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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 18, 2017

Walt Anderson

Dallas, Texas

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Walt Anderson, the coordinator of the officials for the Big 12. Walt, welcome to the Big 12 platform. It's all yours.

WALT ANDERSON: This is really a great venue. That's the first comment I want to make. I'm very comfortable always being on a football field. So this is really nice for me. I will say that I'm going to enjoy being here in the end zone because as a players years ago, actually decades ago for me, I didn't spend a lot of time in the end zone. So it will be nice being up here.

We don't really have a lot of rule changes this year, but there are some I believe will be of interest to you and some other changes relative to some administrative tasks that we as officials will have that are certainly going to impact certain aspects of the game that I want to review.

The first one I'm going to talk about is going to be relative to clock management. One of the things that has occurred over the last number of years is a gradual increase in the length of the games. About -- I believe it was eight or nine years ago when we made the rule change that, when a player went out of bounds and they came back in, we started the clock, that had a significant change on the length of the game. At that time, the average game time was right around 3:24. That really took 12 minutes off of the game time. So we moved it back in one year to around 3:12.

What has happened, though, since then is we've had a gradual increase in that. I know last year we were up to 3:20 -- let's see. I've got the number here. In Division I, we were at 3:24. So what the Rules Committee wanted to do, before they go next year and study whether or not they need to make additional changes that would impact plays or take away playing time, they wanted us to review all aspects of administration, and there are three specific areas that you're going to notice changes in the timing.

The first is going to be when that player does run out of bounds outside of two minutes of each half, the officials are going to be much quicker about getting the clock wound. There was a lot of inconsistency, and there were times when the football would be down on the ground, we'd wait a little bit, then the referee would wind the clock.

The mechanic that we've had -- or that we're going to ask all officials to do across the country is as the ball is being spotted, before it gets to the ground, we're going to wind the clock. Hopefully, we'll be more consistent, and we'll end up eliminating at least a few seconds on the many times the ball does go out of bounds.

The second change is halftime. Halftime across the board in all regular season games will be 20 minutes, period, end of story. There will be no more requests by individual institutions to extend that for whatever purpose. I know in the Big 12 most of our schools ask for five-minute extensions for various purposes, be it Homecoming, be it Senior Day, whatever that might be. That is no longer allowed. All halftimes will be 20 minutes, and also the 20-minute clock is going to go up onto the screen in the stadium as soon as the second half ends, and the referee will start that clock right away. In the past, we've often waited for the teams to completely clear the field or for coaches to finish their interviews at the sideline before they went into the locker room. No longer the case. It's 20 minutes. Obviously, in some stadiums, teams may need to adjust because of the distance to the locker room, et cetera, but that's going to be the national standard.

And then the third area relative to timing -- and then we're going to get into some video relative to some of these specific rules changes -- the third area of timing that you're going to notice a difference in is a strict adherence to the media break. And one of the things that we'll be talking specifically with our coaches -- and I know we'll talk with you as members of the media -- is that in games that are televised, there's an official on the sidelines that's called the red hat. He's got a red hat on. His job is to communicate with the producer in the truck. Whenever there is a media break, the back judge, which is the official out in the middle of the field behind the defense, he goes to that red hat, they coordinate that time.

So regardless of what the contractual length of time-outs are among the different conferences, as soon as the referee punches out for a media break, whatever that time is, that back judge will also be starting his watch. He'll go to the red hat, be sure they're on the same clock relative to the time, and then at 30 seconds before the end of the break, regardless of its length, the back judge will leave to go out to the middle of the field. When he does that, the red hat's going to put his left hand and extend it out. Everybody will know that's 30 seconds. When the back judge gets out to the middle of the field, he will raise his hand at 15 seconds, and when his clock hits zero, he will point to the referee, and the referee is going to make it ready for play.

There will be no additional extensions. There will be no, "well, we need extra time on this break to make a special announcement." The networks have all been informed of this change. So those are the three timing changes.

So at this time, I believe they're going to put the video up on the screen, and I'll try to work this telestrator. Really only two written rule changes this year. One has to do with leaping. We called it the jumping rule now because it's literally going to be a player going over the top of the line. And the second is going to be on the horse collar.

