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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 17, 2018

Greg Burks

Frisco, Texas

THE MODERATOR: Welcome back. I would like to introduce our new Coordinator of Officials, Greg Burks. Greg has joined us from the Mountain West where he's been the last three years. He's got a distinguished career as an official in the Big 12. He was the first referee for the CFP National Championship, so he is no beginner. Greg?

GREG BURKS: Thank you. Good morning everyone. Before I forget, I would like to invite you all to the Big 12 officiating clinic this weekend, Saturday morning at the DFW North Marriott. We will have a media presentation there at 8 a.m. if you're interested and you're welcome to attend the entire clinic. It goes Friday, Saturday and Sunday and it's where we do the training for the entire staff and we will cover all of these things I'm about to go through as well as mechanics and coaching points. So if that fits your calendar, please attend.

The NCAA has significant changes this year. I will work as hard as I can to make this entertaining and interesting. You are either a rules person or you're not, and if you are, there's a lot to look at this year. We have a two-year cycle in the NCAA. On the even numbered years we address everything that's out there. On the odd numbered years we only deal with player safety. This being an even numbered year you're going to see a variety of rule changes this year. I would like to note that we do have also now several different groups that impact the rules. Besides the commissioners and the Rules Committee, we now have a Competition Committee that's looking long term at college football and has impact on the rules as to where we want to go.

First thing that you're going to note this year is a crackdown on, if you will, uniforms. Over the last few years the spectrum has moved toward leniency. This year players will have to be legally equipped, and where you're going to see that play out the most I think in the first couple of weeks is that knees have to be covered this year. We have seen in the last couple of years players not covering their knees. For both safety concerns and just for the look of the game, officials will enforce this year that knees must be covered. Upon identifying players who's knees are not covered that player will be sent out of the game and will have to cover their knees before they can come back in.

As well as covering the knees, and if you'll look to the left there, you'll see the player whose knees on the top left whose knees are properly covered. The second shot shows the knees half covered and the last one shows the knees not covered at all. A player who is not covering their knees will be sent out for one play and will be able to return. A coach can call timeout to put 'em back in, but I don't think coaches are going to want to use too many timeouts to have knees properly covered.

Along with knees, the jerseys, the mid-jerseys are no longer legal. The rule book is clear that the jersey has to reach the pant level or be tucked in. We will also be sending players out if they fail to have the jersey down. The rationale for that is when you push the jerseys up you can't see numbers and we need to see the entire number. There's also been a trend for t-shirts to be hanging out underneath the jersey. We're looking for those to be the same color as the jersey. If they're not, we're going to ask the player to tuck that in. If they refuse at some point they will be sent off as well. Finally, the back pad that has been exposed quite a bit in the last few years, that has to be covered. That's pretty simple. You can grab the jersey and pull it down.

So we're going to enforce pretty stringently these rules, and I would anticipate within the first week or two we may be seeing a few players sent off. But I think after the first couple of weeks everybody hopefully will get on board and it won't become an issue. This is a shot of a player whose knees are properly covered and is properly equipped.

I'm going to blow through a couple of these just because they're technical in nature. Field decorative marking and advertising, jersey design, colored numerals, the highlight here is that the letter "C" can be put on a jersey. Prohibited field equipment for media, we are now allowing the umpire to wear a cam on their hat. I would add that that has to be pre-approved by the office before that can happen. So if you're interested in that camera with no audio component on an umpire you need to contact the office and we will arrange for that to occur.

Coaches' phones and head sets. This is a big issue for coaches and administration. It's not for officials. This will be dealt with by administration so I'm not going to touch base on that.

Here is a big change. This is the play clock after touchdowns and prekicks. We spend a lot of time trying to make the game move as expediently as we can, meaning that we want the game to be played in three hours, 3:15, 3:30 at the max. We want to do that without taking plays out of the game. The Rules Committee is always looking at how can we speed up the game. This is an attempt to make that happen. After a touchdown, the play clock will be set to 40 and will run immediately. In the past, the referee has scanned it and made sure everything was good and make it ready for play in 25. In all instances of the game as soon as the player is down, clock is stopped, we go right to 40 and run it. We are going to do the same with touchdowns this year. So you will see the score, you will see the 40 start and it will run just like a regular play from scrimmage.

