Record Comparisons Over The Last Decade Between "Tiers" (compiled by Brian Fremeau based on Massey Consensus)

Referees of Reddit, I have a series of gifs and questions for you (Part 3 of 3: Christian, Jew, or ... Miscellaneous)

This summer I watched all of a certain team's 2015 games for an upcoming project. As I've done in previous years, I made a collection of gifs from plays where I had questions about the officiating to ask of verified referees on /r/CFB by PM. This year, I thought I'd share with the rest of the sub.

I'm asking that top-level responses be only from referees, though it'd be great if other users asked follow-ups to those. Please remember that I'm trying to learn more about the rules of the game and their enforcement, so a brief explanation would be nice, but getting into pointless arguments wouldn't be.

Also, I want to emphasize that these are not a representative sample at all, only clips that I thought would be useful, and should not be used to argue any team got disproportionately favorable or unfavorable calls. I've been doing whole-season reviews for several years now and I can confidently say I've never seen any such thing.

This is Part 3, about miscellaneous fouls. [Monday was part 1]() about catches and fouls happening downfield, [yesterday was part 2]() about the battles in the trenches.


  1. Clip 1a, Clip 1b. Should #68 red have gotten flagged for a late hit? How about #89 white?
  2. Clip 2a, Clip 2b. A) Is this holding by #68 red against #52 white, either for pulling him down or taking a nap on him? B) #2 white was flagged for a personal foul against #1 red. I don't think the ballcarrier gives himself up until the defender is himself a step away from the sideline, and it looks to me like he was trying to pull up. What could he have done differently to avoid the foul?
  3. Clip 3. Is the contact between #58 white and #68 red legal, either in a football or criminal sense?
  4. Clip 4a, Clip 4b. A) Is this holding by #84 red against #33 white? B) ... by 68 red against #43 white?
  5. Clip 5. Is this holding by #34 white against #8 orange? I'm not sure I've ever seen a grab of a leg before.
  6. Clip 6a, Clip 6b, Clip 6c, A) Is this holding by #65 white against #7 red? B) He was flagged for roughing the passer, good call? C) If flags were thrown on both, would they be offsetting since they're both live-ball fouls? D) Further editing reality, if there were a hold called on the offense while live, but the RPS by the defense happened after the ball fell dead, how would the penalties be enforced?
  7. Clip 7. A) Is this holding by #66 red against #4 white? B) Normally offensive linemen can legally block in the back inside the "blocking zone", but at the time of this contact the ball has left that zone (in the QB's hand during his scramble), and therefore "the blocking zone disintegrates" (9-3-6-1-B) . So if it's not holding, could this be an illegal block in the back? C) The pass crosses the line of scrimmage, and because the passer is outside the tackle box, regardless of any receivers in the area, this isn't intentional grounding, right? D) We don't actually see #7 red go out of bounds and never get a replay, but the official on the sideline throws his hat at him, indicating the spot he did go out of bounds. If we assume he wasn't forced out (or was, but did not re-establish himself), that makes him an ineligible receiver, right? If the QB hadn't left the tackle box and instead threw from the collapsing pocket, and if I'm right that #7 is ineligible, would this pass in that scenario be intentional grounding?
  8. Clip 8. There was a flag thrown on this play, presumably for #85 black's contact with #95 white after they cross the hashmarks, but it was picked up and the referee said, "There is no foul for block in the back ... the block in question was legal." Why?
  9. Clip 9. #13 white was flagged for blocking below the waist against #32 red. Seems like the right call given the stark wording of 9-1-6-d: "After any change of team possession, blocking below the waist by any player is illegal except against a ball carrier." Given how many recent tweaks to this confusing rule there have been, I was surprised to see this be so straightforward ... it's really as simple as it looks in this situation, there's no consideration about the direction of the block or the original tackle box or even which team throws the block?
  10. Clip 10. Aren't both the ball and #66 red outside the low-blocking zone defined in 9-1-6-a, and if either is true, isn't this an illegal block below the waist? The rule says the zone is 7 yards to either side of the snapper, and from 5 yards beyond the neutral zone all the way back to the offense's goal line, so I drew up in MS Paint what I thought that would look like: at the snap, and at the block(the hashes are 13.3 yards apart and the ball is on the right hash, so it's easy to deal with the perspective problem by just putting 7 yards at about halfway between the hashes).
  11. Clip 11a, Clip 11b. It was trickier to draw these boxes because of the perspective issue, but I tried to be generous. Here's where I think the low blocking zone is at the snap and at the block. Let's go down the checklist for #34 red's block on #19 white. A) He's a stationary back inside the tackle box at the snap, so he can legally block below the waist within the low-blocking zone (9-1-6-a-1). B) However, both the ball and the block are outside the zone (I think), either of which mean he can't "block below the waist toward his own end line" (9-1-6-a-3), but he doesn't, that's clearly away from it. C) The ball or the block being outside the zone also means the block below the waist is only legal if it's from the front, meaning "within the clock-face region between '10 o'clock and 2 o'clock' forward of the player being blocked" (9-1-6-a-2), so for this part of the rule "front" is relative to the guy getting blocked (#19 white), not relative to the sidelines and end lines. D) So that's why this block is legal, it's from the front?
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