where people are are basically footto or sometimes even interlock there. Do you think you can rush through that a gap? Well, yeah. As long as we don't touch him, right? Well, even if you do touch him, you can because you're not making direct contact with them. And a lot of times, what are the guards doing on that extra point in field goal? Blocking in. Yep. And so, a lot of times they're initiating that contact and forcing the defender on top of the center. So, it's not common that I throw this flag for roughing the snapper. It has happened, but it's really, really uncommon. It's typically due to the guard being good at their job, unfortunately, for the snapper. Uh, the holder, player who controls the ball on the ground or a kicking tee. The kicker, player who legally punts, drop kicks or place kicks. Becomes a kicker when the knee, lower leg or foot makes contact with the ball. Continues to be a kicker until reasonable opportunity to protect himself during free kicks. Continues to be a kicker until he advances 5 yards beyond the free kick line or kick has touched ground or other player. Now, this is really important because if I hit him on, say, an extra point or a field goal, and my edge guy just blows up the kicker, but he's not kicked the ball, it's legal, right? You betcha. If I can get to him before he gets to the ball, then I've just tackled in a offensive player. Absolutely. 100%. Same thing with a punt. You best make sure that you got there before the ball was kicked. And even if it is kicked and you hear that double thud, we're not throwing anything cuz the ball is blocked. Perfect. As long as that That's a really good one to understand. Long as that double thud is not you hitting him and him hitting the ground, then you're okay. There we go. All right. So, our player designations here, we got our non-player, your coach, your trainer, your your chain gang, whomever it may be that is on the sidelines during the game that cannot participate in the game. And now again, we got to talk about this very briefly, but if the ball is thrown and it hits off of the person that is holding the first down marker and then deflects back into the field of play, well, that's a ball out of bounds. So, we can't catch that ball off of that person out of bounds. A disqualified player is a person that is barred from further participating in the game. here in New Jersey, we ask the school to please remove said player, get them away from the field so that we don't have any type of nonsense going on or if that person was disqualified, there a good reason for it. So, let's get get that player in the locker room and chilled out. Um, all right. Now, here we go. We got a defenseless player. A defenseless player is especially vulnerable to injury because of their physical position and focus of concentration. Ladies and gentlemen, again, as a coach for 20 plus years, this is one that when I got the stripes on still drove me nuts. And there's times where as a football fan still does drive me nuts of what is ruled the defensive player by the letter of the law. If you are going to make a tackle and you wrap up or making a wrapping action, we're not going to call it on a defenseless receiver. But if you are lowering the boom and you're bringing the shoulder and everything like that without any type of wrapping motion that technically by the letter of the law is a defenseless receiver unless they have their head around and are able to make basically we're looking for and I'm doing air quotes here eye contact that they can kind of see you either perif but they are making a movement. We're going to have to call that one a defenseless receiver. So, a player who receives a blindside block with forcible contact that's not initiated with open hands. Your old school peelback block, the highlight film blocks. Okay, these are all penalties today where now set a basketball pick, you're good. Hit them with open hands, you're good. Keep that chicken wing tucked in and blow them up with your shoulder and then stand over top of them, but you can get a defenseless receiver and a taunting penalty at the same time. So, you can get that live ball dead ball foul right there. So, it's tough. It it it it's one that it for me as an old school football coach and player, it was a very difficult one for me to wrap my brain around because again, I mean, hell, they used to make videos, sell them for you go to Blockbuster and would rent them on a Friday night with your buddies in high school cracking open some old red canned Budweisers and watch those highlight films. So, but yep, it's a different game and it and I do agree with it for the safety of the kids and again the concussion stuff today is is more prevalent. We're seeing the outcome of it too. Kids are bigger, faster, stronger. I mean, um I have a question here real quick and I don't I don't know if it's defensive player. It's why I'm asking now. When we get blocking behind the ball, what what rule is that? Are we going to cover it later? Is it because of it being a defensive player or a person that's out of