14 replies to this topic

[Exporter]

YouTube shows the penalty called for what was said to be

excessive celebration. The officials missed the call. It maybe should have been delay of game. Maybe????????????

With 2 sec remaining Wash scores at end of a very long drive. As his team mates ran into him the QB tosed the ball
over his shoulder. Beno Cook said it's the worst call in recent times.

The ESPN people say the Officials should now have to have a post-game interview also and face the press since so much with so many people's jobs are at stake. It was in my mind a very bad judgement call. And hey...........

What is the definition of "Excessive Celebration"?

The BYU bench had emptied onto the field .

This was the third time that games on the West Coast were determined by an Official. I would buy the horse whip to be used on him.............. and I am not a fan of the Wash. Huskies.

[TXMike]

YouTube shows the penalty called for what was said to be

excessive celebration. The officials missed the call. It maybe should have been delay of game. Maybe????????????

With 2 sec remaining Wash scores at end of a very long drive. As his team mates ran into him the QB tosed the ball
over his shoulder. Beno Cook said it's the worst call in recent times.

The ESPN people say the Officials should now have to have a post-game interview also and face the press since so much with so many people's jobs are at stake. It was in my mind a very bad judgement call. And hey...........

What is the definition of "Excessive Celebration"?

The BYU bench had emptied onto the field .

This was the third time that games on the West Coast were determined by an Official. I would buy the horse whip to be used on him.............. and I am not a fan of the Wash. Huskies.

Part of the problem is the referee misannounced the foul. It was not "excessive celebration" The rulebook clearly spells out the violation of "throwing the ball high into the air" after a score. It carries a 15 yard penalty.

Someone with as much football experience as you should know better than to say that a single call cost a game. The game (at that level) usually includes 150-200 plays total. What happened on the other 149-199 is just as important.

Something else I do not understand is how the blame for the loss can be put on the officials. There was not one striped shirt in the extra point attempt formation so it was not one of them who missed a block allowing a defender to get in and block the kick.

As for the BYU reaction...that was AFTER the PAT attempt. If it had been flagged all it would have done was let WA KO from the 45 instead of the 30.

[Exporter]

I watched the end of that game. I disagreed with that one official's call at the time and I disagree now. One flag was thrown. You and I fundamentally seem to differ in terms of "common sense". Sorry that we disagree but we do. From what I read in your reply you are defending that official BECAUSE - - - - "It's In The Book".

Have you ever let a partial "hold" slip by. Does a hold have different degrees of seriousness - of course. When we saw that official not use common sense with 2 seconds left in the game we wonder how many other times he made a poor decision.

The kid did not taunt, it was an immediate exuberant reaction to the end of an 18 play drive. I don't regret letting the little things slip by durig my almost 40 years of working with teenagers... I hope some of my sins/offenses will be overloked when I reach room temperature.

Bottom line. Just because it's in the rule book doesn't mean that EVERY action During EVERY PLAY has be flagged. More than half the plays would result in a penalty and the fans would stop coming to the games. If cops went 100% by the "rule book" (Law) the jails would overflow - let the little stuff slip by - use commo sense! Our Fedreal Gov't overlooks immigration Laws that "are in the Book" every day. Traffic cops let the small stuff slip by. H.S. teachers let the small stuff slip by. It's called COMMON SENSE. 99% of the time even H.S. footballl officials get it right. But the clebration penalty has to be judges with common sense.

Fans don't pay those high prices for college games to come see Officials perform. Where I come from we say that a Good Official is one that you don't notice during a game. Isn't that the third time a West Coast Official had decided a game in two years. And that stuff about all the other plays is a Cop Out. With twoseconds left in a close game the officials shouldn't become Part of the Game as happenedin BYU-Washington Game.

A Question for you: (A)If you were the side judge on that identical play - would you now throw the flag on the kid? Yes or No.
( Have you ever picked up a flag you threw when you realised you misjudged? © How is Excessive Celebration DEFINED? (D) Can a flag be thrownbefor the K.O.? How about during halftime or after the game? Hang in there.