The referee will be in between the center and the holder and will be getting confirmation from replay that we're good. As long as that occurs with more than 25 seconds on the play clock, there will be no interruption of play and we will continue and move on. Could create some issues, possibly with teams that are used to celebrating for any length of time. I think they will have to be cognizant of that and move along here so there is no delay.

I think once this is implemented we will see a little bit of time gain here in between scores and the extra point. If we do have a review at that point, replay wants to look at the play, obviously we would stop it, do the review and come back and set the clock to 25 and it would be like it's been in previous years.

In an effort to make kickoffs safer, we've added a free kick/fair catch rule. On a kickoff that is fair caught inside the 25 yard line, that team will now get the ball at the 25. All of the data that we have says that we have more injuries on kickoffs because of the distance that players are running and so the Rules Committee is trying to figure out how to write the rules so we still have balance in the game without doing away with kickoffs and provide safety for the receiving team.

We went to touch-backs going to the 25 and teams have become more proficient at the pooch kick putting it inside the 25, so giving the receiving team the not opportunity to make that catch, a fair catch, just like they do on a punt and taking the ball at the 25. So that will be a new wrinkle this year that we hope will encourage the ball to just be kicked through the end zone and we have a touch-back.

I've been asked, why don't you do way with the kickoff then? The problem is, how do we give the kicking team an opportunity to get the football back with an onside kick when they are behind in the game, and smarter minds than mine will have to work out how that happens so that works more effectively. But this is the first attempt to try to give teams an opportunity to be at the 25 and limit contact on kickoffs. This is one of the worst-worded rules I think I've every seen and has created a lot of confusion. Basically, what this says is the offensive team does not have to attempt the try if they don't want to.

So, if the game is in doubt, and they are ahead by one or two points, they do not have to attempt the try. The way this is worded it kind of makes it sound like the defensive team has a choice of whether they attempt that or not. What's happened is that we've had several games that end with a touchdown that puts the offensive team up by one point. Celebration, run off the field at the end of the game and the way the rule was written we had to bring 'em back out, put 'em on the field for them to take a knee. So now we're allowing the offensive team to choose not to attempt the extra point.

Blocking below the waist. This is the hardest rule to enforce for officials without question in the game. I would like to say you can have the same play occur in three separate situations and have three different rulings. So I think we all know that on change of possessions and kicks, you can't block below the waist at any time anywhere on the field. We know that that block below the waist inside the tackle box legal by all linemen from any direction, but it gets very convoluted outside of that tackle box.

So in an effort to clean this up we have rewritten the rule so it goes like this: No change to lineman in initial position. So the tackle box goes from tackle to tackle. Those players on the offensive line stationary in that box may block from any direction as long as the ball is still in the box. All other teammate players are allowed to block below the waist only in the force of the initial contact is directed from the not front, 10-2. Within the last couple of years, 10-2 has become the code word for officials.

Driving a car, 10-2 on the wheel this is what we're talking about. Directed means inside of that 10-2. So if a player turns this way, his 10-2 is here. If he turns this way, 10-2 is here. You can still be blocked from the front at the knees, but if your attention is over here, your 10-2 is here and it would make this block illegal. No longer from the front.

So you can see an official has to see the entire play and know where the direction of the block came from to be able to rule whether or not the block was legal. So there are three exceptions. Teammate players may not block below the waist when the block occurs 5 yards or more beyond the neutral zone. That's an important change. That's an important change. Last year, once the ball was outside of the box offensive players could block below the waist anywhere on the field down field. Now they can only block within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. That's a significant change. Again, it's for safety.

This is a very difficult block to referee, but it's also at times a blindside block that players don't see and for safety reasons it's being restricted when it can be done. Players outside the tackle box at the snap, wide receivers or any back lined up outside the tackle or in motion at the snap may not block below the waist toward the initial position of the ball at the snap.

Usually that's called a crack back. So when those receivers come back towards the ball, they have to be in front while outside of the zone. Even if they're in front and the ball is in the zone that's an illegal block because we don't feel the defender has the opportunity to protect themselves and see the block coming.

The game is getting more restrictive on far as low blocks and it's done for the safety of the players. Once the ball has left the tackle box the player may not block below the waist towards his own end line. That is a peel-back block. You see that often with offensive lineman may lose contact with the defensive lineman and they go low at that point towards their own end line this. That is only legal as long as the ball is in the box.