and where does that happen? Is it five yards behind the ball? Is it 20 yards? So, there's a lot of variables that go into it. Basically, what we're going to look for is if you're going north and I see one of your teammates coming south, that's my red flag. That's my smoke right there that there's something that potentially is going on. And now when I see that player that is coming south, if they light somebody up, well, we got a we got a block behind the play. We got a defenseless player type of scenario. Now, if they're running with you, it's okay to peel back on a guy that's about to make a tackle. But if they were five yards in front of you and doing it, now it becomes a a foul. Again, a lot of variables cuz now I'm looking directly at you in my camera here. If I'm looking at you and I see you look at me, I'm probably not going to call that one. Maybe it's a unnecessary roughness type of penalty if it's really away from the play, but I'm probably not going to call a peel back block in that scenario. So there there's there's different levels to it. And this is where now our terminology and our definitions are going to come into play because what we call does make a difference because when you have certain types of fouls, if you have multiples of those fouls, you can then get disqualified from the game. And now here in New Jersey, we do delineate between being ejected or being disqualified on how it gets reported to the state and is the kid suspended for the next game. Game you gota miss. So all those things do come into play. So we're going to try to I mean if a kid has to leave a game, we're going to try to do what we can to make sure that they can play in the next game if possible. So how we verbalize it and the definitions that we use do play an important role in it. So let's cover that while we're here. I don't want to just drag this show on and on. I I know that you it's already said it's pretty long, but disqualified versus ejected is every state is that a difference or is in the rule book? How's that working? So, that that is an association that's a state um by law. So, I don't want to answer for the other states. Um that is something that we do go over every single preseason here in New Jersey and it comes down we get letters and emails about it to make sure that we delineate it and how we report it. Um, but there's a lot of times where we're going to go over to a coach and say, "Hey, coach, listen, keep 53 to you." 99% of the time the coach is like, "Okay, I got what you're saying." And we move on from there. And that we're not writing that up as anything, but the coach is going to do right by that kid and let's keep him out. He sees that his temperature is going. There's other times we're like, "Hey coach, 53 is out of line. I'm asking you to do something before I have to do something. you as the coach who deals with him every day take care of him so we don't because if we do you're probably not going to like the outcome but that's going to be for us it's even a local association and how we deal with it so a lot of times it will change from state to state let alone association to association absolutely all right so our possession here so a player possession live ball held or controlled by a player that one kind of seems easy team possession which team has possession of the ball loose ball after the after a loss. So, the example here is going to be a live ball is always in possession of a team. Even if it's a fumble that goes out of bounds, somebody was in control of that fumble before it went out of bounds. So, they're going to be still in control of that ball unless it's fourth down and they don't get the line to gain. Your change of possession occurs when you don't get the line to gain. And your joint possession is now simultaneous possession of a live ball by two opposing players. And if you think of the baseball reference, tie goes to the runner. Our runner is going to be the offensive team, the receiving team if it's a kick situation. So, it's very, if you think about the science behind it with that with joint possession, you're talking about two human beings landing on the ground at the exact same moment, fully in possession of the ball together. So, to take away any type of discrepancies, it's the offense as well. So, defense, you got to you got to gain possession of it. um before possession occurs. So touching any contact with the ball either via touching the ball or being touched by it can be intentional or unintentional. Touching by a game official in the field of play or in zones is ignored. So this is what we're talking about touching first touch, right? We we discussed that earlier on the kick. Yes. Even if it bounces into your chest but off the ground, it's still like touching it, right? I mean it's still touching. Yep. a muff touching a loose ball by a player uh in an unsuccessful attempt to secure possession. So muff punts, muffed field goal or kickoffs, those are generally where hammer it's usually in the kicking game. Yes. For it to be a lot a loose ball. I don't I don't think