So I want to just talk a little bit about, in terms of leaping, we have two areas that are similar in that, leaping and leverage. They're very similar relative to what we're looking for. So what you're starting to see more of, and what became problematic, is more and more teams were jumping through the gap. This is still legal because this player's on the line of scrimmage. All he does is he places his hands on the opponent as he goes over the top. Again, you're going to see the player right here, perfectly legal. All he does is he put his hands on the opponent. He jumps through the gap.

What he can't do, which is going to be on the next clip I'm going to show you relative to leverage, is you're going to see the player down here. You'll see the difference in terms of what he does. He initially puts his hand on, but then what he does is he puts his feet on the player. You can't as a player use your feet or knee. You can put your hands on your opponent, but you can't put other body parts, most likely the feet and the knee, on the opponent in an attempt to gain leverage. So that would be a foul, one that would be called.

The other area that is going to get more into leaping, and you're going to see the player here -- and this is what involves the new rule change. When you have a player positioned like you see this player, he is off the line of scrimmage, meaning the defensive line of scrimmage. He is off the line of scrimmage. He can no longer -- in the past, he could come forward, and he could jump over players, and if he were athletic enough to be able to clear everybody, it was not a foul. Now, what he can't do, which is what you'll see him do on this play -- and that's been in the rule book for quite a while -- you can never land on a player, whether it's your opponent or even your teammate, because of the safety aspect.

What you're going to see here, the player lands -- and the problem from a safety aspect is you can see the vulnerable position that the player is in relative to the potential for head and neck injuries. Severe head and neck injuries, compression of the spine is something that could very easily occur in this type of action.

So what the Rules Committee wanted to do is really take away the requirement that there had to be some contact as he was coming forward with that extra momentum, trying to jump over players to block the kick, is to take away the requirement that there has to be any subsequent contact with another player, be it his opponent or a teammate. So that is what has been eliminated.

So what you may have seen occasionally last year was this player having the athleticism that, when he jumped, he completely cleared or hurdled everybody, didn't touch anybody. Just so you know, in terms of similarity, the NFL, in terms of their discussions with the NCAA, adopted the exact same rule. It's no longer allowed in the NFL either. So if a player runs from off the line of scrimmage, he jumps, clears everybody, it doesn't matter whether he blocks the kick or not. It's still a foul. So that's a change for this year. Again, it's safety related, and one that we have a concern in terms of just trying to discourage it to hopefully avoid additional player injury.

The other rule change deals with the horse collar tackle. Since the horse collar tackle came into play a number of years ago, the requirement was that the defensive player, or the player that was tackling the runner -- it could have been an offensive player if it had been an interception or a punt return -- what he wasn't allowed to do is -- this is actually a foul twice because he grabs his face mask. But you're going to see the action here with the defensive player, in this case, on the quarterback. And we'll have a good view right here.

The change is relative to where the grab occurs. And what's now allowed -- because the effect is exactly the same. The old rule, you had to actually grab the collar of the jersey of the ball carrier. The new rule is that anywhere in the nameplate area or the collar. So it doesn't have to be just the collar. Now, if you grab him at the bottom of the numbers, that's not going to qualify, but anywhere near the top. So in this situation, the defender here -- I believe in this case, this is an Oklahoma quarterback -- he's really just up there grabbing somewhere the name Mayfield. If he gets his hand anywhere in that area, grabs it, pulls it down, that's now a foul.

It's a very dangerous technique. It's one that players can easily get injured on, and it's one that the Rules Committee rightfully expanded. And, again, from a safety standpoint, you're seeing the NFL and the NCAA now coordinate a lot more relative to safety-related fouls and rules and making changes in both directions to be more consistent in that area.

The other -- it's not really a change. One of the things we do with officials is we talk about philosophy, and what that means is there's the literal language of the rule and then there's the philosophy of what was the intent of the rule when it was written. What was it intended to cover? And this is a good example of that that we've now made officials aware of, and in this case, even last year, this was a call improperly called.

