Georgia Southern Officiating Questions

[appbanker]

First a couple of disclaimers:

1.) Sorry if this has been discussed in other threads
2.) I do not blame the loss last night on the officials, although they did miss several calls beside the ones I am questioning below.

First question - on Critcher's blocked punt, isn't it a live ball if the punt is blocked? Why couldn't the App player pick up the ball and make the 1st down? Instead they called it down as soon as the App player touched the ball.

Question two - on another punt, the Georgia Southern player called for a fair catch and then advanced the ball after he caught it. I thought this was a penalty, but it was not called.

[JTApps1]

1) On a blocked kick the ball is blown dead once the kicking team touches it and the ball is placed at that spot. This is due to the fact that possession has not technically changed to the receiving team. Now had a GS player touched it before our man then yes we could take the ball and advance.

2) It isn't a penalty to run after a fair catch signal but the refs will blow the play dead and return the ball to the spot it was caught.

EDIT- Looks like I was wrong on the Fair Catch. I've seen other times when a guys runs with no flag though too.

[EastHallApp]

I had the same thought about the fair catch - thought that should have been delay of game.

Just looked it up, and it appears we were right. From the NCAA rule book:

No Advance
ARTICLE 2. No Team B player shall carry a caught or recovered ball more than
two steps in any direction after any Team B player gives a valid or invalid fair
catch signal (A.R. 6-5-2-I-III).

PENALTY—Dead-ball foul. Five yards from the succeeding spot [S7 and
S21].

[appstate24]

Certainly not the refs fault last night, but there were 2 big ones to me, maybe 3.

1. The offensive pass interference called on Bobo (i think) VERY WEAK call to me. Should have been a no call for sure. (believe it killed our drive)

2. The no call on for defensive holding or pass interference when the guy held McElfresh going into the endzone. (killed that drive)

3. The reversal of the first down for Malachi at midfield. Not nearly enough evidence to overturn that call, IMOP. (killed that drive too, I believe)

thoughts??

[Black Saturday]

Certainly not the refs fault last night, but there were 2 big ones to me, maybe 3.

1. The offensive pass interference called on Bobo (i think) VERY WEAK call to me. Should have been a no call for sure. (believe it killed our drive)

2. The no call on for defensive holding or pass interference when the guy held McElfresh going into the endzone. (killed that drive)

3. The reversal of the first down for Malachi at midfield. Not nearly enough evidence to overturn that call, IMOP. (killed that drive too, I believe)

thoughts??

#1 Was certainly a call for the amount of pushing that is almost always overlooked in every game, we came out on the short end of that stick for sure. Watch for that same this Saturday no call.

[appbanker]

Certainly not the refs fault last night, but there were 2 big ones to me, maybe 3.

1. The offensive pass interference called on Bobo (i think) VERY WEAK call to me. Should have been a no call for sure. (believe it killed our drive)

2. The no call on for defensive holding or pass interference when the guy held McElfresh going into the endzone. (killed that drive)

3. The reversal of the first down for Malachi at midfield. Not nearly enough evidence to overturn that call, IMOP. (killed that drive too, I believe)

thoughts??

Even the commentators on ESPNU called out all three of those as being bad calls.

#1 Was certainly a call that is almost always overlooked.

[EastHallApp]

Certainly not the refs fault last night, but there were 2 big ones to me, maybe 3.

1. The offensive pass interference called on Bobo (i think) VERY WEAK call to me. Should have been a no call for sure. (believe it killed our drive)

2. The no call on for defensive holding or pass interference when the guy held McElfresh going into the endzone. (killed that drive)

3. The reversal of the first down for Malachi at midfield. Not nearly enough evidence to overturn that call, IMOP. (killed that drive too, I believe)

thoughts??

1 was a weak call, but we scored a TD on the drive anyway.

3 was probably correct, though questionable on whether it was enough to overturn. But we converted the 4th down, so that didn't kill the drive either.

2 was the killer. Should have been 1st and goal from about the 7. Instead we wound up turning it over on downs.

[moehler]

well I think the calls kinda evened out, there was an obvious missed call on Middleton, hit the qb after he was clearly out of bounds, then a few minutes later, GS lineman got called for hitting out of bounds on Cox, replay showed he had just lost his balance and barely touch him,,,,hmm...I thought we left the SC refs behind, I guess a couple of them followed us.

