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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 22, 2014Walt AndersonDALLAS, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: We'll have Walt Anderson, the supervisor of the officials for the Big 12. Walt will make several comments and then we'll take questions. WALT ANDERSON: Thank you very much. What we want to do today is, as we have the last number of years, go over with you the rules changes for this year and also, as best we can, entertain any questions relative to officiating and the game. And as Peter had indicated, what I'd like to do‑‑ although, it's an off year relative to rules changes for the NCAA, they do make changes just about every year relative to player safety, and this year's no exception to that. So we've got the new rules broken down into three sections. The first are changes that affect the instant replay process, the second are changes relative to targeting, and the third is the new rule change relative to roughing the passer, which protects the quarterbacks on unnecessary hits to the knee or below. So what I'd like to do is I'm going to go over some information, show you some video on each of the three topics. And then during each of those three topics, if you've got questions, I thought we would try to answer those questions during each topic and we can move on to the next one rather than wait until we get through all of them to go back to try to answer questions just in case we need to go back and reference any video. So if we could, what I want to start with is in the area of instant replay. There are a couple of rule changes that will affect instant replay that you want to be aware of. One of them, this was a rule change that was not only adopted by the NCAA in February, but was also adopted by the NFL this year in the spring for the coming season. So both of these rules are going to be consistent at both levels. But in the past, anytime we had a loose ball on the field of play, it was not reviewable unless the end zone was involved or the sideline. Like for a recovery before the ball went out of bounds. Starting this year, recovery of a loose ball is reviewable anywhere on the field. So people started asking me, have you got a good play that would illustrate that. Some of you will recognize this play from a number of years ago. But it happens quite often where you have an onside kick and the question is relative to the recovery of a loose ball. You might remember it in this particular game there was a big scramble for the ball. The officials ended up awarding the ball in this case to the kicking team. And what you can end up seeing is although the touching of the kick at this point here has been reviewable for quite a number of years, the other aspect of this play that in the past that has not been reviewable is who actually recovered the football. So during the review process, one of the things that the replay will be doing is obviously they'll look at every aspect of the play. So, yes, they can continue to review whether or not the ball was first touched before it went ten yards in this case and by whom. The second is we're looking for can we follow the football. Now, typically when you get a pile of players, it's very often that it's impossible to determine if you have a clear recovery. But in this case by taking in what we call piecing together various plays, this is something we do in the replay booth where the replay official will be trying to take shots that are sent to it from television and see if they can follow a pattern and be able to, from different shots, know one shot being absolutely conclusive, but a combination of shots being able to indisputably determine that the ball was still loose, it was not recovered in this case by the pile, but you can see the ball down here. And we continue to follow it. And you just piece all these plays together and then at the end you end up with what is in this case a clear recovery by the receiving team. There's the ball again. So we know it's not in the possession of anybody, even though we have a pile. And then at the very end, you can see right here, the ball is recovered in this case by the receiving team player No. 23. So the rule that's in place for this year would allow a play like this to be changed from a kicking team first down for in this case Oregon to recovery by Oklahoma 1st and 10. So that's a significant change from what it has been. There have been a number of plays in various years where it would have been nice, because it was evident to just about everybody who recovered the ball. Because it wasn't reviewable, we couldn't get involved in that with replay. The second involves really the definition of when is a player out of bounds or not. And this is a significant change relative to both the rule and how replay will get involved. Here last year in this game we had a pass near the sideline, which last year by rule it was correctly ruled on the field and confirmed in replay. The difference is for this year, when a player goes from out of bounds to inbounds, his status is now determined by where he ends up, not by where he started from. Last year you can see in this case the Texas player, his left foot is on the line, and then what happens is he becomes airborne. And that's when he first touches the ball. And then his next thing to hit, in this case, is his right knee. Last year, this was a completed pass because of where he landed after he was airborne and he first touched the ball. This year, this will be an incomplete pass. This applies on catches, recoveries of fumbles, any loose ball, the player has to reestablish himself first inbounds to prevent the ball from being ruled out of bounds. So those are the two main rule changes relative to new additions to instant replay. Peter, if there are any questions relative to those two at this time, I'll be glad to answer those before we move on to the second topic, which is targeting. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. As long as that receiver resets completely, then that's a catch? WALT ANDERSON: Right. Now, remember, in the college rule, it doesn't have to be two feet; it only has to be one foot or any other body part. So in this case here he had already touched the ball, but let's say that the ball was out here and he's diving for the ball and his knee hits inbounds and nothing's out of bounds, and then he ends up touching the ball. Then it would be a catch or a recovery, in this case. But if he's airborne and the last part of any part of his body was out of bounds, he's now considered out of bounds. So as soon as he touches the ball, it's as if the ball lands out of bounds. So in this case it would just be simply an incomplete pass. Q. Is there any restriction if the defensive player does not allow him to come back in? WALT ANDERSON: Only in the context that if the defensive player is in the field of play, he's allowed to block that player who might be out of bounds. Now, what the blocking player cannot do is if in this case the receiver were out of bounds, the defensive player can't go out of bounds to block him. And the concept we use is we're looking for four feet. In other words, we're looking for both in this case the receiver and the blocker to both be out of bounds. In that case it would be a foul. But his status is he's still out of bounds even if he's being illegally blocked.  