[TXMike]

I watched the end of that game. I disagreed with that one official's call at the time and I disagree now. One flag was thrown. You and I fundamentally seem to differ in terms of "common sense". Sorry that we disagree but we do. From what I read in your reply you are defending that official BECAUSE - - - - "It's In The Book".

Have you ever let a partial "hold" slip by. Does a hold have different degrees of seriousness - of course. When we saw that official not use common sense with 2 seconds left in the game we wonder how many other times he made a poor decision.

The kid did not taunt, it was an immediate exuberant reaction to the end of an 18 play drive. I don't regret letting the little things slip by durig my almost 40 years of working with teenagers... I hope some of my sins/offenses will be overloked when I reach room temperature.

Bottom line. Just because it's in the rule book doesn't mean that EVERY action During EVERY PLAY has be flagged. More than half the plays would result in a penalty and the fans would stop coming to the games. If cops went 100% by the "rule book" (Law) the jails would overflow - let the little stuff slip by - use commo sense! Our Fedreal Gov't overlooks immigration Laws that "are in the Book" every day. Traffic cops let the small stuff slip by. H.S. teachers let the small stuff slip by. It's called COMMON SENSE. 99% of the time even H.S. footballl officials get it right. But the clebration penalty has to be judges with common sense.

Fans don't pay those high prices for college games to come see Officials perform. Where I come from we say that a Good Official is one that you don't notice during a game. Isn't that the third time a West Coast Official had decided a game in two years. And that stuff about all the other plays is a Cop Out. With twoseconds left in a close game the officials shouldn't become Part of the Game as happenedin BYU-Washington Game.

A Question for you: (A)If you were the side judge on that identical play - would you now throw the flag on the kid? Yes or No.
( Have you ever picked up a flag you threw when you realised you misjudged? © How is Excessive Celebration DEFINED? (D) Can a flag be thrownbefor the K.O.? How about during halftime or after the game? Hang in there.

Again, someone with as much experience as you knows full well that one call does not determine a game. Why didn't the OL keep the defenders out? How do you know they would not have blocked just as poorly had the ball been snapped at the 3. I will accept all the complaints you want to make about whether the flag should have been thrown or not but I will not accept any mistaken claims that the call cost a game.

I would have flagged it without hesitation (and have done so once before). I have flagged things, i.e. pass interference, and then as I was going to report to the referee, realized it was truly not a foul and asked him to wave it off. The crew has jurisdiction in college 60 minutes before KO and 30 minutes in Texas HS so yes a flag can be thrown before a KO. And can be thrown at halftime, but not after the game.

[drgnbkr]

I disagree w/ the rule and the call.....however the best team won. If Washington had lost the game and were outplaying BYU, I could understand the frustration. In my opinion, BYU had the better team on Saturday.

[Exporter]

I disagree w/ the rule and the call.....however the best team won. If Washington had lost the game and were outplaying BYU, I could understand the frustration. In my opinion, BYU had the better team on Saturday.

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You say BYU was the BETTER team. I just saw the 4th quarter.
During the 4th Qtr. Washington WAS HOT. That last score was the culmination
of AN EIGHTY YARD DRIVE. At the end of the game Wash. was the hottest team and BYU "D"
was tired out. Based just on that Wash would be favored in overtime. But the single ref made a poor
decision with just 2 seconds left in that game. It never got to overtime.

I have been convinced that there is such a rule buried in the rule book. It is writen in a vague way. How high is high? "Thrown into the air" - is that one foot, ten feet or what? It is vague to me. As I saw the actual replay the ball was thrown backwards over the right shoulder of that player.It went higher than the cross bar but not as high as the upright.
Common sense and good judgement is expected from officials. Just one flag was thrown. That tells me it was a minority decision. I am of the opinion of letting the teams PLAY and call only the obvious.

[Exporter]

TX Mike, See, you admit that you have used your good judgement in asking that a flag be waved off for pass intrferrence. That is using good judgement. Keep it up.

