Rules of the Game- The Ransom Report – Special Edition
Tagged under: Coaches Corner, News
Kevin Ransom | October 3, 2023
October 2nd 2023
EDITION – 7.1
Throughout any given season a football official will take upwards of 3000-4000 snaps. During all those snaps they are bound to see some odd things happen. After 27 years, I could write a book about the strange plays that I have had to rule on.
Today, we are going to reach deep into the back pages of the rules book to visit some things that the average fan may not know or could easily get confused. It is rulings like these that officials need to be familiar with to create a fair and concise contest.
Look at the following rulings and ask yourself which of them you would be comfortable in enforcing if you were officiating.
1) The receiving team can not return a kicked ball out of the endzone. Once the ball crosses the plan of the endzone it becomes dead.
2) The ball does not need to cross the goal line inside of the pylon to be a touchdown. There is something called “The Goal Line Extended”. This simply means the goal line extends beyond the sideline. If the ball crosses “The Goal Line Extended” and the ball carrier stays in bounds then a touchdown is awarded.
3) The ball only needs to touch the goal line to be considered in the endzone, but it needs to completely exit the endzone to be consider out of the endzone.
4) There is no such thing as “offsides” in high school football. It is either considered “encroachment” or “false start.”
5) Pylons can be one of only three colors: Red, Yellow, or Orange
6) A field goal attempt is nothing more than a punt that can score points. Most of the rules apply to both plays. This means that an attempted field goal that is missed but travels into the endzone is placed at the 20-yard line; just as if the offensive team punted the ball into the endzone.
7) The team scored upon decides who is going to kick off next. This means that if you just gave up a score you could choose to kickoff, as opposed to receive.
8) A team can elect to free kick after a fair catch or an awarded fair catch. This means that when a team fair catches a punted ball they can elect to “free kick” the ball back to their opponent. They will do this by lining up in a traditional kickoff formation from the spot of the fair catch and kicking the ball. If the kicked ball travels through the uprights that team will be awarded 3 points like any “normal” field goal.
9) There is no such thing as an “uncatchable ball” in high school football. Defensive Pass Interference can still occur even if the ball is “uncatchable.”
10) The ONLY fouls that carry an automatic first down are Roughing the Kicker, Roughing the Passer, Roughing the Holder, and Roughing the Snapper. See the “Roughing” theme?
11) Hurdling a tackler is illegal assuming that the potential tackler is touching the ground with nothing but his feet. If he is on a knee then hurdling is allowed.
12) The offense can elect to put the ball in play anywhere between the hash marks during a try, when kicking off, following a safety, after a fair catch, after an awarded fair catch, following a touchback, and the start of each overtime series.
Thinking about becoming an official? I did so 28 years ago and it was one of the best choices of my life.
If any questions exist please feel free to reach out to me. I can be reached at kevinransom95@hotmail.com
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