If he ends up touching the ball, it's still out of bounds. Okay. The next topic is going to be targeting. And let me just make a couple of comments relative to targeting and the change. There's no change in the targeting rule for this year in terms of what was a foul last year is going to be a foul this year. There's one clarification in a change just to help from an interpretation standpoint. And there's a major change in the enforcement part of the rule which has to do with the disqualification of a player who is called for targeting. When the rules committee first put the targeting rule in, really, now, this is going on our fifth year, the intent was to try to remove unnecessary hits to the head and neck area. We were making progress for a few years, but the rules committee felt like, as did many of the stakeholders in the game, that we weren't making sufficient progress. And that's why last year the debate and the adoption of the rule which made it an automatic disqualification was put into place. Now, as often happens in the debate with rules is you have to weigh what level of penalty enforcement do you want to apply. And what happened last year was the rules committee said we're going to disqualify the player if it is called. Replay can look at it. If it's not targeting, we'll remove the disqualification but the 15‑yard penalty will stick. Part of the reason for that is sometimes there are other actions that occur as a part of that targeting action that could or could not be a foul. And what the rules committee did not want the replay official to do last year was to get into that much interpretation. Anticipating that there would probably be a little bit of discussion about that during the year, it was pretty evident once the season started that that was a penalty enforcement that was just having a hard time with coaches, with fans, with members of the media. And so in the offseason the rules committee looked at this and what they said was the better option is to allow instant replay to look at the play, and if in fact if targeting was the only thing that was called, then when the replay official tells the referee there was no targeting, the flag is going to be picked up and there will be no penalty at all. Now, there is another part of this, and that is that there are times when‑‑ I'm going to show you some examples and give you a little bit of statistical data for you to just kind of have a picture of the effect on the game. The other part is that if you do have what we call combination fouls or multiple fouls, which will happen, the instant replay official can determine if in fact there was targeting. And if there was not, the disqualification would be removed. But in that case, because there was a second foul, that 15‑yard penalty would still be in force. So we'll take a look at some of those. The more important point‑‑ I'll let some of this video run. And you can see these are all legal hits. What we noticed and what the intent of the rule was to change the culture of how the game was being played by some players in terms of removing unnecessary hits to the head and neck area. And what we have seen and we especially saw this last year were players adapting, coaches adapting, learning in terms of the low‑risk indicators how to better coach up players to avoid targeting actions, and that's what we saw. There were far, far more legal hits that were often very hard and at times pretty vicious but were perfectly legal within the parameters of the rule and not a foul. And this is what we want to continue to work on this year with encouraging players to do. Now, having said that, last year, in the football bowl subdivision, there were 823 games. And in those 823 games, there were 92 targeting calls that were made. Of those 92 targeting calls, 32, the disqualification component was removed. So for this year, that same number ends up occurring, those 32 fouls in which the disqualification is removed, the penalty will go away as well. Last year those 32 still carried the 15‑yard penalty. In the Big 12, we had eight. I'm going to show you all eight of them. And of the eight targeting we had, four stood and four the disqualification component was removed. And this year three of those four, the penalty would go away but there's one subtle rule change. So this is the first one. Obvious targeting. You'll see some replays of that. This is the defensive player. The restrictions are that the defender cannot either make forcible contact to the head and neck area with any part of his body or he cannot lower his helmet and strike the defensive player with the crown of his helmet to any part of the defensive player's body. Here it's both the crown of the helmet to the head, so it's an obvious foul. The second one, you have the quarterback in the pocket. Linebacker coming in. We've got some replays of this. Makes forcible contact to the head and neck area. Was correctly called last year and was confirmed by instant replay. And, again, the same process would be followed this year. The third one, this is back in the area of the pocket. You've got a defensive lineman who is chasing the quarterback. Offensive lineman who is going back towards his end line. This is what we call a blindside block. Anytime a receiver or any player, offense or defense, receives a blindside block, it can't be to the head or neck area. In this case you can see the offensive player comes in, makes forcible contact to the head. This was a foul last year. It was confirmed. It will again be a foul for this year. And then the fourth one, here again you can see the receiver coming across the middle. He's jumping. He's defenseless. Defensive player comes in, makes forcible contact to the head and neck area. The one editorial change that we made to the rule was in both 913 and 914. 