Mechanics

Here are two Ray Lutz “Forward Progress” posts from August 2007 (Edited for clarity) August 28 Reading your assigned interior blocking keys at the snap makes you a proactive official rather than…

In past Ready for Play articles, we’ve talked about crossover concepts between basketball and football officiating. Here’s another one: in basketball, officials are taught to glance at the bench near the end…

I’m recycling a Ready for Play article from 2024. We’ve had a few penalty enforcement issues in the first few weeks of the season, so this is a good time to remind…

In our last Ready for Play article, we introduced the ‘Rule of Two’—a guideline for how officials should signal. This article provides a few best practices for referee signals. When blowing the…

We use signals to communicate with our crewmates on the field. We use signals to communicate to game clock and play clock operators. And we use signals to show our judgment during…

With only five sets of eyeballs looking at 22 players on the field, we can’t give the same attention to every matchup. That’s why looking at the flow of colors helps us…

In high school football, we work with either a 25-second or 40-second play clock. Late in a half, when the game clock is winding down, coaches will sometimes ask the referee to…