[WVAPPeer]

On a blocked punt - it is a live ball if the ball doesn't cross the original line of scrimmage meaning the punting team can pick up the ball and advance it but must get the first down or it is turned over at that spot - once the blocked punt passes the line of scrimmage the punting team can only down the ball

[AppState89]

well I think the calls kinda evened out, there was an obvious missed call on Middleton, hit the qb after he was clearly out of bounds, then a few minutes later, GS lineman got called for hitting out of bounds on Cox, replay showed he had just lost his balance and barely touch him,,,,hmm...I thought we left the SC refs behind, I guess a couple of them followed us.

I thought the same about their lineman. I thought that was a BS call too. He did barely touch him, because he was falling down. It's hard to stop when you are 320+ pounds...

[Gonzo]

We could have suited up the two biggest App Homers of all time as zebras and we still would have taken an L.

Red zone offense and special teams cost us the game. That's all.

[appbio91]

I went and watched Lenoir Rhyne play Tusculm tonight in Hickory. Two observations: 1) a guy signaled fair catch and then tried to advance the ball, flag and 5 yard penalty 2) at half time a large part of the crowd left, but just to go back out and tailgate some more. They came back when the third qtr started. Is this common at other places; being able to tailgate at half time? I think it would be hard for us because the tailgate spots are so spread out.

It was a fun game. The Lutherans look pretty good again this year.

[WVAPPeer]

I went and watched Lenoir Rhyne play Tusculm tonight in Hickory. Two observations: 1) a guy signaled fair catch and then tried to advance the ball, flag and 5 yard penalty 2) at half time a large part of the crowd left, but just to go back out and tailgate some more. They came back when the third qtr started. Is this common at other places; being able to tailgate at half time? I think it would be hard for us because the tailgate spots are so spread out.

It was a fun game. The Lutherans look pretty good again this year.

Same thing happened in a game I was watching yesterday and it was penalized ---

[hapapp]

I went and watched Lenoir Rhyne play Tusculm tonight in Hickory. Two observations: 1) a guy signaled fair catch and then tried to advance the ball, flag and 5 yard penalty 2) at half time a large part of the crowd left, but just to go back out and tailgate some more. They came back when the third qtr started. Is this common at other places; being able to tailgate at half time? I think it would be hard for us because the tailgate spots are so spread out.

It was a fun game. The Lutherans look pretty good again this year.

Same thing happened in a game I was watching yesterday and it was penalized ---

Fla State was penalized for that...delay of game.

[YesAppCan]

Georgia was not penalized for it but the Tennessee coach almost blew a gasket over it (no call).

[AtlAppMan]

The fair catch penalty, or lack of it, probably comes down to whether the official wants to make a point. Not defending it one way or the other. Technically it is probably not a "judgement" decision based on the way the rule is defined but that is likely not a critical issue in many games.

I watched some of ULL-Southern game earlier in season and ULL got some very questionable pass interference calls in their favor. I thought it was very ticky-tack as I did with our offensive call against us. I prefer to see refs allow players a bit of room to play as long as it doesn't go too far.

However, at the end of the day there were some calls both ways and when you are on the road you expect some level of home cooking. That is part of the home field advantage you must overcome. We lost the game on our own lack of execution not because a ref blew a few calls. As one accurately stated above, only one of the three originally listed in this thread led to a drive killer. We overcame two of them successfully which is a compliment to our players for not letting them get in their heads. Also, refs are not perfect so most of the time they are not trying to screw somebody.

Remember this against Richmond in playoffs? Was ruled a catch and we lost that game. I guess the ref didn't have the angle to make the right all, lol.

Bad Call

[Appersrule]

2. Has to do with where the ball is following the block. If its behind the line of scrimmage, the kicking team can pick it up and advance it. If its beyond the line, and has not been POSSESSED by the return team, then its dead when the kicking team possesses it. The kicking team still cannot advance it, even if the return team has touched it. This is called a muff. It would still be the kicking teams ball when they possess it, but they cannot advance the muff.

1. Depends on how far the guy gets. The FSU guy got 10 yards. Foul