913 has to do with using the crown of the helmet; 914 has to do with striking any defensive player to head and neck area. The word was changed from initiate to make forcible, because the intent is not so much to fly spec, if you will, the exact point on the body where the first part of the defensive player touches the offensive player, it's where is the forcible contact, because that's where the damage is done. That's where the change was. And in a moment I'm going to show you an example of that. Last year there were four targeting fouls that we called that the disqualification correctly was removed, and the same will occur in three of the four of these plays this year except also the 15‑yard penalty. This was a play. I've zoomed in on this a little bit, so you don't see the lower third, but this was a third down play. So last year when targeting was called in this case by the back judge, the play was reviewed and it was determined that the player comes in and again the head is going to the side, he's making shoulder‑to‑shoulder contact. It's not the type of forcible contact to the head and neck area that's part of targeting, so the disqualification was removed. Unfortunately, last year with it being a 3rd and 10 situation, it ends up being a 1st and goal, where this year it's going to be 4th down and the offensive team would have to make the option to either go for it on 4th or kick the field goal. So this one was removed, correctly so. The next one you're going to see a receiver coming down the sideline. He catches the pass. And from our standpoint, at some point he goes from being a defensive receiver to just a runner. Once you establish your status as a runner, in certain provisions of the targeting rule will go away. The most important of which you're no longer defenseless. In order to have targeting, the defender would have to, with intent, strike you with the crown of his helmet. Which does not happen in this case. So what you see here is the receiver gets the ball. He sees the guy coming. He works into him and, yes, there's helmet‑to‑helmet contact here that you're going to see. But it's the type of helmet‑to‑helmet contact which is really incidental to the game, is not a part of targeting and would not be called. You see this a lot. The NCAA asked us, just for your information, they asked the Big 12 again for this year produce the national targeting video, which we did. It's ten minutes long. It's already gone out to every college football official in the country. It will go out to all the coaches and the players here during the summer. That ten‑minute video is on the big12sports.com website. So if you want to go to that and just view it, it will give you an idea of the information that we're passing along this year to coaches, officials and players. And it will have some additional play examples of legal action as well as illegal. Here's another one, where again in the normal course of play you're going to end up with some high contact. This was called targeting last year, but the defensive player's really upright, head is up, he's coming into attempting to make contact to the receiver and you end up with some contact to the head, but the initial forcible contact is to the shoulder area and is not with intent by the defensive player so we would not want this to be a foul. The fourth example, which was called last year, and because of the language in the rule last year it led to some misinterpretation on a number of these plays across the country by instant replay. This is action that was called targeting last year and should be targeting this year. And this is one where you can see the player coming in, he's starting to turn around but he hasn't had an opportunity to defend himself. So he's still protected in a defenseless posture. But what you see here is the initial contact is made to the shoulder but all the force is still thrusting upward to the head and neck area. This is where the slight change relative to the interpretation is being made. So we want officials to call this as targeting and the change will be on a play like this where we don't want the replay officials to say, well, the first contact is just to this right shoulder, therefore if that's where it's initiated, we're going to let the guy out of this. We still want this to be a foul. So the eight that we had last year, four were correctly called and confirmed. Three of those four this year the entire penalty would be removed and this one play, we would actually want this to be a confirmation and we would want this type of action this year to stick. So relative to targeting, the first part which is all we have on the field is targeting. Now I'll answer some questions on this and we'll get into the second aspect. Q. In that previous play, did he establish himself as a runner and the rule would change at that point? WALT ANDERSON: Well, the question is‑‑ I'll go back to this. It's always a good debate at what time does he establish himself. Just the fact that he ends up getting his head turned around and seeing he's just now coming to the ground, we do not feel that he has. And by rule, if there's a question for the officials as to whether or not a player has gone from a defenseless status to a non‑defenseless status, we will give him the benefit of the doubt and protect him from a player safety aspect. So in this case we would want officials‑‑ if they have to think about it and he's going from being defenseless to non‑defenseless, we'll err on the side of being defenseless and protect him from unnecessary forcible contact to the head and neck area. Q. This play's slightly different, but I wanted to ask, if there was a targeting call on this play, Oklahoma fumbles and Baylor recovers, they go back and review and say it shouldn't have been called targeting, it wouldn't be a 15‑yard penalty, wouldn't be ejection, but would Baylor end up getting the football? How does that work? WALT ANDERSON: If there was targeting? Q. No. They call targeting. Replay goes and says it wasn't targeting but a loose ball should have been turned over to the other team. Last year wouldn't it have said the 15‑yard penalty stands, we can't erase that; that means Oklahoma keeps the football? And this year what would be the change in interpretation? WALT ANDERSON: If the only thing you have is targeting, and after review it's determined that there wasn't targeting, then it's as if no flag was thrown on the play. So whatever else happens on the play is then going to stand. That's where often, from an enforcement standpoint, you'll have to then go back and get additional information, make additional announcements. And I think in your case you said he ends up fumbling the ball and the defense ends up recovering, it would then end up or going to a defensive recovery. Q. That's different than last year? WALT ANDERSON: That's very different than last year. Because last year the penalty part stuck