Cal at Minnesota’s Shiny New Stadium

I chose this game for viewing today based on a desire to see the new outdoor TCF Bank Stadium in which the Gophers now play and, more really, because after seeing the Golden Bears play against Maryland, I believe they have the potential to hit a BCS bowl this year. They looked really good. Playing on the road at what would be somewhat earlier in the morning for them than what they might find normal could be a dangerous situations for them, but it’s also a great opportunity for them to show they are an elite team.

Q1 10:00 – Jahvid Best wastes no time making my point, breaking for a long touchdown run to grab an early 7-0 lead. Nothing interesting from an officiating standpoint.

7:44 – Cal quarterback Kevin Riley shows nice touch on a long toss to Veran Tucker for about 60 yards, putting Cal inside the five. Ugly start for the Gophers. Bears must have had some coffee and Wheaties this morning.

Touchdown Best! It’s 14-0.

7:03 – Looks like the white hat got one of the Gopher lineman for a chop block. It’s hard to see from the live action even when I slow it down. Once those lines collide, the sideline is about the worst place from which to see the action. That wouldn’t prevent the average coach from complaining about what  he thinks he sees, however.

Q2 15:00 – Gopher QB Adam Weber connects with Eric Decker, who makes a great grab near the goal line pylon. It was an impressive effort to keep hold of the ball because he got hammered by the defender. It looks on replay that the ball maybe was a little shy of the goal line before he went out of bounds, but the ruling on the field was a touchdown.

Decker is hurting and bleeding. Looked like a clean and legal, if a bit vicious, shot.

The touchdown will stand. It was close, but the guy with the best angle, the field judge, saw a touchdown. Gotta go with that.

2:30 – Gopher WR Troy Stoudemire gives a shove to defender Sean Cattouse after some taunting from Cattouse. The officials got both offenses. There have been few flags in this game and little to question in the way the game has been officiated, which is always a good thing.

1:20 – Cal’s Isi Sofele managed to both interfere with the opportunity for Bryant Allen to catch the punt AND commit a personal foul by launching himself into Allen’s head leading with his helmet. Too bad you can’t double dip and hit him with both penalties. Allen gets up fairly quickly, but looks like a newborn doe trying to straighten his legs. It was an awful hit and had potential to cause serious damage.

1:11 – Offsetting penalties. Minnesota commits a hold; Cal commits some defensive pass interference. Both calls were solid. Not much to say about either of them beyond that.

0:40 – Apparently, the kid who got leveled earlier, Decker, catches another pass for a touchdown and sets a new record for receivers at Minnesota to make it a 21-14 California lead. Gotta think Decker is pretty much a tough customer having returned to play and contribute after his earlier incident.

Q3 10:32 – Gopher Kayo Carpenter fumbled the ball on his way to the ground. Three officials had a brief, casual conference to discuss it before ruling. I always think it looks good when the officials quickly check with one another on such plays. Even though they are having an official review of the play, it’s hard to think three guys saw it and got it wrong. Replay, from what I see, confirms this crew is continuing to have a great game. Too bad I can’t find their names anywhere yet!

8:15 – Allen is back in the game for the Gophers, making a very clear fair catch signal on a long punt. I can’t believe he’s playing. He really looked like he was knocked silly for a minute.

0:35 – Okay, I officially dig this Decker kid from Minnesota. On a bit of a trick play, he threw a touchdown pass. Great day for the guy. Backup QB MarQuies Gray was the recipient to tie the game at 21.

After a quick start, I thought Minnesota was doomed to a long beat-down, but Cal has looked a little sluggish and has made some pretty significant mistakes. They clearly are the superior team, athletically, but they are getting a fight out of the Gophers, which is fun to watch.

0:17 – Cal’s Mike Tepper got flagged for a hold out toward the sideline. I don’t love the call. It looked like he just shoved his man to the ground. At one point, he made initial contact with the guys shoulder and quickly adjusted to move his hand inside the frame of the defender, which appears to have allowed him the leverage to pancake the guy. It was maybe ten feet away from the official and I certainly could have been screened from what he saw, but it looked like a clean block from what I could see. Seems a minor concern at this point in the game, considering how clearly excellent the officiating has been.

Q4 12:43 – Cattouse is back on stage, drawing a flag for DPI. Ironically, as Cattouse holds his head in shame, which indicates to me he knows what he did and regrets getting caught, the men in the booth have a disagreement over the call. Dave Pasch doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, claiming “he didn’t touch him (‘him’ being Decker).” Griese came around eventually, thanks to Chris Spielman pointing out that Cattouse’s left hand tugged slightly on the shoulder pad of Decker as he made the play. Admittedly, this really looks like it should be a no-call, but it’s actually a great call. Getting the shoulders to turn even a little can make it nearly impossible for the receiver to make the catch, as it moves both arms. It can be a savvy move for a cornerback to twist a receiver’s shoulder pads like that, but only if you don’t get caught.

Cattouse got caught.

Great job by the field judge. Shame on ESPN’s Pasch. He’s in the dark. Luckily the ex-players were there to shine light on the truth as the crew continues to have a terrific day.

11:06 – And, no sooner do I say that than does a Minnesota player covering a punt give a firm tug on the helmet of Syd’Quan Thompson who was lying on the ground covering the ball. It looked like he grabbed the chin strap and not the face mask. In high school, that is a penalty. It may not be the same for NCAA, to be honest. Looks like it didn’t feel great though. I prefer the high school rule. Kids head gets twisted whether it’s from grabbing the face mask, a strap, or an ear hole, it should be penalized. It’s too dangerous.

Cal drives and scores to take the 28-21 lead.

4:48 – Great catch by Bears tight end Anthony Miller. Pasch muddies the issue on the replay saying he was “trying to complete the catch.” It is true the receiver has to “complete the catch” in cases where he may be in the air when catching it and loses possession when coming to the ground; such a case would be an incomplete pass. Looked here like Miller caught the ball, took a few steps, then went to the ground after being hit and lost the ball upon contacting the ground. I am confident the ‘official review’ will confirm the covering official had the correct call, putting Cal again deep in Minnesota territory.

…which leads, ultimately, to what looks like the put-the-game-away touchdown for Cal: 35-21

Overall, it was the sort of game you hope to get as an official. You want to be unnoticeable to the average fan. I’d say the average fan watching will have no memories of the crew when remembering the game. Great job, fellas.

Boise vs. Fresno

Although I believe Friday night football should be reserved for high school and that people should go out and support the kids in their community rather than watch some random college game, I admittedly recorded this game for some Saturday morning viewing. It’s not really that I have a particular interest in either program, rather that I watched only my alma mater’s game and my embarrassing NFL favorite last week, needing most of the weekend for work around the house.

The broadcast, interestingly enough, featured a brief discussion of the last Boise State game on national television. Despite recording that game also, I completely missed the post-game fireworks surrounding the punching of Boise’s Byron Hout by Oregon’s LaGarette Blount, which is a shame as it certainly played into my assertion that the pre-game handshake wasn’t going to mean much of anything more than an empty gesture.

This particular mention had to do with how Boise coach Chris Petersen handled Byron Hout in the wake of the situation. Hout actually was the instigator of the incident, having slapped Blount on the shoulder pad and saying something to him in the wake of the lopsided contest. Certainly, it was likely to have been a comment classifiable as ‘poor sportsmanship,’ but certainly not anywhere in the ballpark of Blount’s right cross to the jaw.

I like the quote from Petersen they gave in addressing the fact Hout was not apparently disciplined with a suspension from playing, which was, essentially, that to punish Hout based on the response of the other kid would be unreasonable, which is true. If Blount, turn around and gets in Hout’s face, maybe unleashing some expletives, the cameras probably catch it and cause a little sensation, but I doubt anyone gets suspended, which would have been the preferred outcome of all involved, I’m sure.

I guess this means I have some respect for the coach. Seems like a smart fella.

On to the game.

10:40 – Boise runs to the left side. A pulling lineman (after several repeat viewings, I’ve identified him, actually, as the center Thomas Byrd…so, CAUGHT YA!) makes such an egregious hold on Fresno linebacker Kyle Knox out in the open, near the sideline and right at the point of attack that even I would likely have seen it. Byrd had such a hold on the jersey, in fact, that when running back Jeremy Avery went by them and Knox spun around to pursue, Byrd ended up being pulled off his feet. That’s a classic case of a hold you want to catch. It clearly hindered a defenders opportunity to make a play. I hate to open with such a criticism, but that definitely deserved a flag.