I am still just plain mad that the ref threw that flag in the BYU/Wash game with 2 seconds left. That was a crucial time in that game. In the Georgia game Excessive Celebration by a scoring back was not judged to be excessive ( The guy highstepped while dragging the back foot after scoring. No infractio was called) That has nothing to do with the Wash/BYU game I know, but that shows that NOT ALL OFFICIAL ARE EQUAL.

Washington was HOT during the last part of the game and BYU "D" was tired. I saw the last 10 minutes of that game. Wash. was HOT. They drve 80 yards in 18 plays to score. I have seen teams drive 14 plays but not 18 plays. At that time Washington had the upper hand. Based on that I'd say Wash had avery good chance of a win in overtime. The Wash "D" was rested and the BYU "D" was all shot.

I am glad we can disagree, both our opinions are firm - maybe we can see eye to eye on something in the future.
What would have made it even worse would have been if that scoring play ( with 2 sec left) would have bee called back because the Wash. bench had a person a yard out on the field. Yessir, I am still p_____.

[TXMike]

Where to start....

Some of our guys who are well versed in physics have done computations based on time it took ball to leave his hand and then hit him on the shoulder when it came down. It appears the ball went 25 - 30 feet high.

The penalty did not cause the blocked kick. The Washington team and coach have admitted as much. And the Washington coach, although he is singing a different tune now, right after the game had no issue with the call.

The rule is not buried, and in fact, is very clear, i.e. it specifically says the ball cannot be thrown high into the air. Granted, it does not say, over 20 feet, but then how could we judge that anyway? That was put into the book in 1983.

What about spiking the ball? Are you okay with that as well?

As for just one official flagging...at that level the guys are pretty well trained and broken of the "ball watrching" habits many lesser officials engage in. As a result, if other guys were watching where they are supposed to be, they may not have even seen the launch. Plus, I am not sure it has been confirmed yet that only 1 flag was thrown Only 1 is seen in the video but there is a lot more going on on the field than what the cameras pick up.

Finally, had someone been on the field from the bench, the penalty would not have erased the score. It would have been enforced on the try or the KO, choice of the offended team.

[Exporter]

[ It ended up longer than intended, but there are a number of ideas addressed.]

I am getting ready for the hurricane. I mowed my grass really short for we may have standing water for a week. Maybe I think better when I have a sweat worked up. When I was almost through mowing the following came to me.

1.TXMike, you certainly know of some people who are in positions of authority who don't have the temperment to make decisions based on the situation. They seem like people who have to rely on something that is writen and they never deviate because they don't have common sense. Here is a short story as an example.
Among other duties I taught H.S. Chemistry for 38 years. In about 1962 at a school located in an agricultural area, there was one rather tall kid ( a Senior) who was consistantly making in the low 70's. He was a quiet football player. That was all I knew about him. But that Spring his grades went down some. When he took the final exam he needed about an 80 to pass the Semester. He didn't make it.
The Rules said "70" was needed to pass the course. It was plainly writenand I understood that was the "law".
His average for the Semester was 67 or 68. That meant he would not graduate. I wrestled with that decision not knowing much about the boy except he always seemed tired that Spring. I wrote a "71" for his Semester grade. He was passed and graduated. I told the Principal waht I did and he just ignored it.
Later I learned that his father , a farmer, has a leg amputated the year before after a tractor accident and his mother was sent to the T.B. Hospital ( they had those then). The boy had taken a job in the oil field and was trying to care for his two little sisters and the father while he worked the night shift ( no wonder he looked tired.) He had never told me about the SITUATION.
I will tell you that I was so glad that I didn't think I was so expert in making up tests so that I was always accurate to within a point or two. But some people do think they are Experts. I know I did the right thing when I GAVE him three points. I overlooked the Rules. Maybe 30 years later I found that he had graduated from college and had become the manager of one of our larger hardware stores.
I went to see him. On the manager's door was the name, Cecil Black, Mgr. We had a good little talk. He told me he had always wanted to thank me for the points that I gave him in that class. I told him that I really didn't know his SITUATION back then. Ijust said, " Cecil, a man used St. Peter's Slide Rule on me once at the Univ. of Texas so I used St. Peter's slide Rule on you back then".
2. If you were to talk to the kids I worked with most of them would say I was like a drill Sgt. But I was Fair with everyone.Yes, disipline comes first.
3. *Now to the main point as related directly to the question of that Call late in the Wash/BYU game which I say should have not been made because of the SITUATION.
Maybe there are Three kinds of people w.r.t making decisions.
a. First those who I will call "bookworms". Those who are not aware of anything but what they have read. They fall back on the "book" without ever being aware of the SITUATION. I think they would be cowards in real combat.
b. There are those who refuse to make a decision. They look to others. They have no self confidence.
c. The third type is very knowledgeable. He has the courage to make a decision based on the SITUATION, what he observed. He has the courage to decide Not to make a decision too. This third type would be the kind of leader you'd want in a combat situation. One reason the Germans lost WW I and WW II was that their lower level officers went by the "book" and would not adapt to the Situation at hand.
I think after mowing I have you "pegged". I hope I am wrong. From what you have said you would Not be the perfect Mayor for San Francisco or Denver. There are Federal Laws being violated in those cities w.r.t. Immigration and employment. These are known as " SANCTUARY CITIES ". You would go by the "book" no matter what. Am I correct? Then you'd be voted out or recalled.
You said youd throw the flag in a second on a guy who threw the ball after scoring. That points out a basic difference in the way we think. You see, I think the man right there in the SITUATION has precedence over some rule devised by a few men in Kansas City. I like common sense.