Leaping. The leaping rule has been changed a couple of times and this is an attempt to make it as simple as we can make it. Now what you see is reference to the blocker's frame. So if I'm a blocker here, you'll know that last year the rule was if I ran forward more than a yard and a half and jumped up and my body was moving forward instead of vertical that was a foul. Well, it was kind of nonsense. What if a guy was 20 yards away, that player ran up and jumped straight up it was still a foul if he was leaning forward.

Now, the reference is to the blocker. The player leaping must leap vertical and not go into the leaper's space above them. So what we're looking for is players to maintain going straight up. If that player goes straight up and the blocker comes out and makes contact with them, that's a legal play.

The reason this is in is where many of you saw the play where timing, the snap came from the middle of the formation, jumped over the line and blocked the kick. It's a great athletic play, but what we see happen more often than not is that blocker stands up, catches that defender and flips him on his head. This rule now applies both to field goals, tries and also on the punt shield. You can jump, but you have to jump vertical. You can't go into the space of the blocker, and if the contact is made, it must be by the blocker moving into the leaping player, not the leaping player.

Field goal penalty enforcement. The football rules continue to evolve. The reason they evolve is because coaches outsmart the rules and find ways around rules. So the Rules Committee meets and says, okay the game is being played differently. How do we change the game so it fits today's? The field goal penalty enforcement for years was you had to choose between the penalty or the points. Meaning if there was a personal foul on a field goal, you had to choose between the two. Do you take the penalty and then continue the drive? And in all other instances, that 15-yard penalty was assessed on to the next play. That's simply what's happened here.

So you will now be able to take the 3 points for the field goal and if there is a personal foul on the defense it will be enforced on the kickoff. It will simply mean this rule is enforced on field goals the same way it's been enforced in all other parts of the game.

Ten-second runoff. With less than one minute in either half and a replay review on the field, and that ream is reversed, and the correct ruling would not have stopped the game clock, then the clock will be reset to the time the ball is declared dead by replay. That sounds like a lot, but it's pretty simple. If, in replay, we find that we incorrectly stopped the clock, we're going to put the clock back to where the game would have been.

Here is the example: Quarterback rolls out, is tackled, is going down and throws a pass. That pass is completed or intercepted and we have play after that and when we go back to replay we find that the quarterback's knee was down. Everybody with me? He's down. If we would have gotten that right on the field, and by the way, we teach our officials if they're not absolutely certain to let that play go because replay can fix that play and bring it back and you be don't want to put somebody down because there is no way you can pick 'em back up in replay. So we're going to let that play go. Replay is going to come back and say, no, the quarterback was down. He was down at 14 seconds left to play. We're going to set the clock to 14 and take 10 seconds off. The reason we take 10 seconds off is we are assuming that team would take at least 10 seconds to lineup and run the next play. That makes sense.

So either team may call timeout and stop the clock at that point, but it's simply a way, because of the growth of replay, it would not be fair for that player to be down for us to go back and set it at 14 when more time would have run off the clock if it was running at that point.

I'm not even going to go here. This was removed and it had to do with putting time back on the clock after replay. We won't go there.

Instant replay, collaborative replay. I think everybody knows that the Big 12 has gone to collaborative replay. The NCAA has made it part of the rule book that allows for conferences to do that. I think four of the power five all have collaborative replay. It just means that games that are played in the Big 12 there is a replay official onsite and then in the command center, ROCC, that replay official is monitoring that game as well. So there are several levels of oversite there and the book simply gives us the ability to look at those plays and have additional input.

I will mention that the Big 12 this year is also going to implement screens on the sideline. You've seen those in the NFL. The value of that is the referee who is in charge of the game never has seen the play in the Big 12. You put the pedestrian set on, the replay official explains to you what's going on, and you turn on the mic and make the announcement without ever seeing the play. If you think about that all those plays in the end zone, catch/no catch, many of those plays the referee never even saw what happened. This will give the referee input as well with replay. I think it's going to do a couple of things, make our referees' announcements clear. They will actually have seen the play and it will give them input as far as their opinion on given plays.