From a technical, literal rule standpoint, once the quarterback releases the ball, he's technically no longer the ball carrier. He's thrown the football. But yet the action of this horse collar tackle has already started, it jerks him down, and it really does lend toward injury of the ankles and the knees. So in this case, the philosophy and the intent of the rule is to protect players from this type of action, whether they really have the football or they've just gotten rid of it. So from a rules standpoint, this would be as if he still had the football. So even though it technically may not meet the literal language, the way the rule is written, it was what the Rules Committee intended in terms of covering for player safety.

Those are the two major written rule changes other than the clock.

What I do want to talk about also -- and I want to mention two other areas that I know will be specific. One is a point of emphasis. It's not a rule change, but it's a specific point of emphasis. It's going to be conduct of coaches on the sideline. I'm going to be showing you some video also on that. Coaches are now being instructed and told -- not that they haven't been in the past, but we've been a lot more flexible in that area. Unfortunately, there are a few examples across the country where it's somewhat gotten out of hand.

The Rules Committee wants to be sure we are projecting a good, positive image in the game, and we really don't want to expect any different behavior out of coaches than what we would expect out of players. And there's certain actions that, if players did those things, there would be no question. There would be penalty flags galore on the field, and we've allowed coaches to probably get a little too aggressive in terms of their confrontation with officials, and I want to show you some examples of those that you're going to hopefully see reduced or eliminated this year.

The other change that we've gotten in the Big 12 is relative to the experiment that now the conferences had the opportunity to do -- a couple of them started last year, several more are going to be implementing that this year, and we're one of those conferences -- is we will have a command center in the Big 12 office where we will be in realtime contact with the replay official at all of our home games. And as such, the effort here is and the key word is collaboration. What we're trying to do are to utilize advances in technology and the ability to use technology to do whatever we can to try to get the play right. When it's allowed by rule for, if you will, a third party, even being in a different location, to have input into the decision-making process on plays that are reviewable by rule or that you can receive input from an administrative aspect, we want to be involved in that.

So the conference has gone to great expense to put this command center in. It's really a neat technology, but it allows us to communicate in realtime with the replay official, either myself or David Warden, who is our assistant coordinator and the supervisor of our replay staff, one or both of us will be in that command center on Saturdays, and we will be communicating with all of the replay officials in each of our venues where we have home games and we are assigning the replay official.

Here are going to be a couple of examples of why we feel this collaboration effort is worthwhile. We have a play here that's initially ruled -- and let me go back to the -- first I want to show you an example. This player here is lined up offsides, and the official up here at the top, you'll end up seeing him initially at the snap. He's going to throw his flag for defense offsides. And then we get a long pass play, which is not -- you're all used to this. We're going to rule this a touchdown on the field. This is automatically going to be something that we always are going to spend some time looking at.

Just so you know, whenever you end up -- if you're at a game and after a touchdown, if you end up seeing the referee standing in front of the kicker for a few moments -- the guy with the white hat -- the reason he's standing in front of the kicker -- and this is, again, we've tried to standardize nationally -- is so that members of the network, particularly the producer, would know that we're not about to make the ball ready for the try, that he's got a few seconds to look at this play very closely, send a few more shots maybe to the replay booth, so that hopefully we can confirm it, or as in this case, make the decision to stop play. So we're going to create a little bit of a delay there just to allow TV some additional time to show us additional footage.

So we stop play, we go to the review like we always do, and in this case, we're going to reverse this to an incomplete pass because the player doesn't have control of the ball as he's going to the ground. He ends up losing control, the ball hits the ground before he gets control, so it's and an incomplete pass.

The one thing that will be different for us this year is that we will be reviewing this play also in realtime and communicating by audio with the replay official as this process is going. So we want to be sure the decision that the replay official is making relative to any reviewable play is consistent with what we feel it should be.

The common thing, though, that happens in situations like this -- and it's very easy on the field, and I know this firsthand because I've been there for many years -- is you end up losing sight of the fact that you had that offside up front because, when it was ruled on the field as a completed catch, the obvious decision by the offense is decline the offside, accept the touchdown, and we move on.

In this case, where we end up going back and reversing it, in the past, the rules really did not allow for the replay official to get involved at all with the enforcement of any penalty regardless of when the penalty occurred. So the replay official was prohibited, really by rule, from mentioning to the officials, hey, by the way, we're reversing this through an incomplete pass, but you've got a false start that you've got to be sure that you administer.