[TXMike]

I am not one of those who says there was no latitude, the flag had to be thrown because it is in the book. I say, and still say, the rule is in the book for a reason and until the rulesmakes decide they no longer support that reason, then it is my job to officiate the game the way they want it. There is latitude, i.e. how high a toss. I have had players drop the ball over their shoulder after scoring. I do not flag that I have had players flip the ball up 2 - 3 feet over their head as they ran through the EZ. No flag. But what this guy did deserved a flag and it deserved it REGARDLESS of the situation. I am not going to start officiating by worrying about what effect my flag might have on the next play or the outcome of the game. If it is a foul to me with 2 seconds left in the game, it is a foul with 46 minutes left, and if it is a foul with 46 minutes left, it is one with 2 seconds left.

In your mind this "situation" demanded tha a flag NOT be thrown. I dare say the BYU faithful disagree with that. So how fair would it be to them to say I did not throw the flag then as it mighht affect the outcome of the game?

And in this particular situation, with or without the flag, the kick could have been blocked so how can you put the outcome on the flag????? It is one thing if it is 4th and Goal and a team scores the winning TD as time expires but they get flagged for the QB being "slightly beyond the line of scrimmage. The TD is wiped off, it is a loss of down so they are not going to get another attempt to score. In that situation, the call DID directly affect the outcome and we can argue as to whether or not that call should be made. But that is not the case in this BYU - WA situation.

[drgnbkr]

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You say BYU was the BETTER team. I just saw the 4th quarter.
During the 4th Qtr. Washington WAS HOT. That last score was the culmination
of AN EIGHTY YARD DRIVE. At the end of the game Wash. was the hottest team and BYU "D"
was tired out. Based just on that Wash would be favored in overtime. But the single ref made a poor
decision with just 2 seconds left in that game. It never got to overtime.

I have been convinced that there is such a rule buried in the rule book. It is writen in a vague way. How high is high? "Thrown into the air" - is that one foot, ten feet or what? It is vague to me. As I saw the actual replay the ball was thrown backwards over the right shoulder of that player.It went higher than the cross bar but not as high as the upright.
Common sense and good judgement is expected from officials. Just one flag was thrown. That tells me it was a minority decision. I am of the opinion of letting the teams PLAY and call only the obvious.

If you saw the fourth quarter, then you saw BYU's possesion prior to the Washington eighty yard drive. BYU marched 95 yards down the field only to have their running back fumble the ball as he was crossing the goal line. As I said, I disagreed w/ the call. Washington's quarterback had no intention of purposely tossng the ball high in the air, it just happened. HOWEVER, BYU had outplayed Washington the entire game. They were the better team that particular day and they won by blocking an extra point attempt that is not difficult to make. The best team (on that day) won....as it should be.