Targeting Rule, focus of targeting over the last few years has been paramount in college football. I think we're making strides, headway in that. Replay, consistency in targeting, we have a national replay clinic where we bring in the replay officials and spend a lot of time working on that this summer. There are no changes this year. I would remind you in 913 and 914, 913 it's illegal to use the crown of the helmet. So if I draw a circle around the helmet above the face mask all the way around that's by definition the crown. It's legal for a player to use that part of his helmet to use that part of his helmet as a striking device, that's 913.

914 you can't hit a defenseless player, quarterbacks, receivers that have not possessed the ball, players that have not had the ball long enough to protect themselves, like kickers and receivers. 914 you can't hit a defenseless player above the shoulders with any part of your body. That sounds simpler than it is. Catch/no catch, followed by contact, if you rule it a catch that means sometimes it's not targeting.

We were discussing earlier maybe making the not command center open for you if you're interested to come in not on game day Saturday, but on another evening to work on the actually on our systems and see how that's done so you have a better idea of the replay system and how we work it.

Couple of editorial changes, not biggies, but they will be for officials. In the past, forward pass has been determined by the elbow, the hinge. We've now changed it to the hand. The film is so good we can see when the hand starts forward as being the start of a forward pass.

So that change from the elbow to the hand. Unfair clock tactics. I've already had one coach call me about this, which I find to be interesting. There was a play last year where a team was ahead by 10 points, there is 17 seconds left on the clock, their opponent is on the 7 going in. They decide that the best way to protect their lead is just not to let 'em score so at the snap, every defensive player bear hugs and throws the offensive player to the ground. So there is no way they can score. The clock runs off, we enforce the penalty. They do it again, clock runs out, game is over. That's clearly an unfair tactic. This year, if the referee deems unfair tactics, the penalty will be enforced and the time will be placed back on the clock.

So in that scenario, let's say there was 17 seconds left in the game when that foul occurred, we would go half the distance to the goal and we would put 17 seconds back on the clock to eliminate any unfair advantage.

Loose ball out-of-bounds was changed. There was a play in the national championship game last year where there was a catch and the wording says that other than a kick that scores a field goal, a ball not in the player's possession is out-of-bounds. The rule is changed to control.

That means you have control of the football without necessarily having a foot on the ground. Technical point but it changes what could and would not be a catch. Roughing the passer was totally rewritten this year. The rule was pretty basic and didn't include many of the things that we see in the Targeting Rule. So without going into all of those things, it talks about what you can not do to a quarterback. The game has gotten much more restrictive on what you can and cannot do to a quarterback. So it cleans up the rules so that forcible contact to the head and neck, you can never hit a quarterback in the head with any force. You can't throw a quarterback to the ground, you can't punish the quarterback once he's on the ground and you have to make sure that quarterback has reestablished himself as a player before you block him on a change of possession.

I'm not going to go into the major mechanics changes where the official stands, but I would be happy to entertain any questions that you may have at this point.

Q. Going back to replay and the collaborative replay center and things like that, I understand how refs have been taught to let the play, play out and it's great to a point. But I think a lot of fans have gotten frustrated by the amount of stoppages in games to look at what turns out to be mundane stuff. How do you coach the guys to, if nothing impacts the competitive edge of the game to letting it and go on to the next one?
GREG BURKS: Right. Let me rework that phrase. Let it and go on to the next one. It's not something that is part of our vernacular. Let me sat this: Last year we averaged 2.2 stoppages a game, 2.2. So I think we're saying it feels like ten stoppages in some games and it feels like it's too long, but in reality it's not. Officials work by, besides the rule book a whole other set of standards that are philosophies. Prior to instant replay, the philosophy was a runner is down and it's not a fumble. What we would talk about is we don't want any cheap turnovers. So when in doubt, if you didn't see it he's down. What replay has allowed us is not to guess on that play anymore, within reason. Honestly, when we're at the goal line and they run right in the A gap, whether he's down or not even with eight cameras, sometimes we can't tell and sometimes we have to make the best ruling we can in that scenario. But the things where it's important is, if a runner is running down a sideline and you're chasing that runner and it's very close to whether he's in bounds or out-of-bounds. If you don't know that he's out-of-bounds, let him be inbounds because we can run that back and look at that and maybe it will take 20 seconds but we will get that play right.