Oddly, when Avery went out of bounds, Fresno linebacker Ben Jacobs gave him a little extra vicious shove toward the ground. The linesman covering the play seems to be looking right at it, but neither flags the play nor even says anything to Jacobs, instead getting distracted by two opposing players who bump into him from behind maybe jawing at one another. He does seem to be telling them to ‘cool it’ in some way or another, but the opportunity really was with the play by Jacobs. I would hope I’d have hit him for a personal foul on that. His intent was not one of good and had I been looking directly at it as it seemed the linesman here was, it would have drawn my flag.

Of course, there are probably more than a few reasons why this guy is working WAC games and I’m not, but we all make mistakes on all levels. I think this was a pair of misses for the linesman. Let’s hope his day improves quickly.

By the way, thanks to an early interception returned for a touchdown, the Broncos already lead 7-0 and are in the ‘red zone’ again.

Fresno’s defense stiffened, however, and yielded only a field goal. Boise 10-0.

5:44 – Boise cornerback Kyle Wilson absolutely keeps reciever Seyi Ajirotutu from getting into his pattern with another pretty obvious hold. He was all over him from the line of scrimmage all the way downfield. Clear hold. No excuse for missing it. The near sideline is struggling early. Get into the game fellas.

3:27 – Boise WR Austin Pettis makes a catch and a move in an attempt to reach the yard-to-gain line, but his knee hits the ground with the ball clearly at the 19-yard line, but extends forward (after he is down, mind you) and comes to a rest with the ball at the 21-yard line, where the line judge marks the spot. I can’t believe it! I know from experience these sorts of plays aren’t always easy to see as you have to see both the knee come down and the location of the ball when it does. The line judge was a good five yards behind the play when Pettis went down. That’s a poor spot.

I wonder whether I’m just cranky because I had my first varsity game as a wing last night and felt very rusty, or maybe because I’ve not had any coffee.

The latter, at least, I can fix. Hold on.

2:50 – Boise WR Titus Young, on the next play, prevents an interception by pulling DB Desia Dunn down by the back of the jersey. Dunn knew there should have been an offensive pass interference call against Young, giving that little flip of the hand meant to mimic the action of an official reaching for his flag and throwing it in the air. TV analyst Rod Gilmore, during the replay, said, “That’s a good no call by the officials,” referring to Young also, apparently, wanting a call on the play. But as he viewed the play, “as a matter of fact, they could have called interference on Young…Titus Young just mugged Dunn out there.”

This time, I have to agree with the call from the booth.

2:09 – Fresno defensive lineman Kenny Borg is clearly caught in the neutral zone at the snap. Simple, obvious call, but coach Pat Hill is pretty irate with the officials. Well, he might be more irate with his team and taking it out on the linesman. Fresno sacked QB Kellen Moore on a third-and-six, but will now face a third-and-one instead of a punting situation thanks to the penalty. He’s letting the official have it, though. I think there are some legitimate gripes with the work so far, but that call was spot on.

Q2 14:50 – Fresno center Joe Bernardi puts an extra and late block on Boise’s Kyle Wilson away from the play and out in the open. Fifteen yards. Can’t argue it. Why did you do it? I don’t get it.

12:19 – Fresno gets their first excitement of the game thanks to an impressive run by Robbie Rouse. The linesman threw a flag for what looked like a horse collar tackle. At live speed at first viewing, my thought was, “Ooh, horse collar. Add fifteen.” Unfortunately for the linesman and for Shea McClellin, who made the tackle, it was a miss. McClellin had a hold of the jersey, which ended up getting stretched out pretty far, but was what brought Rouse to the ground. No hand went inside the shoulder pads of the runner, which means it isn’t a horse collar tackle.

Now, I’m writing this with my understanding of the high school rule, but a quick look-see tells me the NCAA rule similarly is banning the tackles made by grabbing the inside of the shoulder pads and pulling to the ground. Again, Rouse was tackled by his jersey from behind, making him go down in a similar fashion as what you see sometimes with horse collar tackles, but this was not that.

And, as I review it a third and fourth time, the linesman is at the right angle to where he should have seen this correctly.  He appears to be looking right at the play and couldn’t have seen a hand go inside the shoulder pads. I guess I need to find the actual rule to be sure I have it right because this looks like a really bad call.

9:37 – On a long kickoff return, I hate that the covering official, as he sprints toward the end zone to stay with the play, took his eyes off the field to look ahead as he’s running. I don’t know why it’s really bugging me, especially since I’d probably be fifteen yards behind the play by that point, but he’s not looking at the play. If the runner drops the ball, for whatever reason, at the wrong time, the official has no idea what happens.

Then, once the tackle is made, the two officials on that side appear to be marking two separate spots just two yards from one another. Sloppy.

off-topic: Coffee with chicory tastes a little funny to me.

And, a couple of big plays lead to Boise now leading 24-10.

5:09 – One of those big plays was a long scoring run by Fresno running back Ryan Matthews to get the Bulldogs within 14. After a quick three-and-out, Matthews uncorked another long run to get further cut into the lead, making it 24-17. What a quick turn of events and outstanding pair of runs. There is some talent in the valley!

Q3 15:00 – Long kickoff return for an apparent score is wiped out by offsetting fouls, resulting in a re-kick. Boise, who had received the kick, got called for a block in the back. The replay showed to illustrate the foul appeared to be a block in the side and not in the back, but they likely just had the wrong replay. Fresno, later on the play, was called for a face mask. On the second kick, Boise still managed a pretty good return, but not for a score.

They do get a field goal out of it, however, to extend the lead to 27-17.

12:17 – Boise’s Wilson finally gets called for defensive pass interference. He’s pretty aggressive in coverage and was pulling on Ajirotutu’s arm pretty much all the way down the field. Good call. He was bound to get busted eventually. I think Wilson is a pretty savvy player from what I’ve seen. I’m guessing he gets caught on much less than that with which he gets away.

12:10 – Simultaneous catch is somewhat interesting because it doesn’t happen that often, but Gilmore and Joe Tressitore do a good job of explaining it from the booth. I think I’m starting to like these guys.

11:46 – The field judge is in perfect position to make the call on a catch in the end zone near the sideline. Great mechanics and judgment. Seems like they may review the play, but this was a great officiating job by J. Taylor.

This does mean that Fresno has really made a game of it, trailing only 27-24.

10:59 – Another opportunity for the crew to show their skill on (yet another) long play. Jeremy Avery takes off on another long run, but just before getting to the end zone, is caught from behind and loses the ball. Before the ball can roll out of the back of the end zone, teammate Titus Young, having trailed the play all the way down the field, pounces on the ball and recovers the fumble for a touchdown.

Despite the fact this play covered 75 yards, back judge Mike Defee was in the right position to see both the fumble and the recovery, as was the aforementioned J. Taylor, with whom Defee consulted briefly before signaling the score. It was a remarkable turn of events, very capably officiated by the crew. Great, great job here.

8:17 – Linesman Patrick Turner gets Fresno’s Andrew Jackson for holding on a run to the outside. Looked like a good call.

Q4 14:16 – J. Taylor is, again, in perfect position to see a catch near the sideline in the end zone for a touchdown. They’re apparently going to review it, but Taylor will be shown to have been correct yet again. Don’t doubt Taylor.

13:36 – Fresno’s Matthews takes off for another long touchdown. Someone should keep an eye on this kid. He’s good. (TD runs of 69, 60, and 68 yards so far). Fresno trails 41-34.

12:07 – Boise’s George Iloka is going to get flagged for DPI because he went after the ball, but played through the back of the receiver when he did it. Good call in my book.

…and Boise scores again and my DVR runs out of recorded game, so that’s all I get to see of that. 51-34 means maybe Boise’s defense isn’t as good as it looked against Oregon. I’m also going to assume nobody punches anyone after the last two minutes of the game.

Thursday Night Football…not in Pittsburgh

Tonight, I headed out of town for my second game of the season, which was the first game of the season for the two sophomore football teams doing battle.

We didn’t have ’sophomore’ football where I went to school. It seems pretty nice for schools to have four football programs. Unfortunately, there are schools in the area which struggle to field enough players for even the varsity squad. My personal experience with the game makes me wish it was more popular among school kids around here. It’s a very unique set of learning experiences you can gain from being part of a football team. That’s really all I have to say about that.

At the sub-varsity level, we work in four-person crews. Also unlike our varsity games is that we are not assigned a position on the field, with the decisions made among the officials when they arrive on site. Since I am starting to be assigned more frequently as an umpire and knowing that people tend to shy away from the umpire position of the four, I was happy to volunteer to be the ‘big man in the middle.’

In the fourth quarter, I got a reminder why many prefer other positions. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Shortly after arriving to the sideline, we were introduced to our clock operator, who appeared to be a player who was not dressing for the game. This would be the first time running the clock at a game. We definitely should have, right then and there, decided to keep the clock on the field or, at the very least, keep that open as an option.

The instructions for running a clock are incredibly simple and should be even more so for anyone somewhat familiar with the game of football. However, it never works out that it’s that simple in execution for those lacking experience in doing it.