whether it was a foul or not. And that's what so many people felt was just not equitable in terms of if we're going to use instant replay. For those of you that often are involved in the debate about how much instant replay should be involved in the game, it is a constant debate. It's a constant challenge for the rules committee. We started ‑‑ now I guess we're going on ten years with instant replay from the year of the Big Ten first did the first experiment with it. There's always going to be that constant balance that you're striking between no replay and, as some of you may sometimes advocate, looking at every play, which would take about six hours for the game. So where is the appropriate balance? That's why we have a rules committee. That's why you have so much input from various stakeholders in the game, is the constantly changing environment, and therefore the rules and the application of those rules has to change. I know a lot of people in this area, and we were proponents even last year going into the replay process, we would not have been supportive of disqualification component had we not been able to use replay to begin with, but we wanted to use replay last year if it was not a foul we wanted to remove it last year. Now, that didn't carry the day, but it didn't take too many weeks to get a lot of other people on our side on that one. From that standpoint. But it's a constantly changing environment. And some people often say, well, we really hesitate to get instant replay involved because it's a slippery slope. I always love that analogy people use, because my first response is, first of all, if it weren't for slippery slopes we wouldn't have any winter Olympics. And, second of all, because of that, we manage slippery slopes in Winter Olympics; we can manage slippery slopes in football. It's all about education and understanding and what it is we're trying to do, the intent. So all these things are going to change and there will be changes made I'm sure next year in some area of the game because the game is evolving and the game is changing and the rules have to stay up with the game. Q. Can I clarify something on the Baylor‑OU hit there with Sterling Shepard. Did you say that last year under the rules that shouldn't have been overturned or should that have been upheld as targeting? WALT ANDERSON: It was‑‑ the disqualification on this was changed last year and this was one of the plays and there were a number of these that the rules committee looked at from around the country. What ended up happening last year, the language in the rule last year said it was targeting if the contact initiated to the head and neck area. And that really wasn't the intent of the rule. But what some of the replay officials were doing was misinterpreting that application. And the real purpose of the rule is to prevent the forcible contact. So that's why this year the rules committee changed that word "initiate" to make forcible, because what we don't want on the field or in the replay booth is for the officials to try to, in this case, say, well, if the initial contact was at some point to in this case the left shoulder but all that force goes to the head and neck area, that's where the damage is done. And that is consistent with other rules. Other hits to the head, hits to below the waist. A low hit below the waist could first make contact to the hands, but if the force is to the knee area, that's why those rules are there. So it's really just more of a clarification as opposed to a change in how it should be officiated on the field. Q. I understand that clarification. I just want to make sure. So last year when they overturned it, they were correct in overturning it? WALT ANDERSON: Based upon last year's philosophy of that. But then that's why that was clarified in the language. We don't want instant replay to get into that much interpretation of the rule. And so that's why the language was changed. And this year this was just a play example of one that like last year it's going to be called on the field. We would want this to stay on the field as targeting. The other area of targeting‑‑ so that's when we have targeting alone we can pick up the flag. The other is a combination foul. This is a play where you're going to have a player come in, is going to hit the receiver. What we have is what we refer to as a combination foul. So you have kick catch interference with targeting. Let me just say what you want to get used to hearing both in the booth as well as for all aspects of the media, just like all of you are now familiar with the terms "confirm" and "stands" in replay, as to what those two terms mean. The word "with," whenever you're announcing with targeting, means we've got a combination foul. We've got some foul, kick catch interference, roughing the passer, personal foul late hit with targeting. If you hear the word "with" targeting, it's going to go to‑‑ automatically go to review and the instant replay is going to look at the second part, which in this case will be the targeting aspect. And so what they'll end up doing on a play like this is they'll immediately go to review and they'll start taking a look was it targeting or not. And you're going to end up seeing here, bad look there. We'd throw that play out. That doesn't do us any good. A little bit better look here. You can see it right here where the player comes in and the forcible contact is to the chest area. And you end up with some recoil forward of the guy's helmet, but that's not the part that's receiving the forcible contact. So instant replay would look at this play and replay would tell the referee we don't have targeting on that play. But because we have a combination foul, in this case kick catch interference, when the referee makes his announcement, it will be something to the effect: After video review, there is no targeting on the play. No. 3 is not disqualified. However, the penalty for kick catch interference will be enforced by rule. And so that 15‑yard penalty is going to stay because it wasn't just simple targeting, it was targeting along with some other foul. Kick catch interference is one that commonly happens. Roughing the passer will sometimes happen where they hit the quarterback in a targeting nature but it's also late, so that would stand. Sometimes late hits where like maybe it's either out of bounds or you've got a pass play that's just way overthrown, the defender comes in, hits the receiver late and in the head. That's what the officials are being charged with this year is to distinguish between targeting as a standalone and targeting as a part of a second foul. So any questions on that distinction between those two parts of the targeting