you're going to have a muffed fumble recovery. That would be weird, right? Yeah. Now, can a muff be returned? So, here's the example. I kick the ball. I p I punt the ball. You go back. You wait for a fair catch. So, I'm going to give you all the scenarios. And the ball goes right through your arms, hits your chest, bounces forward, and the kicking team player grabs the ball and runs it in now for down where he touched it. Where he grabbed it, where he grabbed it. So they would get the ball. So they would gain possession of it because of the muff. So the muff is still considered a fumble in essence to to clarify it to make it simple. But you cannot return that where you can return a fumble. So possession is secured, fumble, scoop and score. You're good. Perfect. On to the next one. Yeah, this one's a pretty easy one. A possession. How does a player gain possession? Through a snap, a handoff, a catch, a recovery, an interception. How do they lose it? Through a snap, a pass, a fumble, a kick, or a hand? A handoff. And how does a player possession change? Again, kind of the same thing. So, this one pretty simple. I think all all officials and coaches know this one. And I I assume the kickoff or a punt is going to be is that a recovery or is that a catch? So when if you're the punt returner and you are you catching the ball, I would assume. Which one you're referring to? The second one, losing possession. First one. Oh, gaining possession. So snap hand. If you're the punt returner, you gain possession by recovering the kick. So no. Okay. So gaining possession through the catch means on a pass in essence. So it it actually could be a kick too now that you're saying it, but yeah, it's typically going to be on a on a on a pass play. You're catching the ball and you're you gain possession. And that goes back to now our next slide of what is a catch. And this one was great about 10 years ago in the NFL of trying to define what the heck a catch was. And for all my Detroit Lion fans out there, Megatron got robbed. It's all So did Dez. Let's talk about it, baby. Cowboys. Dez caught it. You're Yeah, you're right. You're right. And I'm a Giant fan and so No, you're wrong. I figured you were. Uh, a catch is an act of establishing establishing player possession of a live ball in flight. Must first contact the ground inbounds while maintaining possession or forward progress stopped by a defender inbounds. Simultaneous catch is joint possession by opponents via a catch, which we just learned goes to the offense. Yes, sir. Recover. Now, we could go on and on about catch, but I, you know, recovery, gaining possession of a live ball after it strikes the ground. Airborne player completes recovery when he touches the ground inbounds with possess. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. And then simultaneous recovery, joint possession by opponents via recovery, which obviously we we learned would be um would go to the offense or the kicking team. Yes. Now, let's discuss. You muff a punt, two guys jump on it. Okay. It's simultaneous. Is it the kicking team? because they're the kicking team or is it the recovering team because they muffed the punt and it should be their ball. So that's where you go back to the previous slide of a kick. Now you have a change of possession because that kick as long as it's beyond the line of scrimmage, it's now a change of possession. And there we go. If it goes beyond the line of scrimmage receiving team, yes. And if it goes beyond the line of scrimmage, hits the grounded and then comes backwards behind the line of scrimmage again, either team. But now you'd have to get in line. You'd have to get the line to gain in order for that to be a first down. That's my favorite one. I remember that one from last year. We had a good conversation about that. All right. On to you, good sir. We got we got a snap, which is the legal act of passing or handing the ball backwards from the ground. That's a key one from the ground. I know we're kind of lenient with it with the long snappers because there are long snappers that are going to do us very quick up and then through their legs. We're not going to really bust chops on that one because long snapping is its whole other world of football that not many people can truly do. Um, so a snap begins when the snapper first moves the ball legally other than an adjustment. Now, I try to think of myself as a good umpire, but I do forget to do this every once in a while, too. But I like to ask the center, "Which way do you like the laces?" Because some centers, if they're right-handed, they like to have their hands on the laces, especially in today's day and age where it's 90% shotgun. Not many teams are under center as much as they used to be. So, how they want the ball. So, I try to place the ball with that. But, we give them the the ability to either roll the ball or to pick the ball up by the back end and go up if they're going to be from a point type of snap. So, as long as it's just an adjustment and it's not a sudden movement, which then goes to our next ones