The result for us was that, in the first half, the clock oftentimes would start running when the ‘ready for play’ whistle was blown. After some halftime re-instruction from the white hat, the operator did not start the clock on the ready, but also sometimes not at the snap, either. While we did what we could from the field to correct the timing errors as they occurred, for some reason we simply failed to decide to just start keeping time on the field, which was never not an option for us. I guess I didn’t occur. I can say, for me, it really didn’t come to mind.

With one game already under my belt this year and without the nervousness of a Friday night varsity game, I definitely felt that my number of mistakes was much lower tonight than six nights ago.

On a punt, I turned toward the direction of the ball carrier as the last players from the line of scrimmage moved downfield. I saw a very obvious block in the back from some thirty yards away. I didn’t wait to see if the line judge was going to flag the play (which he did) and flung my flag as far in that direction as possible, which was a good ten yards shy of the actual foul. Turns out those flags don’t carry as well as needed.

After the play ended, the white hat thought I and the line judge had two separate fouls, which should tell you how much I failed to get the flag to the spot of the infraction. Normally, the referee will ask you if your flag is “good,” meaning he wants to know if your flag is on the yard line of the foul, which is where it belongs.

When I went to move my flag to the correct yard line, I went parallel to the sidelines and dropped my flag where I wanted it, which was on the same yard line as the line judge’s flag, but fifteen yards away. The right thing to do would be to put the two flags on the same spot, which made sense as soon as it was pointed out to me, which was only a minute or so too late. Oh well.

I had only one other flag on the night, which was for a hold by a tackle on a running play. He had a handful of jersey as the opponent he was blocking attempted to spin away toward the runner. It was a pretty easy call. Plus, my throw of the flag to the spot was PERFECT, as noted by the line judge. Thanks!

Instead of having a bunch of flags tonight, apparently it was meant to be my night to take my first solid shot from a player in my career as an umpire. I had a few plays come near me throughout the night, but this was actually a run which had gone the other way, but somehow came back at me. For the life of me, I couldn’t explain how or why someone came flying into me from behind, but I took a pretty good hit in my lower back by someone wearing a lot more equipment than I was.

It hurt.

We had the normal, “that’s holding” being yelled by various people at various times. I also got a report from one sideline that a coach was complaining about chop blocks, which neither the referee nor myself had seen prior to the complaint, nor afterwards. Could be a ‘definition’ discrepancy between what it is and what the plaintiff thinks it might actually be.

I did have an incident with a defensive player stepping over a player who was still on the ground after being tackled. I quickly got his attention and told him to “not step over a player like that.” He appeared to not even have realized he had done it, so that’s good.

Another teaching opportunity came late in the game. Leading by nine and less than a minute left in the game, the visitors faced a fourth-and-short situation. Before the ball could be snapped, one of the defensive ends feinted toward the offensive line, as if attempting to get someone to jump and, presumably, cause a ‘false start.’

Unfortunately for the player, he encroached on the neutral zone, essentially ending the game by giving the offense a first down without having to run their play. One of the players asked his teammate, “Did you touch anyone?’ I felt it prudent to clear up the misunderstanding.

In high school, I explained, any time a player enters the neutral zone before the ball is snapped, it’s automatically a dead ball and a foul, “which isn’t the case on Sundays. I’m guessing you’re thinking of what you’ve seen watching the Seahawks.”

“Yeah, that and too much playing Madden,” was the response from the player. “Thanks.”

It’s nice to be thanked sometimes.

On the last play of the game, the offensive team was taking a knee to run time, which they had done the prior play. As I had done before the prior play, I yelled to the defense, “If he takes a knee, do not hit him!”

This, apparently, was not clear enough instruction for the nose tackle, who leapt over the center and appeared to try to swat the ball out of the quarterbacks hands as he kneeled. His teammates on the line were a little incredulous, grabbing him quickly and asking, “WHAT are you doing?”

With nobody really taking much of a hit, I didn’t want to punish the kid too severely, but I did also have to inquire, “Why on earth would you do that?”

I don’t really recall what his explanation was, but we both knew it was feeble. I explained to him he could easily get himself ejected from a game for such actions, which would also have him on the bench for the next game. I gathered he understood about as well as your average pre-driving-age kid might understand such things. As I began walking off the field, the kid’s coach started barking at him, “You got to use your head!”

Apparently, nobody was really impressed with his idea. I’m hoping that kills it permanently for future instances.

Two down with a varsity game tomorrow night. Let’s hope I’m feeling as good about my performance tomorrow as I do with tonight’s.

Navy at Ohio State, the second half

The second half only because I completely got fooled by some program listings. I’ll leave it at that.

Ohio State has a 20-7 lead starting the second half.

They showed a bit of a ceremony honoring Chris Spielman on his pending induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. As a Lions fan, I have much love and respect for Spielman. He was one of the few greats to play for the Lions in my lifetime.

That being said, he’s apparently also working in the booth for this game along with Bob Griese and Dave Pasch (which seems like a new name to me).

12:29 – Navy’s Kwesi Mitchell is somewhat fortunate to not get flagged for a late hit out of bounds. It was close, but I think Mitchell could see that Dane Sanzenbacher had stepped out. A split second later and he likely would have gotten hit for 15 yards.

Oddly, despite the fact that the covering official ruled Sanzenbacher as having gone out of bounds and, hence, stopped the clock, the clock seems to have been re-started at the ready rather than at the snap. Couldn’t see if the white hat had given the signal to wind it or no, nor do I know if there is a different timing rule in NCAA of which I’m unaware, but that seemed like a bit of a gaffe. May have to reasearch that in case I need to eat those words.

12:11 – Left guard Justin Boren gets an early start, leading to a false start penalty. The clock stops for the enforcement and then starts again. On the following play, Ohio State gets called for a hold. It’s STILL second down!

Hey, what do you know? Learn something new for just a modicum of research. Turns out the NCAA has apparently attempted to shorten games a bit by restarting the clock on the snap after play goes out of bounds. Hence, I was absolutely under-informed regarding the clock there. I wonder whether that change will trickle down to the high school level.

Things are moving along very quietly in the third quarter for the officials. Navy, however, punches in a touchdown late in the third quarter to close to 20-14. This will definitely be fodder for Buckeye detractors.

Q4 13:19 – After a Navy fumble is recovered by Ohio State, Pasch (I think it’s Pasch) says he was surprised the Navy coach Kenn Niumatalolo didn’t ‘challenge’ the ruling of a fumble. No matter how much I slowed the replay down, I can’t figure even what would be worth challenging. Maybe, but only maybe, you could argue that the runner’s forward progress had been stopped and, hence, the play should have been dead, but that’s  more a reach on my part trying to figure out what Pasch is thinking, as he mentions it a few more times as Ohio State moves quickly to the end zone for a score to make it 29-14, even implying after the score that the ‘ruling’ of a fumble was instrumental in the way the game has developed. I’d ask him if I could. He seems to have a curious opinion of the play. It was clearly a fumble to nearly everyone else, including the Navy sideline.

8:40 – OSU running back Brandon Saine appeared to have his face mask grabbed while running through traffic, actually forcing him to spin in a circle.

Sandwiched between discussion of lunch boxes and Ohio State’s ability to have fresh legs in the backfield by using either of two backs, Pasch asks, “Should have been a face mask here, guys, by Chase Burge?” Pasch didn’t wait for someone else to answer, “Yep. Any part of the helmet, including the chin strap, is a fifteen yard face mask penalty.”

Spielman and Griese seem disinterested. It’s a marked difference from the team in Raleigh on Thursday.

6:15 – Navy takes advantage of OSU’s failure to convert a fourth-and-two deep in Navy territory by going deep on the next play for an 85-yard touchdown pass, mostly on the legs of receiver Marcus Curry. There’s nothing about the officiating here. It was simply a remarkable turn of events. Why OSU coach Jim Tressel declined to attempt a field goal will have to remain a mystery as Navy draws to 29-21, leaving them to perhaps wonder where they might be without all their fumbles in the second half.

3:52 – Holy cats! Again, not as an official, but a football fan. Navy just intercepted an overthrown pass. They have a chance to tie the game with the ball at the OSU 33.

2:23 – Navy QB Ricky Dobbs looks to be happy to fall forward for a first down conversion on third-and-one, but finds nobody there to put him on the ground, so he scrambles for a touchdown. What a crazy turn of events. The crowd in Columbus is stunned. The looks on faces as the camera pans the crows show utter disbelief.

Happily, the game has been very smooth from an officiating stand-point and the broadcast team hasn’t felt the need to disparage the crew. It’s a good experience.

Alas, it was not meant to be. On the try, Dobbs’ pass is intercepted and returned for two points for Ohio State, leaving Griese to express disdain for the play call. Spielman agrees they should have run the ball.