Now, we can get them involved with that if it's a foul that's part of their review, but there was some, I guess, inconsistency in whether or not the replay officials could help. So we just want to be sure that we don't forget anything.

The more common scenario that you've seen -- and here's an example where you have a play, quarterback's face mask gets grabbed, right here, then he fumbles the ball. He sees that it's live. Officials are letting it work. He gets up. He runs down to the other 40 yard line. So we've got a face mask. He was hit. Did he go down to the ground? Replay officials stop the play. They took a look at it. Foul was correctly called. Was he down on the ground? I'll fast forward here a little bit. He wasn't. He went toward the ground, but his knee -- I'm sorry. I didn't go back far enough. He wasn't on the ground. He picked the ball up. Play was live.

The problem with this play -- and it's a very obscure rule an we've been involved with some of these obscure rules that have gotten us into unfortunate situations where we've misapplied the rule in various situations. We want to have an opportunity to have maybe somebody else be thinking about this. Because what happened in this particular game, nobody noticed it, nobody said anything about it until after the fact, is we actually went and we penalized the face mask from where the quarterback ended up running, which was the other 40 yard line.

It's one of those obscure rules that, because the face mask happened and then he lost the ball as a fumble, and then when he picked it up, it really became a second running play. So if you're going to apply and enforce the penalty for the face mask, you would have to do that on the first running play. You couldn't tack that on or enforce that at the end of the play. Not a very common rule, one that you don't see that often, but again with collaboration with somebody in the command center also looking at it, it's just another set of eyes to hopefully be able to get plays right on that. So that's what we're looking for.

The other area you're going to see us obviously getting much more involved with relative to collaboration is going to be on plays like targeting, where you've got the potential for disqualification of a player, and in this case, you certainly have the potential for targeting. Was called on the field. Officials will continue to aggressively enforce this foul. There is no change in the targeting rule at all from last year to this year. It's exactly the same.

But this is a good example here where the defensive player here is doing everything that we really want them to do. They're turning their head way to the side. They're lowering their strike zone. He's trying to lead with his shoulder to the body of the receiver. What ends up creating the, in this case, helmet contact is when the receiver at the last moment dips his head because he sees the defender coming at him. Ideally, we would like for this to have been reversed to no foul. Unfortunately, it was not. So one of the things we want to be sure we're doing with the collaboration effort is having -- we as supervisors in the command center, talking with the replay official to be sure there's not a misapplication of the intent of rules like the targeting rule.

Because what this ends up leading to, which is going to get me into my last topic relative to coaches' behavior, is, of course, this play gets reviewed, as all targeting plays do, whether there's a command center or not. Unfortunately, what happened was this was not reversed, and of course, as you would expect, you're going to see -- if I can fast forward through this, you'll see the reaction by the head coach.

So now the referee is going to make the announcement. After reviewing the play, it's targeting. Right away, coach storms out on the field. He's upset. He's angry because he's looking at the same video that you just saw in the stadium because we now show that. In this case, this was at BYU, and the coach was more than likely seeing that too. So the coach gets flagged.

And that's the area that this year -- in terms of what coaches are going to have to understand, football is an emotional game. They're going to be upset. Rarely are they going to agree with us when the call goes against their team. It's just the fact of the game -- but they're going to have to demonstrate their appropriate disgust on the sideline. So when you see actions like this where he comes out onto the field to confront and disagree with the officials, this should be a flag, should be a penalty. And just like with players, coaches are subject to the same unsportsmanlike rule where, if you get two in the game, you're disqualified.

So that's something again that coaches and -- if I were a head coach, I'd make sure the get-back coach paid attention to what I was doing and grabbed me occasionally if I'm heading out there. Because, if a coach then comes out a second time in the game to protest a call, unfortunately, if he's been called for that once in a game, it will be an automatic disqualification.

There's certainly nothing wrong with coaches being on the sideline, like you see here. He's in the area of the white. He can protest really all he wants to as long as the language is appropriate. But then when he comes out onto the field and he extends that protest to the field, that's when it becomes a foul.