Q. (Away from mic.)
GREG BURKS: I do. I don't have it off the top of my head. I want to say 1:48. I shouldn't have said that because now I'm on record with that, but I think it was about 1:48. One of the things we talk about at the clinic is, how do we expedite this? By bringing the screen on the field how is that going to change the length of our timeouts when we go to replay? We're going to have to do that in a manner that doesn't mess with the flow of the game. We're aware of that.

But I would remind you our number one job, if you want to stay employed as an official in the Big 12 you better get plays right. You better get plays right.

Q. What are the key coaching points for officials in determining the difference between a rub and an illegal pick on a pass play? What are the circumstances under which you can review and find those?
GREG BURKS: Which coach put you up to that? (Chuckles.)

Q. It was a big discussion point amongst a particular fan base last year.
GREG BURKS: That's a tough question. Before I became a referee I was a side judge field judge, so I spent a lot of time watching that play. When I teach to the deep guys, I think what's happened in the past is, we watched our key. So officials when they lineup their keys are offensive players more than defensive players. So if you watch an offensive player all the time you tend to see the game from their perspective. When contact occurs, if I'm just watching the offensive player it appears to be a defensive foul. So we have worked very hard at saying you need to expand your vision and see both players. I refereed college basketball for 20 years and to great the block charge right you've got to be watching the defense. We've made a real effort to spend more time watching the defense. If we watch the defense what we're looking for is any overt action by the receiver. The rule book is pretty clear. The receiver can do nothing to impede that defender.

So we're looking for overt action to screen that defender. Now it gets very interesting. If I run a route and I turn and stop, and you run into me, it's not on me. But as that contact occurs, just like a basketball screen, if I turn and move into you, now the foul is on me. So it's important we see the whole play.

We spend a lot of time in breakouts looking at those plays. Our percentage of correctness in pass interference has gone up. But like in all things, as we get better at it, so do the players and coaches teaching at how to get around that, to be quite honest. They're getting very skilled at creating be opportunities for offenses and we have to continue to get better in that area.

Q. In light of the drastic cultural changes that the NFL is implementing, I was curious about what the college officials are thinking about what they're going to watch on Sundays going forward.
GREG BURKS: For most of us, we use the NFL as teachers, as instructors. But we're very clear that their game is much different. You can tell right away when a coach has come from the NFL in a college game and starts screaming about contact after 5 yards, and that happens sometimes. It's two entirely different games. Besides the pace of the game, institution, all the things that happen in college games, it's so significantly different. Now, the NFL did come to our supervisors meeting and talk to us about some of the rules they're doing. I find it fascinating that they're putting in some rules that they know can't be refereed and they're going to have to use reviews and find players and coaches on kickoff zones and all that kind of stuff. I don't think we pay at which attention to that. We're focused on the college game. I use the NFL games to fall asleep to, to tell you the truth, because after you watch college football all day Saturday I really don't care what they do in the NFL. I'm concerned what's happening in college football.

Q. Speaking of the pro game, why does it take 20-minutes shorter or so? Every Sunday I look at the clock and at 3:25 or 3:30, those games are over. A lot of people are weary of the game going 3:30 to 3:40?
GREG BURKS: I've only been on this job for two weeks and you're trying to get me fired the first time that I speak for the Big 12! I'm going to share an opinion across the board. I don't understand what the difference is if our game goes 3:20 or 3:30. It matters for TV. But for most college fans they spend the day going to the stadium, and whether the game takes 3:20 or 3:30, I don't think they really care. All of us don't want dead time in the game. But the reason our game goes 3:20 is because of timeouts, TV timeouts. It's not because the game is not moving rapidly enough. I know I'm in the minority when I talk about our timeouts. I would rather focus on getting plays right if that means 1:45, 1:50 on a replay then us hurrying through a replay and getting things right because I don't think 3:20 or 3:30 matters. If our game goes to 4 hours I get it. The fact that our game has sped up, we are having 200-plus plays on game and we're throwing every down there is not much we can do about that. If we want to look at speeding that up, we go to running the clock during incompletions. That's a huge step that most offensive coaches don't want to do. That's why you see us making changes on starting the 40 in a dead ball situation to address some of those things.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We appreciate your comments. If you want more information on the coaching clinic I'm sure Greg will give you more information in a minute.

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