2:23 (continued) – Navy attempts an onside kick, which does go the required ten yards and is grounded, but bounces over the heads of everyone and goes out of bounds untouched. The covering official marked the spot immediately and killed the clock. You can see another official come up to him and ask something, likely along the lines of “Did it go out of bounds untouched,” which received a nod in the affirmative, whereupon you had two officials reach for and throw their flags, except the covering official missed his flag as he tried to grab it and threw an empty handful of air. If that’s the worst thing to happen in the entire half, everyone should be happy with their game today.

Spielman thinks the “same official threw two” flags. Pasch offers that Navy may have been offside. I think they are both wrong.

And, the white hat clarifies that they are and the sun sets on Navy’s upset bid.

South Carolina at NC State…the condensed replay

This might seem remarkable to some, but Thursday had gotten mostly by me before I realize, “Hey, there is college football today!” Hence, I didn’t record this game until the replay was being show in its condensed version in the middle of the night on ESPN. Been pretty busy since then, so the game is a bit stale, but since I’m looking at it more for things interesting to me as an official, that is of little concern.

Q1 12:18 – A Wolfpack linebacker hammers the Gamecock running back in the backfield, jarring the bar loose. Immediately, I see the referee’s bean bag fly into the frame and land exactly at the spot of the end of the run/fumble. That’s pretty good considering he was likely several yards away. Might have to practice my bean bag skills. In fact, I should now realize that despite all the fumbles last night, I didn’t throw mine once. Oops. Gotta work on that.

7:51 – On third-and-one, NC State attempts to get the first down with a run up the middle out of the shotgun. The running back, Jamelle Eugene, was met by a few defenders very close to the (unofficial) yellow line meant to show the home viewer where the ‘line to gain’ is on the field. It’s a great enhancement for football viewing, miles above the glowing puck once used by Fox to the chagrin of hockey fans everywhere. The line, however, is not official. I’m not sure how the determine where to virtually paint it on the field, but it seems to usually be a pretty good indicator, generally. Not sure I’d want to lean on it too heavily for the closer plays. Having slowed the play down for a few repeated viewings, it seems like Eugene was hit very close to where the line was. From where he was holding the ball, I don’t have a problem with thinking the tip of the ball might have just gotten to the front edge of that (again, unofficial) line. And we all already know that the forward progress spot is the important thing here, right?

“It appears he was short of the first down…they gave a great spot though, and it’s going to be a first down,” was the analysis given by one of the commentators (I have no names at this time). His partner followed with, “Absolutely. That was a very favorable spot right there.” To their credit, they dropped it in favor of discussing the game.

Now, I will say that it was definitely close from what you could see on the broadcast, but the angle from which you are seeing it at home does not give a good picture of where the forward progress was stopped. The official who spotted the ball was looking at the play directly and would have made that call with a 90-degree angle to the ball. The line judge would have been looking right through the ball to the line-to-gain indicator and would have been able to say whether the spot was eclipsing the needed spot for a new series, or whether a measurement would have been required. You don’t have to know too much about such things to know that having the right (okay, correct) angle is going to make a huge difference in the call. From a bad angle on television, sure, you might have though it was short or, at least, called for a measure. From the field, I have no idea, but, surprise, would trust the officials.

5:38 – Wolfpack WR Owen Spencer is overthrown slightly, whereupon he looked around in that familiar way players look around for a flag on the ground, or, more likely, is showing he thinks a flag should have been thrown.  The defensive back, Akeem Auguste, did a nice job in press coverage, but, on replay, seemed to have grabbed Spencer’s arm, potentially impeding his progress. He might have gotten away with one on that. The funny bit for me is that the defender turned around to move back to his teammates shaking his finger in a Dikembe Mutombo fashion, as if to indicate it were foolish to attempt to throw his direction. It’s funny because he maybe had to cheat a little bit to win that particular battle. Ultimately, though, he did win it. So, kudos to Akeem.

4:52 – A blocked punt reminds me I need to do some rules study. I missed a question on my test Tuesday involving a punt that ended up behind the line of scrimmage. Stupid!

4:40 – On the very next play, South Carolina does what I like to do on the video games after a turnover or blocked kick and goes for a big play. QB Stephen Garcia thows it 65 yards into the end zone and the arms of teammate Tori Gurley. The covering official seemed to be right on top of the play and looking directly at Gurley and the defensive back covering him (C.J. Wilson) who seemed to be in great position until there was some contact at the five yard line and, suddenly, some separation. Gurley had a guilty look about him immediately, which was seemingly confirmed by back judge Michael Watson who appeared to have flagged him for offensive pass interference. No score. Great teamwork by the officials to get the right call.

And, WOW, is that umpire one big fella.

I shall interject here that I have decided I shall make an effort to use the official’s names when and where I can. Hopefully, this will clearly be more out of respect than anything and not to attach a name to any criticism or error.

Q2 8:53 (after a ESPN replay fast forward skips a chunk of action) – Garcia runs the ball and is met by several Wolfpack defenders. The ball comes loose, but umpire Ronnie Jones immediately signals Garcia was down before the ball came loose. I had to slo-mo the slow-mo replay to see it, but, sure enough, Ronnie had it right. These guys are having a very good game so far, in my opinion. The tempo is good, and everyone looks sharp.

Q2 – 6:24 – After a play, linesman Gary Jayroe catches Leroy Burgess doing something his coaches will not be happy he did, costing the Wolfpack an extra 10 yards (half the distance to the goal) after South Carolina had just converted on a third-and-five. Whatever Burgess did happened off screen, but the example of the official keeping his eyes open for activity occurring in the dead ball period between downs is solid.

By the way, it’s 7-0 Gamecocks right now, in case you were, for some reason, waiting for a score. Also, ESPN has moved to the second half.

Q3 7:17 – Garcia rolled out of the pocket away from pressure and threw the ball out of the corner of the end zone. The NC State fans and coaches clearly wanted a call of intentional grounding. I wouldn’t argue that Garcia wasn’t just getting rid of the ball, but grounding would have been tough to call since he was outside the right tackle, if only just barely, and had a receiver running toward the edge of the end zone where the ball landed. Can’t blame them for wanting it, but no way was that, by rule, intentional grounding.

ESPN has skipped a lot of gameplay during which presumably nothing as interesting as poker, or whatever they show in the middle of the night, occurred. I really don’t get why they don’t just rebroadcast the entire game. Granted, there is plenty of opportunity for compressing a football game on replay, but just clipping out huge chunks of the game just because nobody scores isn’t really my preference. And, again, it’s the middle of the night. What else are you showing?

Q4 4:18 – On a punt return, the Wolfpack runner is brought down by a defender who appears to have reached out and grabbed either the face mask or the side of the helmet, dropping him to the ground practically on his face. It was a pretty ugly tackle right in front of the NC State bench. Head coach Tom O’Brien is understandably hot under the collar over the lack of a penalty flag.

Ooh, but now I’m getting a little irritated with the loud-mouths in the booth.

“Boy, from here, that looked like a face mask.”

My typical response to this sort of comment is, “well, that’s why we don’t officiate from there,” except the replay does seem to indicate this was a miss for the crew.

“He’s got him by the underneath the helmet. That is a face mask. That’s a fifteen yard foul. How do you miss that? If you’re an official out there and you’re in the game and you see a body violently turn like that, there’s no other way it can happen. The ball should be on South Carolina’s 35-yard line right now.”

Okay, I have established that the replay shows this to have been something that would call for a flag. However, how you can ‘miss that’ can be answered a number of ways. First, though, I will say the covering officials will be the first to regret having missed the call once they see the replays because the safety of the players is a primary concern for any official (or so I believe).

Now, this play was a long return of a punt. Such plays have the officials moving pretty well, along with the fact that all 22 players are somewhat scattered all over the field in these situations. Simply put, the officials covering the ball carrier may simply have gottten screened from seeing that part of the play. I can see on the replay that the angle at which the covering official was looking may have put the offending and and offended helmet out of his direct line of sight. I shan’t go too much more into that because I won’t want to seem to be making excuses for the crew. Such a flagrant foul should have been seen, but wasn’t. Nobody is going to like that.

Again, the irresponsibility of the broadcasters is appalling. The know-it-all/second guessing of the officials at work tends to lead to bad behavior from fans and players. There is NO WAY you would want officials to make calls on things they don’t see. If that official didn’t flag the play, it’s surely because he didn’t see it. To extrapolate what he may have seen would be poor officiating and certainly not what anyone would want from officials in general. One must see the entire play to make such a judgment. It’s unfortunate that this was missed, but that is simply going to happen. We all work hard on constantly improving our knowledge and mechanics to assure such things aren’t missed, but things are always going to slip through.