rule. Now, just like last year, and these are on the ten‑minute video. There are very high‑risk indicators that both officials are taught to look for and players are taught that if you do these things, you may not be committing a targeting act but you're going to be at high risk of committing a targeting act. Anytime they launch, players have to be alert. Doesn't mean that launching is a foul. You can launch and the receiver may be airborne. You can launch to go get him you just can't go launch and make forcible contact to the head and neck area. The other is thrusting upward to where here you have a player that's receiving a blindside block and the player is forcing up, the forcible contact is to the head and neck area. This should be a foul for targeting. The third is any type of striking. So here you have a quarterback throws the ball. He's struck in this case with a helmet but it could be any body part‑‑ shoulder, forearm‑‑ ‑‑ making forcible contact with the head and neck area. And then the fourth is using the crown of the helmet. Not only to the head and neck area but if you lower that head and you come into a defenseless player to the crown with any body part, then that's a foul. The other thing which is also in the video, this is what we worked in the spring when we make our visits to the campuses and in the summer is our low‑risk indicators. These are the techniques that we're working to coach up players and coaches on how to achieve legal, very often hard‑hitting and vicious hits. Heads up. You want to see what they hit. The other is wrapping up to where the player comes in and he uses his arms. Typically, from a technique standpoint, the more players get into using their arms to wrap up and encircle an opponent, the less likely they are to do both this and their head now. So we want them wrapping up. The third is getting the head to the side so as they come in here, put the head to the side, keep that strike zone low, wrapping up classic textbook legal hit. Achieve the same purpose in terms of knocking ball loose here. But done so in a very legal manner. Head to the side. And then the fourth is a position change. And this is similar to what you often see where you end up with players, they lower themselves. You see this a lot with running backs and linebackers where they come through the gap and the runner sees the linebacker coming at him he lowers his head, the linebacker lowers his head, and you end up with incidental helmet contact that's not a foul. Okay. Any other questions on targeting before we get into the new rule on hitting quarterbacks at or below the knee? New change for this year. We've been working on this one for eight years. Glad it finally made it through. When a quarterback is in a passing posture, it normally is going to occur while he's in the pocket, it could happen after he's on the run, but there's an exception I'm going to show you some of those. There's some other things that have to happen once he leaves the pocket area. But when he's in the pocket area, this is when quarterbacks are especially vulnerable to injury to the knee when you make contact. As you see here, this player is coming in. He makes forcible contact to the area of the knee and this is where we got so many knee injuries. And unfortunately what happened last year was there were a number of very high‑profile either season‑ or career‑ending injuries to quarterbacks across the country that I think finally elevated this concern to the level where action was taken and the change was made. So this will be a foul. This is one of the high‑profile plays from last year. I won't show you this too much. It's hard to look at. Quarterback's in the pocket. Passing posture feet on the ground. You can see the player comes in here, makes forcible contact to the knee. In this case hyperextended and actually broke the entire knee. So this is the type of action that the rule was put in place for. Now, there are three exceptions to the rule. The first is once the quarterback leaves the pocket and he's now a runner, so if he's not in a passing posture, you can make forcible contact to the knee area, as long as he's a runner. So you see here quarterback is scrambling. Linebacker is chasing him and hits him in a very similar manner to what we just saw was a foul if he were in the pocket. In this case, because he's on the run and he's a runner, this is not a foul. This is an exception to the rule. So defenders are allowed to do that. The second is when a player just makes a traditional wrap‑up tackle to the knee area. So here you're going to have the quarterback scrambling or beginning to scramble. He's still within the pocket, still in the passing posture. So even though he's in the passing posture, he can't be hit with force to the knee. But what you can still do is wrap up like you see here by No. 97. This is a legal hit to the quarterback. Unlike that first example in the BYU game where you have a player coming in and driving normally the shoulder and/or the helmet into the knee, that's what makes this a foul. And the third example is when a player is blocked and that blocking action causes him to go low into the quarterback. You'll see here the middle linebacker is going to be blitzing up the middle right here. The back will step up, and he's going to cut him, causes him to go over, and he rolls into the knee. Unfortunately‑‑ and it was in this case‑‑ in this case the Texas Tech quarterback, Mayfield, he was injured on the play. But because the defensive player was blocked low into him, obviously it was a foul last year, but it would not be a foul this year because of that blocking action. So those are the three exceptions to the rule that would apply. Any questions on the rule change to low hits to the quarterback? Q. That Illini hit, that very first one, how is that much different than the Mayfield hit? Because he ran over the offensive guard, thus tripping over the guard because he steamrolled him. How is he supposed to alter his path to the quarterback? WALT ANDERSON: The difference is that the defensive player, just like in other aspects of other rules, they still have to understand that they are responsible for the manner in which they make contact. So just like coming with high hits to the quarterback, we often hear that from coaches: Well, the guy's coming in; how else is he going to block the pass? He can block the pass, but he can't make helmet contact to the quarterback. He has to avoid that. What you end up seeing in this play is the manner in which he comes in to where there's no effort to just simply make a conventional tackle and wrap him up. He ends up making forcible contact. In this case I believe it's his left shoulder to the knee. That's the subtle difference. Like on many rules relative to safety, officials are going to have to make that judgment. We're going to end up showing various video, but this is one that's universally consistent in terms of coordinators and commissioners and rules committee is action that we want to be a foul as opposed to a conventional wrap‑up. Yes, when you wrap up, there's contact made and sometimes it's a hard wrap‑up, but we're going to have to distinguish that. To be honest with you, as a referee in the NFL, this rule has been around‑‑ this is my 19th year in the NFL, this rule has been there since I've been there. It's not that hard to distinguish between a player trying to wrap‑up and one who is going with force attacking the knee area of the quarterback. Q. I have a hard time if you were a defensive coach in this situation what you tell that player because he does everything he's supposed to do. He trucks the offensive guard.  