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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYSJuly 16, 2019Greg BurksArlington, Texas THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everybody. We will start with a special event. We're going to have Mr. Greg Burks who is the Coordinator of Officials for the Big 12. GREG BURKS: Thank you, good morning everyone. Thanks for attending. This will be a rather short presentation this year on the rule changes. I will go through the changes quickly, and then I've got a couple of plays to share with you and I will answer any questions at that time. As I mentioned before, the rules for the NCAA football is on a two-year cycle. This is an off-year, so in an off-year the only rules that can be addressed are those that relate to player safety. We see a couple of things in the rules this year and they deal with player safety. A change in targeting this year. All targeting will be reviewed, and all elements of the targeting must be confirmed for a player to be disqualified. It's a little bit of a distinction in that in the past a call on the field would stand if there wasn't anything to demonstrate that all elements were present. So in the replay booth this year, all elements of targeting must present themselves or the call will be overturned. It's a small distinction, but I think instead of going to the assumption that the call on the field was correct, because of the penalty being as severe as it is with disqualification this year, every one of those plays will be completely reviewed and if one of the elements of targeting is not there, the call will be overturned. Targeting falls into two groups, 9-1-3 and 9-1-4. 9-1-3 is using the crown of the helmet. If you take the top of the face mask and draw a circle around it that's the crown. It is illegal for any player to use that part of his equipment to deliver a blow. It is intended for that player not to use that part of the helmet because it puts him at risk when they drop their head. Second element is the 9-1-4 which is a defenseless player. By definition, a defenseless player is a quarterback, a kicker, a receiver who hasn't had time to put the ball away. If you hit any of those players above the shoulders with any of part of your body that is a 9-1-4 foul and a second part of the targeting foul. Indicators of targeting, and I know you all have paid attention, you will hear these things mentioned, a launch, a crouch, a thrust, leading with the helmet, the forearm, lowering the head. The biggest change in the rule book this year that demonstrates targeting is the word "attacking" and you will see in the fourth piece there we are looking for those plays when a player is attacking another player. We have had some targeting fouls in the past where a player really is not initiating the contact but there has been helmet-to-helmet. Without that attacking piece, targeting will not stand this year. If a student-athlete receives a third targeting foul during the course of a season, they will be out for the remainder of that game and they will also receive an automatic one-game suspension. There are not very many players that this applies to, I don't know nationally what that is, but it's under five. The point here is that we want to make sure that players are being taught not to engage in targeting action and if we do have repeat offenders to that degree they will be penalize an additional game. Last year LSU was involved in a game before they had seven overtimes. The number of plays in a seven-overtime game is deemed to be unsafe. The first four overtimes this year will be played exactly the same way. Beginning with the fifth extra period we will no longer have the traditional overtime, we will immediately go to a two-point try. Remember after the third you can't kick a field goal. You have to go for two, so it will be a two-point try at that spot. In absence of media timeouts, after the second and fourth extra period there will be a two-minute mandatory break. These changes were made to protect student-athletes, that too plays are being involved and we want to make sure their safety is taken care of in that game. In talking to coaches so far the two things that they have been most concerned with is the illegal wedge formation and the blind-side block which I will cover in a minute. We have always had a rule for three-man wedge being illegal. That came in a few years ago. The exact same verbiage for that rule is now in place for a two-man wedge. The statistics tell us that kickoffs now are just about as safe as any other scrimmage play which is a positive move. But the injuries that are occurring general deal with players that are trying to break up that two-man wedge. So what we're saying is a wedge is defined as two players aligned shoulder-to-shoulder within two yards of each other. Two yards is six feet. That's a little bit of a distance, but I think when I show you the film you will see that we're trying to prevent players from coming together on kickoffs and aligning together shoulder-to-shoulder starting up the field and creating a block where that kickoff cover player has to try and blow that wedge up. We're going to try and eliminate that this year. As I mentioned, the verbiage is exactly the same as it was for a three-man wedge. It's a wide-ball foul. The formation of the wedge is not illegal when it's an onside kick formation and there is no foul, and this is important, when the kick results in a touchback, a free kick out-of-bounds or a fair catch. Whether there is contact or not on this play it's the alignment of those two players when they get together on the kick that creates the foul. I've got a couple of those plays we will look at when I'm finished. Blind-side block, again, this is a safety-related issue. By definition a blind-side block is an open-field block against an opponent that is initiated outside of the vision. Where we see these plays are on turnovers, on kicks where defenders are pursuing the ball carrier or the receiver and outside of their vision another player comes and de-cleats them. This play, while legal last year, this rule change occurred in high school football a few years ago and on those blocks all blockers have to lead with their hands and push. The difference in the college rule is if you look at that second point no player shall deliver a blind-side