I would also add that you never hear these broadcasters so emotional over mistakes by players or even coaches, but nobody wants to hear that. Just be aware that everyone makes mistakes, but it’s really only the officials, despite executing on a high level a large share of the time, who get berated so strongly for their errors. It comes with the territory. We know this. If we couldn’t handle it, we’d likely not do it. I personally just wish the complainers would train as officials and try it just for a little bit so they have a better frame of reference for their spastic reactions.

Oh but you just can’t stop with the button pushing.

“And we should note, in this game between teams from two separate conferences, these are Southeastern Conference officials on the field tonight, the conference of South Carolina.”

This is beyond irresponsible. Simply put, the implication here would be that the officials may have decided to pass on making that call out of favor of the team from their conference, or am I missing what the possible point of such an urgent ‘note’ might otherwise have been. I’m astounded that such a comment was made and can’t really say anything more about it. In the lingo of our time, ‘it is what it is.’

unbelievable.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard comments from fans that would indicate they believe I am favoring one team or another. I can also not tell you how ludicrous an idea it would seem to me that I would have a reason to want to favor, say, the Bulldogs over the Thunder. It’s absurd. Could it be that they think I’ve somehow managed to wager on the outcome of a game between two teams of 13-year-old kids? It goes beyond reason, but is born in these sorts of flimsy accusations from television broadcasters.

“Not making any suggestion there, but people want to know…”

Is there any way to interpret what he said as ‘not making any suggestion?’ I don’t see it and call ‘nice attempt at CYA.’

Then they continue, with the camera focused squarely and up close on Jayroe, who I assume now to have been the covering official. I’m not going to transcribe the quotes, but it’s more “How do you miss that?” and implications that, even if Jayroe did not actually see the grab of the face mask, he should have somehow known the face mask grab occurred because of the way the runner went to the ground. I really dislike these guys now, maybe even more than Davie and Jones from the Boise game. Maybe I should find their names so they can go on my list, which doesn’t actually exist, but maybe should.

3:36 – Back to action. Stephon Gilmore reaches out and grabs a Wolfpack receiver as he runs by, earning a pass interference call.

The pause in action gives opportunity for the booth personnel to pat one another on the backs while the camera shows that the umpire has blood running down the side of his face.

“You’ve done an awesome job…” blah blah blah.

Don’t tell The Missus about the bloody umpire. She already worries too much about me officiating.

3:28 – Trailing 7-3 late in the game, Jay Smith drops what would have been a catch for a go-ahead score in the end zone.

“That ball has to be caught.”

“Okay, but I’m going to defend Smith for a moment. Look at those arms and hands flying through there. I know you gotta be focused. You gotta catch the ball, I understand.”

Does this sorta illustrate an earlier point? I feel it does. All sorts of compassion and defense of a mistake where there was none just a few minutes prior for the man in the stripes. Granted, from my aspect, the face mask miss is more of a safety concern. The announcers weren’t nearly as concerned about the player as they were about the fifteen yards, so, comparing it to an error costing a team the opportunity to take a late lead…I’m just sayin’.

I’ve taken the time to find information about the broadcasting team. I’m seeing the credited team is Sean McDonough, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews. Andrews is on the sidelines and, hence, is exempt from my disfavor, since she didn’t participate in the nonsense. Admittedly, the whole game sounded, to me, to be covered by just two people. I’ve no idea which was which, so I’m just putting the names here and figuring I can refer to them later if I have better information.

The game ended 7-3 with South Carolina winning. The game had a lot less scoring than the Oregon/Boise State game did, but wasn’t nearly as sloppy. I think this crew, despite the big miss on that face mask and the resulting venom from the broadcast team, had a better game than did the guys in Boise.

International Relations and Aide Cars

My first game of the season was also my first varsity game of the season.

I was assigned as the umpire on the crew, which is the guy who is always seen crouching  just behind the linebackers and has long since given up on worrying about getting run over by the athletes. Naturally, it’s larger guys who are asked to work that position. I’m a pretty big fella, so I figure to take my first assignment as a sign I’d best focus on learning all there is to know about being ‘the big man in the middle.’

Opening night of the 2009 season definitely provided some learning opportunities.

More than a few times I have heard the umpire referred to (lovingnly?) as ‘ball bitch.’ This would seem to refer to the fact that a large bulk of the job involves getting the football from either the ball boy running a new ball onto the field or from the preceding play and placing it down for the next snap using information from the wing officials (on the sidelines). While it’s not remarkably difficult a set of tasks, I definitely suffered from a bit of greenness in the position. I found myself moving to the succeeding spot, but waiting for the ball to be delivered to me far too often and not even being all too aware of whether there was a new ball being brought into play. The visiting team, who was from Canada, actually failed to use their own football for most of the first half, instead using the ball already in play. Not sure if that was a function of it being simple snags of early-season operations or the fact that, having traveled from Canada, they might not have even brought someone who could serve in the capacity of ‘ball boy.’  As it was, there were only two coaches on the sideline and otherwise just players from what I could tell. In fact, when I shouted toward the visitors’ sideline for them to bring their ball with them, it was the head coach who grabbed the ball and, with his offense already mostly on the field, threw a terrific spiral to me on the far hash…which I managed to drop with both hands.

Yep. Still got it.

Eventually, I realized it was prudent for me to go beyond the hash marks to fetch the ball and return it back to the middle of the field. The referee would then move to the spot and take the ball from me and spot it, making for a little better tempo. I feel pretty confident that will come a bit easier in the future. I think it was just a matter of it being ten months since my last game and maybe just needing someone to say, “hey, it’s okay to go out there.” Not doing things out of fear of doing the wrong thing just kept me from doing the right thing. Go figure.

One of the other primary functions of the umpire is checking for illegal equipment. This was made a little extra interesting for me by the visitors from Canada as they had the ability to purchase new equipment during their visit to Seattle. There were a whole lot of new gloves on the hands of the players. The team had apparently also made a trip to Qwest Field the night before to see the Seattle Seahawks host the Oakland Raiders in a pre-season game, as there were several players with the bright green sweatbands adorning biceps and elbows. Unfortunately for them, the rules allow sweatbands to be worn only on the wrist, so they all ended up being removed. Luckily, all the gloves were okay.

Unfortunately, I allowed the concern over all the gloves and sweatbands detract me from what I had meant to do which was to check the game balls and instruct the ball boys, all the more to contribute to the earlier issues I mentioned.

After the initial touchdown of the game by the home team, they lined up in the ’swinging gate’ formation for the try. They got hit for illegal formation, moving them back five yards to the eight yard line. They lined up again, but then the defense was hit with an offsides flag. I nearly moved back to the initial spot for tries, which is the three yard line, but, at the last second, stopped at the four, realizing we needed to go only half the distance to the goal line. As the teams were getting ready to finally play the down, the back judge stepped toward me and told me we needed to be at the three. I responded quickly, “No, half the distance,” which received a smile and nod. For whatever reason, the line judge came running in blowing his whistle and also answering “half the distance.” I guess there is no harm in the communication, but we had already resolved the issue and the back judge was moving back to his position under one of the uprights. If you think something is wrong, it’s always appropriate to stop a play from going in order to correct the problem, but stopping play to explain to someone why we have it right…I might just say to let it go and discuss it after the try if you think a fellow official still has a question. I don’t even think that’s just me.

Unfortunately, the next time we had a five-yard penalty inside the ten yard line against the defense, we marched off five yards. Clearly, the rust wasn’t as easy to knock out of the brain pan as I’d have liked.

I threw a total of two flags on the night, both illegal blocks to the back, both negating long gains by the home team. Both fouls were within steps of the runner, so I felt good about them.

Unfortunately, we had far too many flags for procedural fouls in the game, particularly in the first half. Again, since it was the first game of the season, I’m sure it’s something the teams will ultimately iron out in practice. Even more unfortunate, however, was that we ended up eating three such flags after discussion between the wing officials. Again, with it being the first game of the year, communication might not have been as smooth as I would expect it will be after everyone has more reps, but officials need to look sharp from the opening kickoff of the first game of the season to the final snap of the championship game. It’s a different standard, but we all know and embrace that.

None of this compares to the misfortune visited upon several of the athletes who had to be helped from the field throughout the game.

Early in the game, one of the home team’s players was a little slow to get up. When he tried to push up off the ground, I could see his arms trembling mightily, meaning, to me, he was in a fair amount of pain. I just said, “stay down if you’re hurt,” and signaled for the trainers to come to the field. After working with the player for a few minutes, the male trainer got some of the player’s teammates to help carry him off the field. It looked like he might have had a lower leg injury on which the trainers didn’t want him to put any pressure whatsoever. The female trainer made a comment about them being kept busy, which I found surprising as it was the first time they had come onto the field. It turned out that one of the visiting team’s players had made it off the field under his own power, but had severely dislocated his wrist and had to be taken by aide car for treatment.