And then what? Like you're told to get to the quarterback as hard as you can, as fast as you can, then that moment he's supposed to be like, boom, I've got to alter my path while I'm tripping over the player. WALT ANDERSON: You have to be aware of the fact that you are tripping over a player, I'm going low to the quarterback, and I better just wrap him up and better not make forcible contact with particularly my shoulder or my head to the knee area or it's going to be a foul. Q. Is that going to be an automatic first down? WALT ANDERSON: Yes. This is in the roughing the passer category. Just like any roughing the passer penalty, it will be an automatic first down. If it's a completed pass, it will be what we call a tack‑on. At the end of the run, the 15‑yard penalty would be assessed. This is in the roughing the passer rule. It's in addition to that rule. So just like any other roughing the passer call, the same enforcement would apply. This play is not reviewable. So if whether or not forcible contact is made, if it's called on the field as a foul, this is not reviewable. At least not yet. The only final point, then open it up to general discussion, to share with you all a little bit of information, the other potential change that occurred last year was the pace of game proposal that was initially made in February, went through a comment period, and after quite a few comments was withdrawn by the rules committee relative to pace of play. One of the things that we do in the Big 12, and I've shared a lot of this video with some of the other conferences, and I believe some of them are going to do start doing that, in terms of managing the game, particularly with the way it's being played, not only the pace of play, but just in terms of the spread offenses and the style of the offensive schemes that you're now seeing, is we went to a number of years ago with filming many of our games where we had this capability in what we call wide angle continuous. Very often, whether it's TV or the coaching tape, a lot of action either gets zoomed in or cut off, and we really don't have video or didn't have video until we started this to be able to tell what we were really doing from the officiating standpoint. So this is just a couple of samples of the type of video in addition to all the other video we get from coaching tape and TV in terms of how we try to coach up the officials to where we just run these plays. We superimpose the play clock. Once a play is over, boom, the play clock starts and it gives us a realtime perspective relative to how is the game or this particular play evolving. Are there substitutes coming in? Is it a hurry‑up situation? Is the defense making an attempt to match up? When are we spotting the ball? Are we staying over the ball long enough to give these opportunities for appropriate matchups to occur? And it's one that we have found very helpful with our officials because rather than me just trying to tell them what they're doing and having them accept my word for it, we can end up showing them real video about how they're working, how is this in relation to the play clock in terms of how we're getting the ball down, when is the game being played. And for the most part we do a pretty good job with that. But we will find times when we're either going too fast. We're hurrying much more so than we should be or we may be going too slow and holding up play when we shouldn't be. These are the types of things we look at. For the most part, with nothing else going on, anytime a ball is dead in the middle of the field, you're always going to get it down a lot quicker. And depending on whether the offense substitutes or not, they can often get plays off in a quicker manner than they can whenever they substitute. I believe this next play is going to be an example of that. You have a long incomplete pass, the play clock is running. Center judge gets the ball down now. Normally he would be coming off the ball because he looks at the referee, and all the referee is doing is holding up second down. So he's coming off the ball, but here comes team A offense substituting. This is what you need to get used to seeing this year is the referee, when the team‑‑ I'm sorry, I'm in officiating jargon. When the offensive team substitutes, the signal that you'll see the referees do is both straight out to the side. What this indicates is the defense has about three seconds to begin a substitution process if they want to. They don't have to, but they can. But we're going to work it nationally as being very consistent when team A substitutes, they're not in a huddle‑‑ when they're in a huddle, it's not going to apply, but when they're not in a huddle, we want the referee to extend his arms. And you'll see in this situation right away the defensive team is beginning to send a player out. I'm fast‑forwarding through here. Right now what the referee will do is he's going to look to the defense, what's the defense want to do. They want to substitute. He's going to keep his arms up. Center judge is coming back over the ball. He'll hold up play now until the defensive team has an opportunity to get their substitutes in and move them off the field. Show you one that's not done so well because, again, just like the coaches, we've got to coach up our guys when things don't go the way they need to so they don't make the same mistakes again. But here's going to be a simple quarterback draw up the middle. It's a first down. We've got to be sure that the officials have time. We're getting set, but already you can see the referee's winding the clock and this is just way too fast. I know some of our teams want to go fast. We don't want to hold them up unfairly. But it's our job to manage the game not to dictate pace of play