here, movement with a quick continuous motion, that's a snap. If you kind of stutter and kind of jerk the ball forward and back, well, that's a an illegal snap, basically a false start penalty. Uh, the snap must be immediate and must leave the snapper's hand right away and touch a back or be grounded before it touches team A's lineman. This is where your lineman running the ball and doing those trick plays and different things like that, which again, that's a whole another segment, but it must leave the snapper's hand. So, no longer can you have um Oh, what the heck was the play? The center would put the ball on the ground and the guard would come from behind. Thank you. I don't too many bourbons tonight. The old fumble ruski is no longer legal. So, it has to touch another back before it can go to a offensive lineman. And there's other other scenarios with that where their numbers must be facing their own goal line and things like that. And it's a headache. Now it says touch a back or the ground. Yes. So if he just snaps it 6 in behind him, begins to block and then picks it up and runs. Where we at with that one? No good. No good. Even by the rule, he can't self snap for for a fumble ruski type of scenario. No. Okay. Yeah. It's it's a it's a nuance and it it's I'm trying to think of the right verbiage here to explain it. If it's a fumble and it's a definitive fumble, I've got nothing. And this is where I'm probably gonna let it go. But when I know those deception plays are coming, that's where u my my my antennas are going up. And that's one of those ones that you're probably if it is going to be called, you're going to see that late flag for deception where we're going to get together and we're like, "What did you see?" Okay, what did you see? Yeah, that was not right. Or it's going to be like, "I don't know. All right, I'm keeping that thing tucked deep. But uh there we go. So if if example, you're in shotgun, but your quarterback doesn't tell the center that they're in shotgun and they do a short snap thinking that the quarterback's under center and all of a sudden it hits their butt and they're blocking and the ball just drops down to the ground. Yeah, somebody can pick that up and go. But that one we're going to be tossing a bean bag on and stuff like that where a lot of times the fumble ruski they would just hold it up to their butts and kind of like hide the ball instead of even putting it on the ground. All right. So now handing is a transferring of the ball from one player to the other where both players are in contact with the ball at the same time. Forward handing is handing the ball ahead. Completely legal when it's behind the line of scrimmage. Backward handing is handing the ball behind the original runner's position. Completely illegal everywhere. And that's why these rules are defined because if we're beyond the line of scrimmage and I'm a wide receiver who just makes a catch and I'm getting tackled and I hand the ball forward to another fellow wide receiver, that's an illegal forward pass. So that's going to be a penalty and a flag from that spot. So I know it's collegiate, not high school, but as an OU fan, we we dealt with this three or four years ago with Caleb Williams in Kansas, if you'll remember, and the running back was getting tackled behind the line of scrimmage on a crucial third down and he steals it from him. Yep. But Caleb Williams was in front of the running back and then he turns and runs for the first down and everyone was like that's an illegal, you know, whatever, whatever. It doesn't matter because he was behind the line of scrimmage. So even if it was a pass, he could have passed it to the quarterback 100%. So it didn't matter at all. None of it mattered. As long as it's behind the line of scrimmage, yeah, you're good. But I think he even tossed it to him to start. So it was like a second transition of the ball and people didn't like it. I'm trying to think. Was the toss backwards? The initial toss. It may have been a frontwards pass behind the line of scrimmage. Okay. So, if it was a forwards pass, even though it was behind the line of scrimmage, then the second forward pass, even though also behind the line of scrimmage, that is an illegal forward pass. You are only allowed one forward pass. There may have been that may have been the argument. Yes, we'll go passing here. Two passing for 231. Alex, uh throwing a ball in player possession so that travels in flight. The forward pass thrown with initial direction towards opponent's goal line has gone beyond the neutral zone at any point the entire ball is beyond the neutral zone ends when caught touches the ground or is out of bounds. A backwards pass thrown with initial direction parallel or towards own goal line ends when caught, recovered or is out of bounds. And there's no touches the ground because now it's a live ball right on a backwards pass 100%. So the reason now we have to define forward pass especially because of our screen game has gone beyond the neutral zone at any point if the entire ball is beyond the neutral