Here you've even had an explanation. Rather than just staying on the sideline, coach comes back, can't do that. It's going to be a penalty. Stay on the sideline. Don't get out there on the field in front of the officials.

This was one that was actually flagged last year, again, appropriately so. Coaches, you may not like things. We are going to be wrong. We are going to miss calls.

But you need to show your disgust in a more appropriate way. This obviously is too far. We used to give you a lot of latitude, but I don't think we ever wanted to give them this much latitude. So we'll work to get them back. Don't want them coming onto the field. We'll have to work with Dana on this one.

But now, if they'll stay on the sideline -- and this is what you see here. They're going to be agitated. They're going to disagree with things. And there's an appropriate place for them to do that, and it's going to be at the sideline. Now, as long as the language remains appropriate, we don't have a problem with them sharing with us the difference in their opinion on how that play was officiated, and we want to work with our officials at being better at communicating with them. Whether they agree or disagree, we want our officials to tell them what they saw. We'll let them know when we evaluate the play, whether we got it right or not, and we're very good about communicating with our coaches about whether we get the play right or not.

Our coaches have access to all of our evaluations on any play that they want to look at or that they want to question, and I have a very good relationship with all of them. That has occurred for all 12 years I've been a part of this program and, I think, will continue going forward. But there's inappropriate action.

That's all the video I've got. So at this time, we can go ahead and open it up for questions, and I'll entertain any question relative to any of the rules changes, any of the points of emphasis, the command center operations, or any other topic. I'll go ahead and say, yes, holding could be called on every play. So that will be the answer to the first question. So let's go to the second question.

Q. Obviously, you do work in the NFL as well, and they have taken some substantive changes as far as trying to make the game shorter as far as the number of plays. What's been your feedback you've received from Big 12 coaches about the potential somewhere down the line of maybe making the game shorter by limiting plays? What have they told you about it?
WALT ANDERSON: Let me give you some stats. Good question. Let me give you some stats on that.

In Division I in college, the average number of plays is 185. The Big 12 last year, we averaged 199.9 plays per game. We had more plays than any other conference in the country. The NFL game averages, when you include kicks, which you should -- all kicking plays, all plays, which is what we count. We count everything in college -- they're somewhere around 160 to 165, significant number. But it's a different game from that standpoint.

You don't have a lot of teams in the NFL, although a few more are starting, to run up-tempo type action. As a matter of fact, some of the coaches that have tried to implement that have got a lot of pushback from their players from that standpoint. But college play is very much across the country up-tempo. You've got a lot of plays. So we really don't see a lot of pushback in terms of reducing the number of plays. It has been discussed. I've heard coaches discuss that in terms of maybe we need to take a look at having fewer plays.

That's going to be part of the Rules Committee's charge. They're going to thoroughly review this as part of their session next February, when they really take a comprehensive look at the overall timing. And that's going to include everything. It's going to include actual game time. It's going to include numbers of plays. Is that good? Do we need to allow more? Do we need to shorten it? They're going to take a look at player safety aspects, relative to low blocks, other things that could impact player safety. So there's going to be a comprehensive look at that.

From my standpoint, I don't hear a lot of that in the Big 12. Across the country, there may be some opinions that we end up needing to have fewer plays, but I don't hear a lot of that.

From an officiating standpoint, it's not my role to care how many plays we're running. My job is to manage the game as it's being played from a strategic standpoint on both sides of the football. So as long as actions are within the rules, whether a team wants to go real fast or whether a team wants to go real slow, their options under the rules are what dictate that. It should not be what we from an officiating standpoint want. That's my philosophy, and that's one of the things I've worked real hard to get the officials to make sure that we're not interfering with pace of play, either by artificially making it too fast or artificially making it too slow. We want to dictate it by rule, manage the game appropriately.

Q. On the halftime 20-minute clock, clock hits zero, when does the 20-minute clock actually start?
WALT ANDERSON: Well, the 20-minute clock will start -- here's what will happen. Second half will end. The referee will scan the field, make sure we don't have any penalties, make sure that nothing else is going on from a play standpoint or a dead ball action standpoint. He'll also make sure that the replay official -- and the replay officials will tell our referees if we're clear, meaning there's not anything I'm going to stop.