The most serious looking situation, however, came when a player stayed down for over 30 minutes as the trainers and, eventually, some paramedics, kept his head and neck stabilized while waiting for another ambulance to arrive, since the first one had taken the player with the wrist injury. The player seemed he was always able to move his hands and legs. I’m not sure if he potentially had a mild concussion or neck injury, but no chances were being taken. The player was reportedly in good spirits and was actually surprised he was going to be taken away, so it likely looked a lot worse in the stands without such reports to be given the slight sense of relief. Nobody really wants to see these athletes get hurt, which should go without saying.

But, as the player was being loaded onto a back board and it seemed imminent he would depart the field and the game would shortly continue, a small group of fans in the stands started singing (you know the song), “Na na na na. Hey hey hey. Goodbye.” It was, frankly, a little shocking. It seemed that someone in the stands put a quick end to it, as it didn’t last long, for which I was thankful. After a minute of consideration, I wondered whether the (presumably) young ladies realized the context of how that song is usually sung at sporting events. I think we can all agree it’s not means in a friendly “Aloha” way.

As the teams finished warming up and returned to the field of play, one of the teammates of the injured player said, “They don’t like us.”

“Who doesn’t like you,” I asked.

“Them,” came the not-entirely-useful clarification.

“The other team,” I probed.

“No,” explained the young Canadian, “those guys are respectful. The fans don’t like us.”

Of course he was likely referring to the singing, so I offered that it were possible those singing didn’t really know what they were doing and maybe didn’t mean any harm.

We continued the game using a running clock after an agreement between the two coaches. The game was pretty much out of hand and, with such a long delay, the running clock was preferable to simply discontinuing the remainder of the match. Of course, the players were likely wanting to play more, but you would assume, especially with how much effort and planning such a trip must involve for the Canadian team, they would want to get as much out of the experience as possible.

On the first play after the delay, the home team connected on a long pass down the sideline for a touchdown, further extending the home team’s lead to a whole lot to absolutely nothing.

The home team did put in some reserves for the fourth quarter, which may have attributed to the visitors piecing together a short touchdown drive after recovering a fumble, assuring they did not make the long drive north completely empty-handed. The only real poor sportsmanship exhibited all night came after the touchdown. There was a brief scuffle between a few players after the failed point-after attempt. The nearest officials were quick to intervene, so it wasn’t much of an issue. It was just unfortunate after the game had gone so far with the players all helping one another up off the ground and  being as respectful of each other as you could hope in such a physical contest as the game of football. I think we had one instance of  roughing the passer as the only real issue all game long.

All in all, it wasn’t a horrible first game, but I definitely left the field knowing I have a lot of work ahead as I strive to become an umpire with whom the best referees in the association want to work. I’m fairly confident I’ll get there with the guidance of my fellow officials who are generally pretty good with useful feedback. But, with no games today, all I can do is observe some NCAA football as  an important part of study and preparation.

That’s how I’ll sell it to myself and/or The Missus, anyhow.

Oregon at Boise State…yes, they played the second half

That is, despite the fact they managed only 14 yards in the first half, Oregon decided to come out and give it a go for half number two.

Hence, so did I. I promise to keep it a bit shorter.

Well, I promise to try.

13:24 – The Boise State running back, D.J. Harper, managed to get outside on a long run down the sideline. On the replay, you get to see the Side Judge back-pedaling very quickly toward the goal line in an effort to not get beat to it. Looked like he even managed a quick peek over the shoulder to make sure he didn’t overrun it or hit the pylon. When the runner was tackled out of bounds, he killed the clock and stayed with the players, presumably allowing someone else to get the spot of the ball. I note this primarily because your instinct as a wing official covering the play is to get the spot. We are told in training to go with the players in these situations, with the spot being a secondary concern. I know it sounds simple, but when you’re new and on the field, it doesn’t seem like what you’re meant to do. It takes some time to get used to the idea. Not a lot, mind you, but it’s not your first instinct.

Well, it wasn’t mine, at least. Your mileage may vary.

12:10 – On first-and-goal, Harper runs the ball to just inside the one. He crosses the goal line just after his knee and elbow hit the ground. These are some of the most-difficult plays to see (again, for me) from the wings. You’re looking to see if the ball breaks the plane of the goal, while also keeping in mind that you need to see if his knee is down before the ball does break the plane. I know at least one time last year I signaled a TD on a goal-line run that some of my crew later told me might have had the runner down just before he crossed. I’m working on it.

Then again, I’m getting more work this year as an Umpire. I’ll be closer to the play without the angle or responsibility.

Two plays later, Harper does succeed and makes it 19-0. Maybe that’s not an ‘O’ for Oregon on the helmets. Could be a zero.

4:21 – Apparently not. While the officials are doing little for me to notice, Oregon managed to take advantage of reasonable field position and assembled a scoring drive. With the successful two-point conversion, they have closed the gap to 19-8.

2:22 – After a Boise fumble and Oregon recovery, there is another false start. Some of the players didn’t hear the whistles, but they were clearly blowing it dead.

What do you want? It’s been a slow quarter for my purposes.

Doh! Oregon gives it right back with an interception.

:22 – Boise sets up for a field goal attempt. A mishandled snap causes the holder to pick up and run away in an effort to maybe pass? I don’t think he thought he was going to escape on his own feet. He proved to be much slower than the guys chasing him. He surrendered by throwing the ball to a nice big open space on the field. That’ll cost him. Flag is down.

“They might have a face mask,” offers Davie, seemingly ignoring the more obvious grounding in favor of a face mask to which he may be the sole witness.

The Ducks are somehow not out of this game and their fans have come back to life. They certainly had no reason to exhaust their energy in the first half.

If you have ability to watch a replay of this game, you could just forward through to the end of the third quarter and watch for the two Boise fans in the front row wearing the while Elvis jumpsuits, blue plastic pompadour wigs, and orange-rimmed Elvis shades. Gotta love some Elvis.

4Q – First play of the final quarter, Masoli fumbles, Boise recovers. It’s simply not in the cards for the Ducks. They had their chances.

14:14 – Bad snap? The play definitely went live, but then the referee came running in, blowing his whistle, and seeming to drop his flag near the feet of Boise QB Moore.

“There is no flag on the play. It’s a bean bag. It’s a first down for Oregon.”

Okay pal. I hear ya, but that was your flag. I know the difference. It’s all good though, brother.

Why this is going to review, I have no idea. It was pretty obviously a center-qb exchange gone wrong and Oregon clearly recovered. Seems like an unnecessary time waste, but people want review.

What do you know? The guys on the field had it right. Let’s get back to football. It wasn’t too long a delay, though, to be honest.

10:25 – There appears to have been a holding foul, but ESPN seems to be transitioning into “this game is boring” mode, and thus choosing to continually cut to the booth where Davie and Jones can dazzle us with their clothing choices and hand gestures in discussing…I’ve already forgotten what they were discussing.

The game has gone boring, though. Very sloppy play. I lost track of the turnovers, but it was several in the space of a few minutes.

8:47 – On a punt return, we have an illegal block in the back on Oregon. ESPN manages to show the replay. Thanks! It was close. The Duck nearly got the shoulder on the side, but the Bronco went flying face-first. Must have been too tempting to pass up. Looked great until the flag flew.

I just saw on the scrawl that Ball State lost to North Texas. Might be a long year for the Cardinals with a new coach and without Nate Davis. As a Central Michigan alum, I have no problem with this.

The players in Boise, however, do have a problem holding onto the ball. The Broncos should be putting us all out of Oregon’s misery, but they keep handing new life over to Oregon, which they continually decline. It’s an ugly dance.

My DVR does seem to have a sense of mercy, ending a little early and sparing me from watching the last four minutes of the game. I wish I could say I wouldn’t be surprised to go to ESPN and learn of a furious comeback by the Ducks, but it would actually surprise me beyond reason.

For me, it’s off to bed so I can be rested for my first game of the season tomorrow. Enjoy the dawn of the 2009 football season!

Just observing: Oregon at Boise State (first half)

I’m watching a lot of football these days. I may be watching more than I did when I was simply a fan and hadn’t even considered I might someday be officiating games.

It’s not that I don’t watch the games for the actual play, because I do, but I can’t help but take a greater interest in what I can see of the officials on the field and how their work is discussed by the guys in the booth, broadcasting to the home audience, disseminating all sorts of opinions and (mis)information about rules and the game in general.

I have thoughts about such things, of course.

About midway through the second quarter of tonight’s game I thought to myself, “Self, why don’t you write some of this down (so to speak)?”

Now I have. Rather, now I will have.