zone because now this is going to play into our key with blocking when when can the other receivers block downfield and different things like that. So when you're talking about the screen game and basically an eligible man downfield or blocking downfield, OPI, offensive pass interference and things like that, we need to know did the ball go beyond the neutral zone? Because if it is did not go beyond the neutral zone, block away, my friends. Even if it's forward. Yep. So if you're in if you're in a shot behind the line of scrimmage. Correct. So, if you're in a shotgun position and you're throwing it to that exceiver who's on the line of scrimmage and they step forward and they come back and they catch behind the line of scrimmage and you got five linemen downfield blocking, go for it. They're good. Even though it's a forward pass, I love it. All right, so our fumbles and interceptions basically going to be loss of player possession other than handing passing or illegal kick. That one seems kind of uh simple. And with that, you should see a bean bag on the ground, either blue or black, sometimes white, but typically definitely not going to be yellow. And an interception is a catch of an opponent's pass or fumble. So, you could technically by by the definition, if you are that good of an outside linebacker, defensive end, and you can intercept a backwards toss, that's an interception, not a fumble recovery. But who cares if you're going the other way? Love it. Neutral zone. When the neutral zone established when the ball is ready for play during a free kick down, it's the space between the two free kick lines, which is an entire 10 yards, which is important to understand. It's kind of like the, you know, if you're thinking kickoff. Yep. If a player's closer than the 50 yard, we usually kick from the 40, right? If they're closer than the 50, they it's a neutral zone infraction. Right. Now, can you get somebody for that without the ball being snapped? Because you said earlier, if you if you have a neutral zone infraction that the ball doesn't have to be snapped, so I can just get an automatic 5 yards. What are you referring to as being snapped in this scenario? The ball being kicked. Hey, so it's kickoff. The ball's set. We're all ready. The player steps his foot over the 50. Is that a penalty? The the receiving team line line player. As long as the ball's not kicked yet, I'm that official. That's on the line of scrimmage. I'm saying, "Hey team, back up. Get back." Cool. So once the ball is kicked and you're over, then I'm going to have to hit it. That's fine. Scrimmage down. space between the scrimmage lines or the basically the ball length the length of the ball. Can we expand or contract that neutral zone by turning the ball sideways? Yes. Or is it the natural Oh, we can. Yeah. Nice. Not very common. But yes, you can expanded neutral zone maximum two yards beyond the defensive line of scrimmage infield of play. Why? Why is this defined? You're in eligible players downfield. When was that offensive lineman downfield on the RPO? So, that's what we're going to look for. Are they beyond that twoyard maximum of the extended neutral zone? And now we're talking about scrimmage kick provisions on touching. This one is a is a gray area type of scenario, but we want to make sure that you are beyond that 10 yards if you are the the kicking team for that onside kick and different things like that. Just so so you know and for the coaches know that are out there on and a typical scrimmage kick I'm sorry free kick type of scenario on a kickoff if you break the line of scrimmage before the ball is kicked we're probably not going to call you for being in the neutral zone or being offsides in that scenario but if it is an onside kick scenario you are getting it cut and dry. You cannot be in that neutral zone. So, we're we're looking for that like 100% hardcore. Um, on a regular kickoff, we're kind of going to look to the sidelines. Coach, watch 53. He was he was a little early. So, things like that. We don't really want to bust chops on that if it's their stride happens to be a single step over. Sounds good. Moving on. Yep. So, here's our picture. Here's your neutral zone. You got the kickoff going on from the 40. And you can see the RS team is back. Well, they're at like the 48 yard line, 49 yard line at the top of the screen here. But that area between the 40 and the 50 would be our neutral zone for the kick play, for the free kick. And now we got our scrimmage play. You can kind of see here on the scrimmage play, offense is uh on the ball. Defense is probably a good two and a half feet beyond the ball. They're not a full yard beyond the ball, but they're giving some space here. And now this is this is good here because this is where if you see a player kind of flinch on that hard count we were talking about earlier. This is where if they're giving themselves some space, they could take that step and not cross into the neutral zone. But as soon as they cross that plane of the ball, they're going to be in trouble. Now here's a question. The defense here could be like two yard two feet closer. I mean they could be right on the point of the ball. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you hear a lot of coaches say crowd the ball. Crowd the ball. They want the helmet to be like as close to the neutral zone as possible. And now is it the helmet or the hand that breaks into the neutral zone, whatever's closest. So the helmet can be in the neutral zone. And that was actually going to be my question. Your center can be in the neutral zone if their ball cuz some in this image that we have up here, the ball is out in front of the center. There are some centers that may have short arms. Maybe they're not flexible. I don't know. whatever the scenario may be, and that ball could be possibly underneath the center. Well, the center is allowed to somewhat be in the neutral zone. Now, the center can't have the ball completely between their crotch and then snap the ball and be basically a yard downfield, but we're going to give a little leniency with the center, but we need to be consistent with it for both teams. That's the key element to it that some coaches don't like to hear because some of their centers are really out in front and they don't like it when the other center is not. All right. So, now we got some pretty easy ones here. So, some remaining general definitions and and I kind of took out for our next episode the kick game ones when we get into rule six, which is so fun as you were talking about earlier. But our scrimmage is an action between two teams during a down, which begins at a legal snap. Tackling, use of arms, legs, hands, body defensive player to hold or bring a runner to the ground. Daniel, can you trip that runner? I feel like there's a tripping penalty. There is. But yeah, or foul. Tripping foul. Ah, that a boy. You're learning me good here, Mike. I've trained you well, young Padawan. Yes, sir. So, there is a trip. You're wearing zebra stripes in 25 years. So, here we go. Dang. Was hoping for earlier, but all right. And a huddle is two or more players on the same team group together before down. I'm I'm not going to lie. I don't know why that one's even in there, but it is. It's all good. What are So, I I have a feeling that there's got to be like some some fouls out of the huddle. Is there besides 12 men in the huddle, which we got rid of by just not huddling anymore, but what other huddle penalties or fouls are there that you can think of? Your deception plays. So, if two or three people are huddled up pretending to talk, and then the ball gets snapped, you could possibly get a deception penalty for being huddled. And now there is a rule for that. You're probably going to have too many men in the back field in that scenario. I have seen teams. It's actually funny. I'm thinking I'm saying this out loud as I'm thinking of it. At the youth level, offensive linemen are all doing the same damn blocking scheme. So, they don't even huddle up, but you have all the skill players in the backfield in a huddle with the coach. So, uh in that scenario, you're going to have too many men in the back fields. But, uh yeah, it's not very common. I'm already here's my envision. You ready for my vision? The running back gets set. The line is set. two double tight. So, all my guys are on the line and the quarterback goes to talk to the two receivers over there in a huddle and we just snap the ball to the running back. I probably get deception. I'm trying to break the rules. So, here we go. Well, again, you should get deception. Yeah, you might get away. Honestly, it's unfair. I don't know why that's a rule. Uh, ready for play or RFP signifies that the ball may be put in play either 25 or 40 seconds on the play clock. ball can't be snapped or kicked until it is ready for play by the referee. Signal by rule, which man, we have waited a long time for some of those whistles. Um, especially if we're in our go fast mode. All right. Are we going to cover 25 and 40 second play clocks in this series or another one? In this episode or another one in in in another one, but I'm going to tell you right now, don't wait for the whistle. Have your center look at the umpire and that's it. Because it's those two that are going to control the pace of the game. If you got a good umpire, they have the tempo of the game. Because I, as an umpire, I'm looking to make sure all my other guys are ready to go. And if they're ready to go, rock and roll. Go as quickly as you can. Let's go. And I know I've talked about this on a previous episode. This past year, we had a state championship game where the coach told us, "We snap the ball every 15 seconds. We are literally on a stopwatch every six 15 seconds. We are snapping the ball." And I said, "Coach, that's fantastic. It may be 17 seconds if my deep wing needs to get an extra two yards, but you will have the ball ready for go." And just you'll see me communicating with your center and I'm giving them a hand. Hold up. Go. And if I'm not doing anything, just like our rules before, if it's not in there, that means