[Exporter]

TXMIKE, this wil be my last post on this topic. We both have said what we believe very clearly.

I still do not agree with all that you have posted. You don't agree with me either. I have reasons for my stance, you just refer to a rule book. From the way you write I think you are an intellegent man. You haven't exploded into an emotional outburst so you are mature. But your extreme adherance to writen word, reguardless of the timing and/or situation, causes us to differ.

Much has been said about the Interpretation of the Bible over the last 500 years, still intellegent men disagree on the interpretations.

It seems to me that we disagree on the interpretation of role of a football official at a critical time in a game.
If you have seen Texas Playoff games ( in which Austin determines who officiates the game) you will have to agree that the tendency for those officials is to let the teams play....few infractions are called. We can't read minds but is it that the teams are that good and don't commit errors OR is it that the officials made a decision to just call the obvious stuff? If so, that tells me that the decision was made before the game started. In fifty years of observing playoff gaes I disagreed with just one call. It was made in the Astrodome when Marshall played Aldine. It was a call made when a Marshall player recovered an Aldine fumble while one of his feet was one the sideline and the ball was inbounds. Just one.

Expanding on the "interpretation" of the role of an official: His interpretation will influence his decision. It happens when different men interpret our Constitution in different ways. Very different decisions were made by men who interpreted the Bible differently. Back to the role of a football official. Why were rules writen in the first place. I say they were writen so one team would not have an advantage over another team - they both had to play by the same rules- right? But the role of an official involves not only his interpretations but the ethics of the game.

If you will please look in the beginning of the U.I.L HANDBOOK which governs all U.I.L. activities you will find a page that lays out what I call Ethics of Compitition. It was put there in about 1966 for the first time. It supersceeds your NCAA rulebook because in Texas H.S. Football all compitition is under the U.I.L. and schools PAY to join and agree to abide by the U.I.L. rules. I doubt that many sports officials have ever been made aware of the "Ethics of Compitition" in the U.I.L. Handbook.

As you can see I am concerned with enforcing an "IFFY" infraction at the very end of an important game. It was "IFFY" when it was writen. ( Oh I know there is a rule in the NCAA rule book concerning throwing the ball after a score or a play.) The official who called it had to make a decision. The head official could have over ruled him? So he also made a decision. Did that action give them some kind of advantage? - NO! -. COULD IT HAVE BEEN OVER LOOKED? Yes. With just 2 sec. remaining and 59:58 minutes "in the book" - why did the guy call it? I say he called it because he wasn't sure. He wanted some help from the other officials. Then he was stuck : for the flag had been thrown. What kind of man would do that?
I'd say he was sort of afraid of critisism, sure it's in the book but the situation was critical. Two seconds left. So he being one of those bookworm kind of guys let the flag go. He probably had his Bible in his hip pocket. He just wouldn't let himself do what's right. He didn't use common sense like our Federal and Local Law Enforcement officers do.

These will be my last words on this topic. This call was NOT like an off-side, delay of game or maybe illegal motion. It was one of those very "iffy"' calls that could have easily been overlooked like many others during the game. We will not agree on the action of that official now or next year. I just hope you are never faced with having to interpret or make a decision based on that rule.

[Exporter]

Watch it on YouTube.

Define "excessive celebration" - that was the call.

[TXMike]

Watch it on YouTube.

Define "excessive celebration" - that was the call.

I have said the R made a mistake when he made that announcement. He had a foul, he just did not know or recall how it was supposed to be announced, probably because he had rarely or never seen it. It is like the R who announces "illegal motion" when what he really has is illegal shift. It is not that big a deal as the penalties are the same.


You may think state championship games are called differently but they are not. The teams are usually pretty good (which is why they are there) and they know how to do things that to the casual observer may look like a foul but to the highly trained official (which is what you are getting for the most part at that game) it is not a foul.

[Wpirates03]

I agree with the ref on that call.