The first thing I notice is the new pre-game handshake between teams at midfield. Since it’s the first of its kind I’ve seen, I’ll just assume it is, by nature, a bit of an awkward-looking event. I noted two officials nearby in some observatory capacity, but from what was shown on the broadcast, it’s hard to know what their role in the entire thing was.

I applaud the idea behind the pre-game handshake, but don’t necessarily have an optimistic view on how much impact it will have on ’sportsmanship’ once the contest gets going. I know there is some bad blood between the Ducks and Broncos stemming from a strong hit on the Oregon QB in their meeting last year. That’s not going to be tempered with a forced handshake between a couple dozen players.

At the high school level, teams line up at the fifty-yard line after the game for a handshake. I really like that. Might not be realistic for college football, but think it would be a nice tradition. Who doesn’t like to see the post-series handshakes in the Stanley Cup playoffs? It’s a great tradition

And, moments later, ESPN shows one of those common pre-game jaw sessions at mid-field between players. So…yep.

14:54 – The linesman shows a good solid punch-back on the backward pass by Jeremiah Masoli on the Ducks’ first play from scrimmage. That is (for those who don’t otherwise know this) he extended his right arm toward the backfield, parallel to the ground, signaling to the rest of the crew that he has a backward pass which, should it not be caught, would remain a live ball. I have to tell you, this isn’t the easiest thing to judge.

13:40 – Is that a ’side judge’ marking the punt out-of-bounds inside the five-yard line? We, at the high school level, work with five officials at the most, so I’m not sure which of the extras are which.

Okay, they aren’t really extras. You can’t have too many guys on the field. Five officials can do a very capable job of coverage, but seven makes certain things a lot easier. You get my drift.

6:55 – Selling the call! The receiver for Boise State dives toward the goal line, losing the football as his elbow hits the ground. The Side Judge (easy to ID when you see the big ol’ ‘S’ on the back of his shirt) calmly kills the clock and moves in toward the players, pointing down toward the ground, telling everyone that the player was down before the ball was loose and, therefore, no fumble. However, the best part comes when S gets down on one knee to continue the sell job, slapping the ground with his hand at the approximate spot where the ball hit the ground.

My wife and her friend assure me that this is funny to me and me only. I guess I’m not necessarily adept at selling my calls in such an exaggerated fashion. Then again, there are some/many in the officiating community who do not believe in the idea of ’selling your call.’  Wherever you fall on that topic, you gotta give it to S, you KNEW what he was ruling.

The commentators made a crack about how Boise State, having a reputation for ‘trick’ plays, might have been executing the fumble intentionally.

6:40 – “You never know with Boise State. It might have been a trick play…the way he fumbled that ball.” Then, on the succeeding play on a fumbled hand-off, “another fumble.”

This is just one instance, and a harmless one at that, of a major obstacle to understanding the rules of football or, really, any sport: Rule 2

Okay, I don’t know if it’s rule number two in every rule book, but in the rule books I’ve read, Rule 2 is the collection of ‘definitions.’

See what you did there? You thought, “Oh, well, I already know all the terms and what they mean, so you don’t mean me.” This is precisely why I do, indeed, mean you! Being able to see a fumble and say, “Hey, a fumble” is one thing. However, when a player loses control of the ball when making contact with the ground with the elbow, it isn’t a fumble. Colloquially, sure, it’s a fumble. Call it that or whatever you will. However, in the letter of the law on the gridiron, it’s not a fumble. Hence, the succeeding play didn’t result in ‘another’ fumble.

This may all seem like so much crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, but that is how you have to read and know the rules. There is a new rule, in fact, which has several interesting applications all because of the use of the word “runner.” Again, you think you know what a “runner” is and, well, you do, but it has a certain particular definition on the football field and those distinctions are very important.

Any high school football official reading this knows too well what the rule is. I’ll leave it there for now.

Q2 13:50 – “The offense player lined up in the neutral zone. the play should have been shut down. so we’ve got, basically, a false start on the offense. we’re gonna bring the ball back to the previous spot and mark off five yards.”

That was a pretty good screw-up and I am sure the crew would admit that. The angle of the camera doesn’t really give a good shot where you can see who was lined-up in the neutral zone, but I think we can assume someone was too far forward. However, why the official who flagged it didn’t kill the play if he were meant to will remain a mystery, unless you want to just say something along the lines of ‘first-night jitters.’

12:41 – ESPN just ran the play from the 2008 match between these two teams where the Oregon QB, Masoli, was knocked out of the game.

I believe it’s Bob Davie who is saying the player who made the hit “should have been ejected from that fooball game and this year he would be ejected because of a bigger emphasis on helmet-to-helmet hitting above the shoulders contact.”

First, you don’t have to be an official to see the general flaw in the above statement. If he should have been ejected last year, but was not, then it’s not necessarily a given that he would be ejected for the same hit today. I don’t believe, from watching the replay, that the official saw it and deemed it okay. It was a vicious hit where the defensive player initiated contact with his helmet to the quarterback’s head.

I’m not sure what the NCAA rule is regarding such contact and what would lead to an actual ejection. It’s an easy 15-yard penalty, to be sure. I wish Davie were able to site a rule or something other to indicate the NCAA is asking officials to eject players who lead with the helmet. Othewise, it’s hyperbole.

11:41 – I couldn’t have scripted this much better. As Boise State QB Kellen Moore slides to the ground, an Oregon defensive player (T.J. Jones) dives at him near the ground. It looks like he’s leading with his helmet on the hit, which was somewhat unnecessary to begin with as Moore was clearly going down. He actually was down by the time contact was made. I would have liked to have seen that flagged for a late hit at the very least. However, I don’t think you eject the kid. I don’t think Bob Davie thinks that either.

Mark Jones says, “both coaches have told us there is going to be a bit of a gray area in this rule with helmet-to-helmet contact.”

“Exactly…I’m surprised the WAC conference officials didn’t call that because, as you know, early in the season when there’s a new rule change, particularly on a nationally-televised game, the officials like to show the emphasis on the rule change. I’m surprised it wasn’t called,” answers Davie.

At this point, the responsible thing would be to show a graphic with last year’s and this year’s rules, highlighting the differences. They’ve been talking about it for a few minutes now, but have yet to actually clarify what the rule IS!

Further, I take completely umbrage to the assertion that officials would be looking for an opportunity to “show the emphasis” on any rule change by flagging it at any and all opportunities, as Davie seems to imply here. I know that isn’t how your average high school-level official would handle the situation, so I feel safe thinking the same of guys who’ve progressed to the NCAA. Even more offensive would be the thought that the game being on national television would also somehow influence the decision-making process. That may be true for the broadcasters in their work. In this instance, they may very well be trying to flex their rules-knowledge muscles with this discussion on a nationally-broadcast game, but officials cannot afford to think and work like that.

In other words, what Bob Davie said right there was a big pile of you know what.

10:56 – The hits keep on coming thanks to a defensive pass interference call against Oregon. With the ball in the air, Oregon DB Thomas Jackson III, clearly gives a slight shove to Boise WR Austin Pettis along the sideline. It didn’t seem to budge him much off his route, but could definitely have impeded the receiver slightly as he ran toward the ball, knocking him slightly off stride. It isn’t the most-egregious DPI you’ll ever see, but it is DPI by definition. Great call.

“That is great coverage to that point…I don’t see a little contact. I promise you, if Thomas Jackson would have looked back, that would not have been called…that couldn’t have been one of those make-up calls, could it?”

Bob Davie has officially become someone I actively dislike in the booth. These sorts of comments may seem harmless in many contexts. However, as an “expert,” Davie is planting seeds in the minds of those watching the game. Some of these people then go out to their kids’ games and think the officials there are making “make-up calls” and misunderstand the pass interference rule. Some of those people are then willing to use all sorts of colorful language and action to let their fellow parents, the kids, and, of course, the officials, just what they know they are seeing, engendering all sorts of poor sportsmanship not so easily cleaned up with the occasional pre-game handshake.

I got my eyes and ears on you Bob Davie. Be warned!

7:05 – Not so much an officiating thing here, but what are you doing ESPN?! While the director is showing us shots of students who’ve painted themselves orange and blue, it sounds like Boise State has lined up in a unique formation for a two-point conversion (oh, did I mention they scored a TD to go up 6-0?). I mean, it sounds that way because I’m being told about it, but the director refuses to show the actual football game. They cut to it too late to see the sort of play which is one of the best reasons to watch Boise State games! Horrible!

“That is as funky a formation as you are going to see in a football game,” offers Jones.

Well, it’s as funky a formation as YOU are going to see because none of us got to see it!

Coming back from commercial, it appears someone is awake in the production truck; we get a replay of the successful two-point conversion. Thank you! It was pretty nifty.

