Behind Enemy Lines: Rosters, Pinnies and Administration

The inspiration for this article comes from players around the league asking officials to weigh in on some topics that we would consider to be a little more administrative in nature, items that don’t occur during the playing time per se.  Let’s see if we can offer some clarification here, and direct your captains to the appropriate resources for more information.

We still seem to see jewelry and pockets every single week.  The penalty is very big for these dress code violations, 10 yards, an automatic first down, and the offending player is sent off for 5 plays.  The reason is that these items pose a risk to players, including the player themselves in the case of jewelry.  Please be careful, encourage teammates to abide by the rules for dress code and save us from having to penalize for these.

A few myths to bust – it is not the officials’ responsibility to ensure players are wearing flags to start a play, aren’t wearing pockets or reminded them to take their earrings out.  Officials are, however, encouraged to be proactive and preventative whenever possible.  As a point of emphasis, you cannot wear pockets or jewelry of any kind.  In the case of pockets, no pockets whatsoever, no matter how big or small, taped or not, zippered or otherwise.  You also can’t turn the shorts inside out to be compliant with the rule.  Don’t lose playing time for something so preventable please – pack two pairs of shorts.

In the summer months it may be a good reminder that ball caps are not allowed because of the hard brim.  This would not constitute a penalty; a player would simply be advised to remove it.  Why the difference?   Really because a baseball hat is far more noticeable than pockets, quite simply.  

Games go by fast!  A few things that you aren’t aware of that you may want to know.  Prior to the game your roster is due to the scorekeeper, subject to a penalty to begin the game.  What’s worse though, is that the game clock will start when the officials are ready after the coin toss.  That means if you are the team that must write up a roster or stand beside the scorekeeper to pick and add players on the new fancy app, you are chewing into your playing time unfortunately.  Try to be proactive and get ready for an on-time start.

Another issue preventing the start of the game could be pinnies.  I urge the scorekeepers to play a more active role in this.  We probably know in advance that one team will require pinnies.  Proactively tell the teams…this will make your job so much easier in the long run.  Every field has pinnies, so to the players and officials, if you see a situation where someone will need to wear pinnies, don’t try and hide and not make eye contact for fear that if you do you will have to wear them.  Who wears the pinnies is outlined in the rulebook, so we’ll know who will need to wear the add-on jerseys: the away team.  What you should do is get them on ASAP before the game starts and ensure the scorekeeper is aware of your pinny number for stats purposes, because once again once the officials are ready for play the clock starts even if you are still trying to coordinate the pinny situation. 

We aren’t trying to short change players, but with an hour slot, the game must get going on the hour or soon thereafter.  We do accommodate reasonable delays, this isn’t an automatic click start as soon as the captain meeting is complete, but there needs to be reasonable emphasis on the part of players and scorekeepers alike to get the game going for preventable delays.

Before you say that the refs are collecting and not working full games, there are times where we will hold the clock and game start.  When a player is playing in back to back games, it is the officials responsibility to wait for that player, so make sure referees are accommodating.  There are some exceptional circumstances.  We had to call an ambulance a few weeks back – if those players are playing right after then maybe a concession would have to be made if a field is 30 minutes behind.  We can’t afford to have all fields fall that far behind because of reservations on fields after FPF games.  But in general, even if you are 6, it is the referee’s obligation to wait for a field to wrap up and come over from another field.  It is important to hustle and be ready to play ASAP, however.  Taking advantage of this in some way will force us to start the game.

And finally roster limitations cap space, multiple teams, quarterbacks with too high a rating etc. are generally administered by the league.  Game officials ensure that a team has the minimum number of players to play and the rest occurs outside of the control of the officiating team.  It is important to ask the league for exceptions, clarifications etc. before showing up at a game, however scorekeepers are also good onsite resources.  Don’t forget that a team can stop a game and ask for a cap verification on the spot in a co-ed game to verify ratings for players on the field at the same time.  As playoffs are approaching, rosters are pretty well set.  There is no cut-off for a roster player joining a game.   If a player stuck in traffic shows up with 5 minutes left to play in the game, they can do so if they are a roster player.  A team which is 5 players cannot add a random player with 5 minutes remaining to fill in for a sudden injury, however. 

That covers it for today.  We hope this highlighted that there are some issues that fall outside of the jurisdiction of officials, but we all must work together to make sure we are playing as many minutes of football as possible.  Try and get ahead of any issues, and good luck down the stretch!!