Monday, October 17, 2005

Crewcut Charlie: Officials Missed the Spot

As posted here Saturday night, the Pac-10 crew working the USC-Notre Dame game not only missed the infraction by Reggie Bush, but also the spot of the ball the previous play when Matt Leinart fumbled. Irish coach Charlie Weis said as much today. He also brings a new infraction into play: Pete Carroll's son, Brennan, signals for a timeout after Leinart's fumble when the Trojans didn't have any remaining. "They are out of the coach’s box and they are calling timeouts with no timeouts left. Now that's a penalty and that alone puts them out of touchdown scoring range and to field goal range," Crewcut said.
Update: Thanks to reader Mike for pointing this out in the NCAA Football Rules Book: When a team's timeouts are exhausted and it requests a timeout, the official should not acknowledge the request. Which is exactly what happened. Weis and AP got it wrong, there is no penalty. His on-the-money post is in comments.
Update II: We need to clarify Weis' comments. After reading an item in the South Bend Tribune, it's clear Weis was asking for a penalty for coaches being out of the box, not for trying to call a timeout they didn't have. Sorry, Charlie.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Section 3: Timeouts

b. When a team's timeouts are exhausted and it requests a timeout, the official should not acknowledge the request.

Which is exactly what happened. Weis and AP got it wrong, there is no penalty

www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2005/2005_football_rules.pdf

Kevin said...

Ah, but I'll always remember Chris Webber doing that.

Anonymous said...

"Kevin said...
Ah, but I'll always remember Chris Webber doing that."

In case you didn't know it, webber played basketball, which is a different sport. duh.

The spot was correct, too. When the ball goes out of bounds, the team in possession has the option of replaying the down or placing at the spot where it was called dead (in this case, Leinart's forward progress inside the one).

Don't hate USC because they're better than you. Don't cry about the refs who made the hate call. There is no shame in losing to the best team in the country.

Anonymous said...

that should say right call, not hate call...

Kevin said...

I know Webber played a different sport - pretty obvious based on the picture I linked to. I was just thinking back on good times at stupid people's expense.

Kinda like when I read the comment about my comment.

Anonymous said...

Mike:

How right you are regarding the timeouts! Very nice post. We will update to correct that information.

The Wizard

Anonymous said...

I thought the important thing was that the coach was out of the coach's box, which is a rules infraction. As such, Charlie and the media didn't get it wrong, and you might want to cosider re-updating your post.

Kevin said...

Out of the coaches box will only get you a warning the first time.