but to manage the game according to rule. And there are provisions in the rule particularly on first down that certain things have to occur, so we want to be a little bit slower at that. You get the next play, another first down. Team A is sending in substitutes. So, again, we need to hold whenever the offensive team substitutes, the referee is going to put his hands out and we're going to give the defense a chance to match up. In this case, they don't. We'll wait three seconds. Reappoint the center judge off and will continue play‑‑ Q. The mechanics are when the umpire spots the ball, he's going opposite the referee; he's going through that A gap, opposite the referee, but the mechanics are that he's looking at the referee to see if he's holding the play for the substitution? WALT ANDERSON: It's the center judge that will spot the ball. Not the umpire. So what you can sort of see here‑‑ and we learned this last year. Actually, this was an early game in the season. And one of the things, if I can get back to it here‑‑ one of the things that we don't have a center judge now, which is a little bit of an adjustment, last year was our first year with the eighth official. We were the conference selected to experiment with that, and the experiment went very well and we learned some things. One of the things we learned, when the center judge puts the ball down, he doesn't stay over the football. He goes ahead and do what we call the A gap. You know what that is. Some of you may not know. But it's the space between the center and the guard that's opposite where the referee is. So he'll step through that simply because we want him to clear the feet of those offensive linemen or he'll trip over them when it's time to go. He'll step through the A gap pause, look at the referee. If the referee is doing that, he'll stay there. He'll prevent the snap from occurring. If he looks to the referee, the referee has his hands down or pointing at him, which means let's go, then he's going to move on out of there. That's really what's going to make that determination. So one of the things that's allowed it's really allowed the referees to be in much better position to manage appropriately by rule the football game, because they can now recognize much quicker if substitutes by the offense are occurring and if they are what's the defense doing as opposed to in the past he's had to assist the umpire with helping to spot the ball and get into play. The other thing that's allowed, as you see here, it allows the umpire to stay back in his normal 8 to 10‑yard position and have a much better ability to be ready to officiate that play. There are oftentimes when we saw last year if the umpire was spotting the ball, now he's got to go the defensive direction as opposed to last year the referee spotting, he went the offensive direction. That umpire is having to work his way through linebackers and they're getting in his way, he's getting in their way, then the ball is snapped. He's not seeing the snap and we end up missing things that we would like not to miss. That's an example of some of the tools that we use to continue trying to have officiating keep pace with the ever constantly changing environment of our game and as it evolves and schemes change. We're charged with officiating to keep up with it. We have a philosophy that we do not want officiating driving the game. I mean, we want it to be‑‑ it's there to serve the game. It's there to appropriately manage the game according to rule, but not to be a burden to the game. Q. Interested to hear what the rules committee thoughts are, at least your officials. Seems like you've done a nice job with the official and getting used to the pace of play, making the game fair, but the one thing that's left out that no one is talking about, the guys running the chains, if you watch some of the replays, your officials never look back to make sure they set the first down marker in the right place. When the 3‑yard gain occurred, they oftentimes don't have a chance to look back and make sure it's set. It's almost turning into arena football, like close enough. It matters when you get down to inches and you pull the chains out. But if you look, a lot of times no one's looking at where they're being set down, because you're not waiting for the change to be set anymore, they're starting to play sometimes before the guys are even getting there. WALT ANDERSON: We actually mechanically have a process that's really universal for all of us. The guys carry little devices. We call them beanbags. They're little pouches that if there's a long play for a first down, the head linesman‑‑ and in this case in the first half it will be the line judge, because one of the mechanics changes this year is the officials on the sideline will flip sides at halftime. So you're going to have the old original head linesman, he will always start on the press box side which means the line judge will have his duties during the first half. But if it's a 1st down, they'll drop that beanbag, and that's by rule, in terms of to mark, physically mark the spot so that when the down box guy‑‑ he'll be the first one down because there's no change for him to have to carry. And he'll put that down box where that beanbag is. Q. On the long plays? WALT ANDERSON: On the long plays. Q. They make a 1st down by yard or two, and it's happening all the time, these guys are running down, getting set. The guys with the box in the 1st down marker, the chains, I don't think they're being watched very well. WALT ANDERSON: We do watch them. We do have requirements relative to the chains. But that's another reason why from an appropriate management standpoint the eighth official allows the referee to have a much better idea. When you've got that close play, the other thing you normally will have is those guys on the sideline are usually what we call pinching in. They're coming in to mark that spot. Even though the referee says that's a 1st down, it's past the big line, 1st down, right away he may end up holding up play because he's got to give those guys an opportunity to get back to the sideline. Now, we do assume, as he signals 1st down, the guys on the chain are going to be moving. At our level, we're fortunate because it's conference policy. We're running down markers and line of game markers by conference policy on both sidelines. So you do have a backup from that standpoint. But there are mechanical things that, if you will, our auxiliary staff‑‑ which is the chain crew, the red hat, the alternate official, which in our case assists us with that‑‑ are being able to do that. Q. Which of the chains are official, though? WALT ANDERSON: They're always the ones opposite the press