This paragraph appeared in a September weekly Colorado high school football coaches bulletin:
“Unnecessary roughness is a judgment call. The best thing players can do is avoid putting the officials in a position to make a judgment against them. In teenager talk that means ‘Don’t give the refs a chance to screw you.’”
George Demetriou, the Colorado football rules interpreter, amplified those words with this message in his weekly rules bulletin:
“If a tackler is strong enough, he may pick up a runner. It is not a foul to do that. However, the risk then becomes the official has to judge if the completion of the tackle is unnecessarily rough. Slamming the runner to the ground is clearly a foul, but no one expects the tackler to gently lay the runner on the ground as if he were putting a small child to bed. There are lots of choices in between. Dropping the runner and standing over him is not a good optic. Bending the knees and going to the ground with the runner will likely pass muster. Holding the runner to get a forward progress stop is certain to avoid a foul. The bottom line is that once the tackler picks up the runner, he has created a choice for the covering official, and the result will differ depending on the official and the tone of the game factors. The only sure-fire technique is to not pick up the runner in the first place.”
Quiz
Following a play, A34 and B88 are injured. The referee blows his whistle for an official’s time-out. When the players depart the field, how many seconds will be on the play clock?
- 25
- 40
Review Rules 3-5-10 and 3-6-1