go. That means go. I love it. Conferences. A coach referee conference. A referee confers with coach at sideline in front of team box, which we outlined in the last episode. If you know what team box is, authorized team conferences outside the nine yard mark, meaning closer to the sidelines, right? Yep. within nine yards of the sideline inside the nine yard marks which is the top of the numbers any number of players and coaches so anyone can be in that. So this is your timeout, your what it right change of possession after a extra point. Any number can be there between the nine yard marks or if you go beyond the top of the number on your side, if the team's huddled between the nine yard marks, only one coach and no more than 11 players. So the coach can go beyond the numbers and have a conversation with his offense that's huddled up. What's the rule here? If there's Mike, like there's a timeout. Okay. So it that's not mentioned here, but there does have to be a timeout. Yep. And I just can't go I can't be the coach and run out and deliver the play every every snap. No sir. That's a great question. And that's what actually I was going to ask you. Do you remember the days where out of timeout the coach would go out into the middle of the field to the offense and now today the offense comes to the coaches? And I I would assume it's because nowadays we're we're probably running, you know, 15 to 20 kids on offense. So they all need to get that whatever that motivational speech or that information is versus I mean if you look back to the U days, you know, they used to run two complete offenses. So he had no reason to talk to the other side. He would talk to them on the sideline. But now you also have things like huddle. I'm going to call a timeout. I'm bringing everybody over to me and I'm showing them huddle on my iPad on the sideline and saying, "Hey, this is what they're showing us on third and 12. So let's be prepared for this kind of blitz." So, you got all those different things going on where it used to be that if I called a timeout, I couldn't go into the huddle with my headset on. I had to take my headset off before I was going out onto the field because I couldn't communicate with them with the press box. But that's why we bring them all over to us. And now there's mass communication going on. And here you got the two images of it. And again, the one to the left, that's between the hashes. That's going to be inside the nine yards. Doesn't happen often. It still does happen, but doesn't happen often. And the rest of the time now you got outside the nine yard. Now the NFL that looks like a youth or JV game anyway, right? That doesn't look like a varsity game to me. Oh yeah, on the left hand side. Absolutely. Yeah, I hope so. He's probably out there giving some Yeah. But now in the NFL, you have timeouts called and nobody leaves the sidelines. You just have nine trainers out on the field giving everybody a water bottle and a quarterback with his hand over his ears. So, all right. So, the status of the ball. This one is a big one and it's one of our last ones that we have here tonight. Daniel, I know I've kept down here a while, but we need to know the status of the ball. And you got rule 2-1. Status of the ball. Dead ball, a ball not in play. Seems obvious. A live ball, a ball that's in play. So, it's after the snap. Again, kind of easy. Now, here you go. Your loose ball. A loose ball is going to be a pass, fumble, or kick or following the act of a pass, fumble, or kick. Passing, fumbling, or kicking. So, a loose ball is a ball that is in flight. a ball that has not yet been grounded. So, think about your kickoff. You kick the ball off the tea. The ball is in the air. It's in flight. You got a pass. The pass is in the air. It's in flight. So, just kind of keep those in the back of your head to marinate a little bit. A grounded ball, a ball that has touched the ground. Your pop-up kicks, which we're going to talk about in part two of this rule and then part six even more so. But a grounded ball is where you're kicking off and you're smashing the ball into the ground for it to take that huge pop up pop and then you get to blow people up. Well, that's no longer legal, but that is a grounded ball. So, did the ball hit the ground first? This is going to come into play when we're talking first touching obviously complete or incomplete passes. That that one's an obvious one. Did the ball hit the ground first? Um, but if you think about did it hit the ground or did it not hit the ground? Has it been grounded? So, we're going to talk about those things. All these continue to be loose ball plays until a player has secured possession. So, your muff secured possession. So, that's where a big one is. And the ball becomes dead by rule. And you see the the the added notations here. This is important for rule six. And rule six is our kick game. Rule two and rule six are our holy grail that we need to review almost every single week, but definitely every single year as a football official. Know those rules because that's where