box. So even though the head linesman and line judge will switch at halftime, the chains will not switch. They'll always stay opposite the press box. The reason for that throughout the three divisions of football is because in some stadiums views of the press box might be obscured if they're on the sideline where the chains are. Plus I think a lot of the coaches on the rules committee don't want them on their sidelines so they make that change. Any other questions on any other officiating topics? We've got a couple of minutes left. Q. You showed a play just a minute ago with Tech where they're in a quarterback draw. We're seeing a lot of plays where the offense is running both a running play and passing play at the same time and the linemen are getting fairly far downfield. Are you guys going to be watching that closely this year to maintain a three‑yard limit on how far linemen get downfield? WALT ANDERSON: This is the thing you have to realize. See right here. See these guys releasing from the standpoint? The thing you have to remember, know that the rules are very different. They're often confused with college and the NFL. In college, the linemen can be three yards at any time on every play. It doesn't matter whether it's pass or run. They can be more than three yards downfield once the ball leaves the quarterback's hand. The only thing they can't be doing is blocking while the ball is in the air if the ball goes past the line of scrimmage. But what you see a lot of our teams doing in college‑‑ and it's a much more difficult play to officiate I will tell you than in the NFL, because the difference in the two rules are in college, you can send your linemen at the snap all downfield. They can be blocking ten yards downfield, if the ball is thrown out here, say, to the receiver ‑‑ see the bubble screen on the side? If it's called behind the line of scrimmage, you can have guys downfield blocking anywhere. That's a much more difficult thing to officiate, whereas in the NFL, until this guy catches the ball, if anybody's blocking downfield, it's pass interference. So the distinction in the two rules is, first, important to know and how that's going to be officiated. There's no question that it's a challenge in terms of what the linemen can and cannot do. They can't end up going more than three yards blocking downfield then the pass get thrown over here, say, to this receiver. Q. Do you foresee any tweaks to this rule or do you think this will just become the norm in football? WALT ANDERSON: Firstly, just in terms of talking to the coaches that are both on the rules committee as well has general approaches, I think it's part of the college game that's distinct from the NFL that I would not anticipate any changes in this, personally. I think they like running these types of plays and they're very effective. I personally don't see a change. Q. On the targeting, when you all reviewed film from last season, did you people like you missed any targeting calls that weren't made at all by your crews? WALT ANDERSON: Yes, we missed one in the Kansas State‑Baylor game. And the conference office took action and suspended that player after the fact, which is that part of the rule and that part of the ability of the conference to review those type of plays has not changed from last year. That will continue from that standpoint. There was one other play we had we probably felt that there might have been, but in the absence of not calling it and not stopping it, we did end up with sufficient video evidence, if you will, to confirm it. On that one, the player was injured, so you ended up with a lot of additional footage with which to be able to assess was it true targeting. Just like we and the other conferences did last year, I know in our program, we assign for BYU as well in terms of their program.  The hit that you saw in the game they had against U of H was not called. And the same subsequent action was taken with suspending that player for the next game. And then in the Mountain West, they had a targeting play on kickoff where it was not called, Wyoming and Air Force. And the Wyoming player was there. So each conferences in our group that the Big 12 assigns for, we each had, if you will, an after‑the‑fact suspension. So it does occur. Fortunately, as I indicated, we're not seeing a lot of that. It does happen. And we need to continue to be vigilant to get it out of the game, but players are doing their part in changing their technique and coaches understand that it's not going away, it will continue to be a point of emphasis, and that's what we're all working for. Q. There was talk in the SEC about how the huddle could cause injury or could cause injuries, things like that. I wonder about the length of the game. Has there been any discussion about maybe finding ways to speed up the game like maybe eliminating the timeout after 1st down, anything of that nature? WALT ANDERSON: As a matter of fact, the rules committee did spend a little time talking about whether or not the clock should be stopped after 1st down. I know they tabled that. I know it will come up at least for discussion this next year. One of the areas using technology that we will begin also which the SEC, just like we did the experiment for the eighth official and now four of the five high‑visibility conferences will be utilizing the eighth official this season. The Big Ten in all of their games like us and the ACC in all of their conference games and the SEC in selected games. But all of us work at different times in trying to do things from an officiating standpoint. The SEC began the experiments with wireless systems to the officials, and that's got a lot of promise in terms of being able to expedite the review process so that we don't have a referee have to run 60 or more yards back to the headset and then run back, which sometimes takes us a little longer than the players to do that. So there's some aspects relative to time management of the game that we're constantly looking at to be sure it doesn't creep up to where it was a number of years ago where significant changes relative to the game clock were made to get those average times from around 3:30 back up to around 3:15, which is where they are now. Our average time was 3:25. Of the five major, the high‑visibility conferences, I think 3:25, we were the highest. I think two of them were at 3:18, 3:19. I think the lowest was like 3:16. They're all within not too many minutes of each other, but from a time standpoint that's pretty consistent, but it is an ongoing investigation or at least a point of review each year. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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