Another non-officiating point: Oregon is STRUGGLING. They manage to be down only 8-0 nearing the half, but they look horrible on yet another short series. Must be a big step from offensive coordinator to head coach as this team looks nothing like the crazy offensive machine of the last few seasons.

3:54 – SAFETY! Boise now up 10-0. It feels like they are throttling Oregon and should be up more than 10. Seems like an ominous score, especially if the Ducks ever snap out of their funk, which doesn’t seem likely at this point.

3:12- Another DPI against Oregon. They can’t keep their hands off the receivers. Actually, I didn’t see the entire play. I think the receivers were off screen when contact was initiated. The ball bounced off the shoulders of Pettis, hit the ground, and ended up in the hands of the Oregon defensive back, whereupon it was his duty to pretend he caught it, as it all happened very quickly, as things tend to do in football. As the officials gather to discuss what they saw, since it did look like Oregon’s Pettison Thurmond might have intercepted the ball (he didn’t), Jones says, “there are a lot of these official conferences on the field regarding completions and incompletions today.”

I’ve not noticed any until now, but don’t see any harm in talking about it. Like I said, things move fast.

1:07 – False start. They killed it this time. No reason to harp on that one, though I’m sure they will discuss it amongst themselves at halftime.

:56 – Field goal for the Broncos makes it 13-0. This is not the best game I’ve ever watched. At least I have Bob Davie.

:23 – Another false start killed appropriately gives me the opportunity to note that the Head Linesman seems to have some very long arms. When he kills the clock, it’s all arms. Good stuff. Heck, he just came in on the next play with the ‘incomplete’ signal, and that looked epic!

Oregon seems to be slouching off the field. All the pre-game hype was about vengeance, but they didn’t come properly prepared. This is a butt-whippin’.

Season 2: Opening Act

No promises to myself or anyone else how long I maintain this, but for this season, I’m officially starting out 1-for-1.

Welcome to the 2009 baseball season!

The weather in Seattle today was perfectly agreeable for a baseball game. When contrasted with the weather of the second half of March 2008, it was very much an unexpected surprise to even be considering wearing short sleeves for my season debut. Despite that optimism, however, the clouds (or haze?) managed to stifle the sun just enough in the time between leaving my house and arriving at the field a mere four miles away to make the jacket an easy, and ultimately correct, call.

Paralleling the improvement in climate conditions over my first game last year was the comfort and confidence level today. Despite it being my first game since early September and admittedly not having done nearly as much rules study as I’d have liked, I felt immediately at ease on the field. I wouldn’t say it’s quite like riding a bike, but it’s in the same vein as that sentiment. I’m conditioned to simply feel better about the world in general when the weather and circumstances tell my biological barometer than baseball is in the air. Well, being dressed to umpire on a warm and sunny day in the Pacific Northwest is about as telling as it gets.

And, to clarify, I did feel great out there today.

The game allowed me to settle in pretty comfortably. None of the several pitchers did anything remotely resembling a balk. I had maybe three close-ish plays on the bases through the seven innings, but nothing close enough to raise even the most-biased eyebrow.

My partner (we’ll use P1 from here on out) did throw me an early curve ball. With a runner on third in the top of the first inning, I settled into the C position (behind and to the right of the mound, for those of you inexplicably reading an umpire blog who aren’t umpires). P1 started giving me a subtle hand gesture to move to my left towards first base. I took a step in that direction, without really knowing why. He repeated the signal, but I just ignored it and stayed in my spot. As the first pitch was delivered, I realized he was telling me I was meant to be in the B position.

I was stunned! Had I forgotten something so basic to umpiring over the break? Is there an evaluator in the stands dialing his mobile phone telling the association how the big-shot Rookie of the Year from last year doesn’t even know where he’s meant to be? I was rapidly scanning my brain pan for what I remembered about positions. Ultimately, I decided I was pretty sure that I had taken the right spot on the field, but was a little shaken in my faith.

Breaking one of my little rules (on the first day) I went in to check with P1 to see what he had for me. As you umpires have already determined, P1 was also suffering from a little early-spring rust. He told me he was trying to signal to me that he realized his error. I told him I missed that part as I was completely trying to figure things out at that point. We had a bit of a laugh and didn’t meet up again until we were walking off the field.

My one bonehead play of the day came in the bottom of the sixth when the pitcher came in high and tight to the batter who was checking his swing, but not fast enough to get the bat out of the way of the ball, which seemed to hit the bottom of the bat and roll into fair territory. I heard from behind the plate a loud exclamation of “NO,” whereupon I was confused about what was happening because I processed the “NO” rather than excluding it from what was happening. I was in the ‘working area’ behind the mound and didn’t move other than to stand up straight and wait for P1 to make some sort of call. The pitcher alertly fielded the ball and started running toward first, at which point the first baseman figured he should probably cover the bag. P1 declared the batter “out.”

I missed my call. That was my responsibility, but I allowed what I now assume to be one of the fans from behind the fence to enter my thought process. Thankfully, it did not effect the outcome, but I will be thankful for the early-season lesson.

This reminds me that early in the game, one of the parents (I assumed it was a parent) shouted as the pitch was being delivered, “There’s a girl on the field!” Seeing how we were indeed in a public park/community center, this was certainly possible and would be a hazard to a child, I turned around to check, as I assume did several others. She then loudly said, “I was just checking!” and had a nice loud self-congratulatory laugh.

I was utterly annoyed at such an immature prank from an adult. We’ve all heard about the boy who cried wolf. Again, this is a situation where I should not really even be hearing or acknowledging noise from the fans, but when safety is involved, you can’t really be too sure. I tend to give parents the benefit of the doubt, but this was a pretty poor example to be setting. Let’s hope we don’t get any repeat performances of similar nature.

Enjoy the season!

First Varsity Game of the Season

First, I’ve decided to move my football officiating posts to this blog. Not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to have it separate from this one, but I think it’s just silly now, so here it is.

Tonight was my first ‘Friday Night Lights’ game of the season.

That book and TV show title seems to have just become the phrase for Friday night high school varsity football and it also seems very much appropriate.

The lights do seem to shine a bit brighter on Friday night, to be sure.

Friday night varsity games mean having a full pre-game meeting with the officiating crew, discussing mechanics and responsibilities. It was nice to go over things, just to get clarification on things and to know what everyone’s intentions and expectations were going to be. I felt like it helped better prepare me for the game.

One of the really nice things about varsity games compared to other levels is that, as a Head Linesman, you get to work with an experienced chain crew. On other nights, you have to really spend a lot of time managing the kids enlisted to work the line-to-gain equipment. Tonight, I had three guys who really knew what to do and one guy who was learning from the other three. With the exception of having to have the down number corrected on one down, they were pretty much flawless on the night and allowed me to really keep my eyes on the players.

It was nice. Thanks fellas!

The game was a complete mismatch. The opening kickoff was returned for a touchdown, setting the tone for the evening. Two long passes and a punt return later, and it was 28-0 pretty quickly.

One of the more-interesting plays came on a kickoff following one of the many first-half scores. As the ball appeared to be heading for the end zone and a touchback, the player back to receive the kickoff just let the ball go. Of course, the ball took and funny bounce an avoided breaking the plane of the goal line, whereupon athletes starting unsuccessfully attempting to pick the ball up and run and then trying to fall on the ball.

Somewhere in the mess, we ended up with a touchback. Though a whistle was blown potentially a second early and there was mass confusion by most as to what happened, it was decided that a touchback was the result of the play. At halftime, the referee thought he might have blown his whistle too quickly. The play happened near my sideline, so I was nearby, but didn’t have the angle. However, from where I was standing and watching, I thought we had a touchback as well, so I guess all is well as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, then I had to have an inadvertent whistle.

I had been doing a very good job, if I do say so myself, on controlling my whistle and not blowing dead anything unless the play was to my side and I had the view of the ball. So, it was very, very odd for me when I was looking at a player on the ground holding the ball while I came in from the sideline blowing my whistle, only to then turn my head downfield and see a pile of players and the ball being spotted by the line judge about five yards further than where I had just spotted the ball myself.

I STILL would tell you I saw the ball, but it was obvious to everyone else that the play had gotten by me somehow. The fortunate part is that I was so slow on my whistle on my phantom play that the actual play was being blown dead maybe half-a-second after my whistle. Hence, we didn’t really have an inadvertent whistle, but it was not a proud moment for me. In fact, it may have been my grossest error so far in football officiating.

Later in the first half, the visiting team, now up 35-0 and with less than a minute left before halftime, ran a pass play that ended up getting near the goal line. Fortunately, I was keeping with the play pretty well and was able to see the receiver attempt to spin out of a tackle and stretch for the goal line, only for his butt to hit the ground with the ball half a yard short of the goal. I came running in while whistling loudly and pointing to the ground.

At least I had a good call to balance the bad one.