So let's say we've got a long pass play into the end zone. Player's going to the ground, and we rule it incomplete. A replay official may want to stop the play to take a look because that might be a touchdown. We may have made a mistake. But assuming he's not going to stop play, he'll tell the referee -- as an example, if Reggie Smith is out there refereeing the game, his replay official will tell him, Reggie, we're clear. We're done. So at that point, Reggie will get on, give three kills of the clock, this is the end of the first half, and then he'll punch out. That clock operator has already set that clock to 20 minutes, and as soon as he sees that punch, he'll start that 20-minute clock.

Now, what we're going to do is we're going to give the teams a warning at 15 minutes, which is a 5-minute warning, and then we'll bring the teams out two minutes later. We're going to get the teams out there, and at about a minute, we're going to start blowing whistles, start getting the field cleared, getting the kickoff and the receiving teams out on the field. Because, when it goes to zero, the back judge is going to hand -- hopefully, this is how it's going to work -- will hand the kicker the ball, and then it will immediately reset to 15 -- excuse me. The center judge will hand the kicker the ball. Referee will see the kicker's got it, and he's going to blow the whistle. 25-second clock will start then, and we're going to be ready.

Q. Then on replay, in games on Saturdays where you have multiple games going on at the same time, in the replay center, do you have somebody that is actually assigned to that game who is in contact with the replay officially in the stadium, or is that your responsibility and your assistant's responsibility? Or is it something where you have simultaneous issues going on at the same time?
WALT ANDERSON: Good question. We will assign -- just like we assign a replay official and a communicator to each game, and they will be at the stadium -- we will assign what we'll probably deem as the command center replay official and a command center communicator. They will each be at a station which is equipped exactly the same as we are in the booth, except that we don't have one of the monitors for the technician because we're piping in two feeds. We're piping in the live realtime broadcast. There's only about a 300 millisecond delay between what actually goes to the replay booth and what comes to the command center.

So we'll see exactly what the network -- what's called the line feed is. And then that replay official's monitor, we are bringing that view, exactly what that replay official is looking at. So when he's reviewing a play, multiple angles or one angle, we're seeing exactly what he sees on the screen, and then we're talking to him in realtime. So when he's saying, hey, I'm going to stop this play, I'm going to take a look at this targeting action. I'm looking at this player. Yes, I see him make forceable contact to the head. As he's describing that on his screen, we're looking at the exact same image and talking to him in realtime.

So there will be at least one, most of the time two, people stationed at each desk. The system is -- the command center is set up where we've got six individual stations fully equipped, two additional stations which are command center stations for David and I. So we've got really a total of eight stations, which for us is going to accommodate -- even if we've got multiple games at the same time or we get a game that's extending -- say we have an 11:00 game and a 2:30. That 11:00 may go past 2:30. The 2:30 game is being assigned and worked on a completely different desk, and then we'll finish that.

On the second part of your question, when we end up with multiple reviews, a lot of that is because we're going to have -- most of the time, replay officials who may be off that week are working in the command center with us, they're going to be trained in terms of knowing what to look for, what to look at, what type of actions are significant. And if we ever got into that scenario where we had two critical situations at the end of a game, and it needed David or I's attention, each of them, you-all just may have to wait a few moments because we're going to try to make sure that we get the play right. That's the bottom goal is to get the play right.

Q. The situation at the end of the Oklahoma State-Central Michigan game is obviously well documented. Two-part question. How much did that play into the decision to have the replay center? And in that situation, it was a non-Big 12 crew that was on the field. If that scenario plays out similarly with a nonconference game, would you-all in the replay center have a chance to communicate with the replay official in the game? How would that work with nonconference setups?
WALT ANDERSON: All good questions, yes, and all at times painfully felt and experienced.

We certainly are going to work at avoiding those types of situations. And like just about all rule changes, significant rule changes, we've been studying this for several years. We've actually, the last couple of years, have done mock command center tests in realtime on game days, where even though we weren't realtime, there was a bit of broadcast delay. I was on the telephone with a replay official on several occasions the last two years. Hey, let's just talk through this because this is the direction we're going.

