Hey all! Here are the rule change proposals for the 2014 Gay Bowl that your NGFFL board has voted on and passed along to your City Leaders to make the final decision for the league.
I want to remind everyone that because a rule is listed here, it doesn't necessarily mean that the board "endorses" that rule... it merely means that we felt the decision should be in the City Leader’s hands.
A simple majority passes each rule.
We will be contacting city leaders with a ballot soon!
Please email me if you have any questions: lburage@gmail.com
1. Allow players to wear hard billed caps backwards.
Rationale/benefits: Some players would prefer the option to wear a backwards hat. A vast majority of my officials don’t believe it is a safety risk. It has always been outlawed in Gay Bowl. It has always been allowed in Pride Bowl.
2. Change and clarify the illegal participation rule. The proposal would basically change what is the high school illegal participation rule to the college illegal touching rule (LOD at previous spot) for players that go out of bounds, return and are the first to touch the ball. That would also change the illegal participation rule to match NCAA rules and only penalize deliberate or intentional going out of bounds and returning to affect the play.
- An example of that would be deliberately going out of bounds to avoid a blocker.
- The previous rule made any going out of bounds illegal, even accidental steps out of bounds by defense, unless blocked out by an opponent and they returned “immediately.”
- The college rule reads: No eligible offensive receiver who goes out of bounds during a down shall touch a legal forward pass in the field of play or end zones or while airborne until it has been touched by an opponent or official. Exception: This does not apply to an eligible offensive player who attempts to return inbounds immediately after going out of bounds due to contact by an opponent.
Rationale/benefits: This more fits our level of football, in my opinion. It so rarely comes into play, and it is something that my officials have gotten better about watching for and calling lately – especially in the back of the end zone. Technically, our rules require any player that accidentally steps one foot out of bounds to immediately leave the field and/or no longer participate in the play. In the rare instances, most players don’t even realize that they have stepped out. This rule proposal would allow them to continue participating in the play (blocking, etc.), but they could not be the first to touch the ball after stepping out.
3. Modify current runoff rule to only enforce runoff on:
- Any foul that prevents the snap (e.g., false start, encroachment, defensive offside by contact in the neutral zone, etc.);
- Incomplete illegal forward pass;
- Backward pass thrown out of bounds to stop the clock;
- Any other foul committed with the intent of stopping the clock;
- A live-ball illegal shift foul by A.
Rationale/benefits: Due to a few unique situations in flag football, I proposed a different runoff rule than NCAA uses to include live ball fouls so that no time advantage could be gained by resetting the pucks, etc. However, after implementation and watching the impact on the field and discussing it with fellow officials and city leaders, I think that there are a few holes in that rule and I’m proposing to replace ours with the NCAA rule with one exception.
My exception is to include the live-ball illegal shift foul by A. This would address the issue of several A players “scrambling” to the line with just a few seconds left, and the QB snapping the ball before all players were set. The NCAA addressed this by making an illegal shift in which not all players were set before the snap dead-ball foul, while leaving an illegal shift where everyone was set and then two people then started in motion would remain a live-ball foul.
I have concerns about some of our more inexperienced LJ’s not being able to easily distinguish the difference, and that could lead to some very bad inadvertent whistles right where you don’t want them. So I think the way around that is just to make all illegal shifts the only live ball foul included in the 10-second subtraction rule.
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