block by attacking with forcible contact. So you can still have a blind-side block, but you can't deliver it with forcible contact. By definition, forcible contact is hard to define. But the way we look at it in officiating is if you use your shoulder or torso and you attack or deliver that blow with force that will be a blind-side block. The block can still be made if you push, brush, spray paint is a new term I heard this year. When we went through the Rules Committee the coaches asked that we not defined how to make the block and leave it to them how to make the block. It's easy to keep a player from getting to the ball carrier when they are running at those speeds, a shove, a push. But we want to eliminate that de-cleater where we see somebody leveled and they don't see the play coming at all. In addition, if this action has all the elements of targeting, meaning it's above the shoulders, then it would be a targeting foul as well as a blind-side block. Blocking below the waist, this is an addendum to the rule and the ruling that was in the book last year addressed everything just from the offensive perspective. The defensive team cannot block below the waist when it's not from the front. We defined from the front 10-2. That creates an issues for people, but if you put your hand on the steering wheel 10-2, it needs to come from that direction. So the player being blocked is able to defend themselves. Starting next year all assignments for officiating crews, meaning when two conferences play each other, replay officials will be assigned with the field officials. Small distinction, contracts were written in the past when many times a visiting team may have the on-field officials be from their conference and the home team had replay, starting next year and in most cases this year, both the on-field and the replay will be assigned together. The rationale there is those two teams, the replay and the on-field really are one team and it's much more effective when they work together. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on coaches’ phones and head sets. One, that's not really the purview of the on-field officials, this is an administrative issue but it's been cleared up a little bit, 23 communication devices allowed, 15 for accountable coaches and this is managed by the game and administrator. I will show you a couple of plays here that deal with the wedge and then also blind-side blocks. If we look at this play, again it's a free kick. And if we look at the deep receivers here, you will see the players come together. They are within the designated six feet and they move up the field together. The foul would occur at this point primary on this call is the referee, you will see him in the end zone and the two line scrimmage officials will be looking at that play as well. This will take a little bit of an adjustment because a lot of teams run this two-man wedge, so in getting with the coaching staffs around the conference my hope is that we are able to prevent this from happening and we don't see it called too many times. The officiating crews do have to look at and you will see on this play the wedge doesn't go after the same player and I do need to make the distinction that a double-team block is not illegal, a two-man wedge is illegal. So you are going to have plays where players are coming from separate angles that end up blocking the same player. That's legal. They just can't come together and then move up the field and block that player. Here is a view from the back angle that the referee would have most of the time. If they grab hands it makes it easier for us to know they're within six yards. By the way, that is our usual film we get when we look at film, when we grade film. We have sideline end zone TV and wide angle. So as we evaluate our officials, those are the angles that we generally get. Going into our clinic this year we have 8,000 graded plays from last year that we will be reviewing. Each of those are divided by foul code. We will be breaking by position and looking at each of those plays, what we did right, what we did wrong and we will be looking at these plays specifically as they apply to the new rules. This is another example as you can see the two upmen come together right there as they move forward, they grabbed hands. That would be an illegal two-man wedge because the ball was returned. It's an unsportsmanlike foul, does not count for disqualification. You may hear unsportsmanlike but this does not count toward disqualification. As soon as they move forward and the kick is in play the foul occurs. In that case they do block together one player. This play deals with blind-side blocks and what you're going to see is the punt and then you're going to see the punt returners peel back and there will be two blocks both outside of the vision of the players being blocked. Both these blocks last year were legal. If they are from the front, and illegal this year because they're blind-side. You will see the two players coming in blue right there and they both block. This year that's illegal because they're outside the view of those players and the top block of those two, because of the proximity of that would be looked at for a targeting play and, in fact, would be targeting. The goal is to eliminate those kind of hits. Both of these blocks, you will note that these blocks could be made without force. They could simply push those players. There has been a little push back from some folks who say that's not football. The reality is, we want to make sure that these kids are going to be able to play next week and we're trying to eliminate any of those plays that might prevent that. That's my presentation. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Q. Greg, I hate asking about this topic but we need some clarity on this. What is your stance on the horns down? Is that an unsportsmanlike penalty? Should at any time be a penalty? Do you tell your refs, hey, either call it or don't call it? GREG BURKS: Somehow I knew I was going to get that question today. The answer I will give you is "it depends". It's like any unsportsmanlike act. If somebody scores quickly, turns to their cheering section, and it's quick and they move on, we're not going to do anything with that. If it's to a bench or to another player, and it's prolonged, it would be an unsportsmanlike act. Like any play, there is a degree, who it's directed at, if they do it in their bench area, we're not going to look at it. It would be like any other celebration foul, so it has to be like any other foul we have. Does it rise to the level we need to deal with that? It's a hot topic. I know people want us to be definitive on that, but it's like any touchdown celebration. Is it directed at an opponent or just celebration with your teammates? I think he said what if they direct it at fans? Q. Like the Will Grier play where he runs in and does it to the Texas student body there? GREG BURKS: That probably would be a foul in that situation. When we have discussed it, by rule, anything that's prolonged to be bring attention to the individual rather than the team is a foul. My advice is if you want to do that, do it back in your bench area, do it back with teammates, get away from where you are an individual drawing attention to yourself. Q. A little bit of clarification on the blind-side block and the view of the player being blocked. Is that also a 10-2 situation as you described with the other or a different standard? GREG BURKS: It's a little bit wider than 10-2. There is an SEC play of a year ago where there is an interception and we looked at it as supervisors, the quarterback throws an interception and say coming back up the field and while he's now a player by definition he's still a defensive player because he's not involved and it's fascinating because at the last minute he turns his head and his eyes get big because he sees he's going to get hit and our discussion was. Does he see this coming? Well, just for a fraction of a second and not enough time to defend himself so this would still be a foul. When it comes to matters of safety we're always going to err on the side of safety. So we want the player to behave to where you can push them, shove them, not drop a shoulder or your torso and get the same affect to spring the ball carrier without delivering a blow that might hurt somebody. I hope that helps. Q. Greg, we saw the NFL allow review of pass interference. Do you think college football will go down that route? What are your thoughts on that? GREG BURKS: I think in the long run we will have to see how it works for the NFL. The Canadian Football League has used instant replay for pass interference for a few years now and in talking to those folks it's not been successful. Here is the reason: On judgment plays, whether it be holding or pass interference, there is a level of restriction on every one of those plays. Does that level rise to where we now have an advantage or a disadvantage? When you watch a play on film, a judgment play, whether it's holding or pass interference, you are going to see, yes, there was contact here early. So you still have to make a judgment on did it impede this player from making a play. So it's a slippery slope when you get into judgment areas. I don't know where technology is going. I know that I trust the judgment of our officials when it comes to those type of plays. When you go to replay and you say did he step out-of-bounds? Did he get a foot down with possession, did he reach the line to gain. Those are pretty easy things in the sense that it's yes or no. When you watch pass interference, it's not yes or no. It's varying degrees. It is my opinion that we leave that in the hands of the officials. The NFL, I'm glad they're going first on this and we will see how that works for them and what conclusions they reach. I'm happy with the college rule where it is right now. Q. Can you clarify a little bit about the "wedge" and when the flag will be thrown? Will the flag be thrown when the two players are within two yards or do they move up or does it require a hit, and where the spot of the ball be marked? GREG BURKS: The calling official will have to wait and see what happens to the quick so they will be instruct to recognize the wedge, where it's at and the foul occurs when they get together. I was a proponent of they had to move up field together. That's not how the rule is written. It's when they come together and that's because that's how the three-man wedge was and they simply took the wording from the three to the two. The official will recognize that the foul has occurred, make sure that the kick in play, throw the flag at that time, and the foul will be from the spot of the foul. Q. Greg, as far as the overtime rule if you really want to make it safer, why not go to mandatory two-point tries after the first overtime. GREG BURKS: I think that's been discussed. The Rules Committee when they met they discussed all the options. I think college football likes where college football is right now, because of a seven-time overtime which is an aberration. I don't know that I can remember another seven-time, usually it's over within three overtimes, so I don't know that we want to make huge changes in the rule. I think the overtime that we have is effective and determines a winner in most cases fairly quickly. I think this will be implemented. We will see how many times it comes about and that will be reviewed if there needs to be a change we can do it at that point. Q. When you say all the targeting plays are going to be reviewed now, what affect do you see that having on pace of play and how are you going to make sure we keep the games moving along? GREG BURKS: Yeah, I probably said that incorrectly. All targeting fouls have been reviewed already so every time there is a targeting play not only is it reviewed on the field it's reviewed in the ROC, Replay Operations Center. So we have already done that. What I should have said is all aspects of the replay must show. So all of those indicators that I talked about, 9-1-3, 9-1-4, attacking posture, something that demonstrates all of those things are in place, it just clarifies to us that instead of, about 15% of all targeting plays last year were stance. So the distinction here is instead of when the decision was 50/50 it went with stance because that's what they called on the field. But we tell the officials if you think it's a foul, throw on this so we make sure and look at this because of player safety. All other fouls you need to know it's a foul before you throw it. Any other questions? Thank you for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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