So we've been practicing this for a couple of years. So it's not going to be something that's really going to be new to us from a concept standpoint. But we really want to work at preventing those, and when you have those type of events, they do have a tendency to push the needle for everybody because it becomes obvious. And it's just very clear that that's the exact type of situation that you want to end up avoiding.

I know there were two conferences last year that did a more formal operation of their command centers. One was the ACC, and one was the SEC. Certainly, for those of you that may remember two years ago in the Miami-Duke play, it was certainly a play that provided a catalyst and an incentive for many in the ACC to realize we need to do this.

So that wasn't the reason. We were going to the command center, and we were planning to do it this year. I would have rather be going into the command center like we planned it this year without the Oklahoma State play having happened than it did happen, but it did happen.

Relative to your question about nonconference play, you assign different officials. The Rules Committee is allowing us this year to experiment -- and we're experimenting with this with three different conferences, not every nonconference games, but we are taking some -- the Big 12, the Big Ten, and the Pac-12 have agreed that on our nonconference -- well, most of our nonconference games, whoever by contract between the two schools -- that's how this works is the two schools get together, and they decide, hey, we're going to play a home and home, 2017 one year, 20 in the next year. Your officials will assign it this one year; our officials will assign it that year.

In years past replay has always been done by the home team, and the reason way that was done is, when we started replay 13 years ago, there were four different replay systems in operation across the country. And what we didn't want to do is put a replay official in a booth operating equipment he hadn't seen before. Everyone now uses DV Sport. So the equipment issue is gone. What we're looking at experimenting is the three of us conferences, relative to our assignments -- as an example, in week 1, when Maryland goes to Texas, that's a Big Ten assignment. They will travel their replay crew with that crew. In week 2, when Oklahoma goes to Ohio State, that's a Big 12 assignment, but in years past, it would be a Big Ten replay crew. We will send our replay staff.

And it's the replay officials that work week in and week out with those crews that are going. The other conferences work it that way. We're doing the same. So you get officials on the field and in the replay booth that all ten of them are working together week in and week out. We feel like that's a better model because we feel like it will provide easier opportunity for those ten people to communicate and work together, even aside from a command center input, to hopefully get plays right. So we'll see how that experiment goes and discuss that with particularly the SEC and the ACC for next year to see if we want to expand that.

So we're working on that. It does at times, I feel, present some communication problems just because of lack of familiarity of people. You're put into a stressful environment with people that you've really never even met until yesterday. I don't think that's the best approach. So we're going to look at doing that a little differently.

Q. Walt, do you have any instances Big 12 coaches would have been flagged for the straying off the sideline in tirades, and are coaches worried it will be unevenly enforced around the nation and we may see a coach commit homicide or something?
WALT ANDERSON: Well, I know one. I showed it to you. That one would have been inappropriate.

Here's what I've told the coaches relative to this -- and they understand it, and they understand some of them may have to adjust more than others relative to their display of emotion on the sideline. It's not my job to tell them what coaching style they should have, but we do want to maintain a certain type of decorum on the sideline that needs to be projected. It may not be -- we're not ever going to want them to just take us at our word and just don't say anything. But they know -- and I've showed them these same examples when we met in May with all ten of them. Ed Stewart and I were in a room, and we went over this, spent a lot of time with them. So they know what's going to be allowed.

They also know that I'm telling the officials that we've got to use common sense. There may have been times when a coach put his feet in the green, so to speak, because he's asking a legitimate question. He may not even understand what's going on. So we have a role as officials to communicate effectively with them to be sure they know what's going on.

So we want to apply some common sense, but it's like I told them, you know, if the speed limit is 55 and you drive 60 and you get a ticket, don't complain because the guy that passed you up a mile back was going 70 and he didn't get a ticket. Because what I tell them is, if you don't want a ticket, just drive 55.

So they understand that, yes, there may be some inconsistency. We're going to work hard from an officiating standpoint to minimize that inconsistency because there may be some things -- Brian may be in the booth, and they've got a shot of a coach coming out on the field, but we're down near the end zone because we're still working the play. We may not even be aware of it. Our role as officials is we're not looking, holding the flag, hey, just step on the field, and we're going to get you. That's not what we're looking to do. So there may be some times when we don't even realize that a coach has crossed that barrier, so to speak.