it can get you really really in a jam. And how can a how can the ball become dead by rule? Well, we're going to talk about that more in rule number four. Uh definitions. Rule four here, a forward progress end of the forward advancement of the ball towards opponent's goal line when in runner's possession. Forward most point of the ball also applies when fumbled or out of bounds. Airborne receiver contacted while making catch. Forward progress is marked at furthest point after possession. So if he catches it, barely touches the ground, then gets blown up and pushed backwards five yards, it's where he touched the ground, right? Like correct. Where was the ball? Well, how about this scenario? He catches the ball. Let's say he catches the ball at the 20 and the defender wraps him up and drives him back to the 15 inbounds. Where are we putting that ball? The 20. Yes. So even though caught it there, even though he didn't touch the ground just yet, he got driven back. So we're going to give it to him at the 20 yardd line because that's where the forward progress. So talk to me about that's the end of the uh presentation. I just have coach questions now. So bring that coaching point of view. NFL used to if a defender and I know we're NFL vers high school. If a defender caught pushed a receiver out of bounds, that used to be a penalty and now that's legal, right? So if a receiver goes up, he's going to tow touch anyways. The receiver can just push him out. He cannot complete a catch because he's out of bounds. Where are we in the high school side with that? If my receiver is going to catch a circus catch, toe touch, you know, tow drag, and the defender says, "No, you're not." And he pushes him out, is there still a penalty there? It's not a penalty, but we cannot assume the catch. So, if he gets driven out of bounds, before he gets and then at the high school level, it's one foot before he gets one foot, one toe, whatever it may be, before he maintains possession and proves that he is inbounds, it's out of bounds. So, you can drive that person out of bounds as long as now it's going sideways or forward. Let me rephrase that, not forward because I don't want to mix it up with forward progress. If he catches it inbounds and he gets driven backwards and then out of bounds, but he maintained possession of the ball, probably going to give them forward progress with the catch. Now, let me I got to go back and look at this one now because this is my old side with short wing. I think I'm wrong in what I just said. They're out of bounds because we cannot assume the catch. They're out of bounds. But for my listeners out there, I am going to get back to you on this at the end of this episode. I am going to quote the rule book verbatim for this one because I need to a receiver at the sideline jumps up, makes a catch, is pushed out of bounds and backwards. Does he get forward progress or can't assume the catch and no catch? That's what we're asking here. And I'm right now going back on myself and I'm saying out of bounds. But I need to double check myself because if he's in the air and he catches it and they push him and leave him inbounds, it's forward progress. Forward progress. Yes, sir. So, yep. My short wing days I I I got to go back. I've been an umpire now for too long that I don't have those calls. Very good. That's the best way, right? Get past that point as quick as possible. It's just to get away from the coaches. There we go. We uh we've come to the end of your presentation, good sir, for rule well, mainly rule two. We got some three and four in there. Yep. But um part one of this section. Yes, sir. Daniel, as always, I appreciate you. I appreciate you picking me up when my internet, for some reason, decided to go clunk on me on my computer because my streaming services still worked behind me. I'm watching the Knicks about to probably blow another game here behind me. But, uh, everything else seemed to work. Are you all things New York? Is that what's happening right now? I grew up in New Jersey, man. We don't have anything else. Boston's not too far away. Red Sox, baby. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yankees are off tonight. Okay. Yankees in their in their 27, 28, 20. I can't I lose track of how many World Series I had. There was like there was there was such a time that no one else is even really playing baseball. So, it's a it's Yes. Appreciate you having me on, bro. Anytime. And I I look forward to the next episode. Absolutely. And and once again, ladies and gentlemen, look up Daniel find different things at Chamberlain Football Consulting, Joe Daniels Football, a coaching 101 podcast. He is out there. He is there for you guys to learn from. learn this awesome sport that we have. And hell, if you want to put those stripes on earlier than 25 years, as Daniel proclaimed earlier in the episode, reach out to me, miked [email protected]. Daniel, once again, thank you, sir. Have a great night. And for the Whistle Talk fans out there, thank you for everything you guys are doing. Appreciate it. Unite all.