So we're going to try to apply common sense, but we're going to have to change things from a national standpoint, and it's got to be different than what it has evolved into up through last year.

Q. I know this isn't a point of rule enforcement for this year, but could you just give us some clarification on offensive linemen downfield on a lot of these jet screens and things that are happening because it seems like it's really gotten loose, Walt, and I was just curious if it's been a point of contention in coaches or something that you've discussed.
WALT ANDERSON: Yes, we have discussed it. We actually changed our mechanics halfway through the season last year in an effort to try to pick it up more. Obviously, more of our teams run these run-pass-read type options. They're sending linemen down the field, it makes it really tough on the linebackers.

Two changes last year that occurred is in the past their entire body had to be beyond three yards. The Rules Committee says, no, it's a plane. It's like a kickoff now. If your hand is past three yards, it's a foul.

The second change we made last year -- and we actually had brought this up because I'm constantly looking at mechanics and how we officiate the game so that they keep pace with how the game has been played. That has always been a call for the umpire, who's behind the defense -- and he very often, because he's often looking, just like I'm looking at you in a line, it's often difficult for me to tell what yard line you're on. Whereas we brought up the concept of having the two officials who are on the sideline because they're more likely looking at right down that sideline. Very often, our head linesman, as part of his mechanics, he slides down about three yards anyway, so it puts him right on that three-yard line many times. So that was a mechanics change that's now been officially adopted.

So one of the things you'll see this year is there are two different officials who are now looking at that, whereas in the past there was only one. So hopefully, that will be it.

And I'll tell you, in 2015, the Big 12, we had ineligible downfield called 13 times. Last year we called it 36 times. So we had almost a threefold increase in the amount of ineligibles downfield that we call. So our coaches have certainly -- they certainly should not have the impression that we're not calling it because we are calling it and we're going to try to enforce it. But, again, that -- it's not going to change the way they're trying to run those schemes because legally they can put linemen on the move and they can be up to three yards on the move when the ball is thrown.

Now, one of the things the Rules Committee is going to examine next year is do they need to change the rule and make it at the point the ball is touched. So you can't go downfield until it's actually called or touched. Or maybe the other option they're going to look at, Brian, is do we need to maybe wait until the ball gets past the line of scrimmage before we can wait on going downfield?

So they're going to address it next year. This year we're just going to, through a change of mechanics, try to enforce it more directly.

Q. Walt, this more or less relates to Tim's question about time. How much have you guys thought about the command center and the input from the command center and how much extra time that might add to replay?
WALT ANDERSON: We thought about that. Our goal from a command center standpoint is going to be we're going to interject things hopefully very, very seldom in a game. We're going to be monitoring the game as it's going along. And we're going to remain silent relative to our communication back to the stadium unless we see something that is significant, has an impact on the game, and we need to get involved with. So our intent is those will be few and far between.

Hopefully, even if we are communicating with the replay official relative to providing that input, it will be over such a short amount of time, that it won't end up becoming significant.

One of the things that we hope we're able to do is we may be, from our standpoint, able to see a view or consider an aspect of the play that we can go ahead and confirm, hey, we're okay. We're good on that, and mention that to the replay official to prevent maybe a stoppage or two during the game.

The other thing we're doing -- and I'll make this the final comment -- is we're going to -- because all of our officials are equipped with communication on the field to the replay booth. We don't have communication to the referee from the Big 12 office, but we do have it from the replay booth. If we get to that situation we're at the far end of the field and we're stopping a play, the referee now has to sometimes run about 60 or 70 yards to get to the headset. Well, if the decision can be made before he gets there, we're just going to stop him and let him just make the announcement right out there in the middle of the field that we've reviewed the play and confirmed it, and he can turn around and they can go ahead and kick the extra point. We're hoping that will save time from that standpoint.

So we're going to be looking at ways to save time and hopefully not interject ways that will create time. If that's the case, we'll probably have to go back and consider -- not that we wouldn't have a command center, but in terms of how we're operating from a logistics standpoint.

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