Crazy Finish to Michigan High School Game
 

http://www.opposingviews.com/article...p-r-1255543522

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Didn't see this posted anywhere yet, but wouldn't the holder be down when he picked up the ball?

If I was the official, I think I would've blown the whistle by assuming that he wasn't trying to advance the ball. But it would've been close.

The announcers kept talking about the kid's awareness, but he was just standing there until he finally saw the coach telling him to run.

It looked like his knee was up when he grabbed the ball.

wats with the pink lol...

Wow really? Maybe it's just me but it looked like it was down when he picked it up to me.

Either way, that's pretty weak. You've got to admit the silver team got jobbed in a bad way.

They found a way to lose that game. Reminds me of a familiar NFL team.

Were you only looking at the left knee? I thought the right one was clearly still on the ground. Either way, the officials screwed this one up IMO.

The announcer brought up the Iowa/Northern Iowa game. I guess the same rule applies, but when that happened I was blown away. I just know the conventional wisdom is that you stay away from a blocked kick like it's covered in swine flu. Looks like coaches are going to have to adjust.

you play till the whistle blows.

Ah a friend of mine who is a HS coach pointed this out.

The holder is exempt from the knee down rule. Otherwise, he'd be down as soon as he catches it with his knee already on the ground.

For that rule to apply to him, he'd have to take his knee off the ground and then put it back down again.

Clearly he just took his knee off the ground and then started running a few seconds later.

So it seems like this one is truly if the ref blew his whistle or not.

They even wear silver

Damn.
This is pretty cool, but this is a bit of a reminder that football is turning into a circus. The rules are almost too complex when coaches and kids can be playing the game for their whole lives and still have stuff like this happen. Every offseason they add change or modify rules and now we're too the point that teams are winning just because of how unintuitive a lot of the situations are, it's like the tax code.

thats why they have a whistle. you knock people out till the whistle blows loud and clear. It super easy to remember that part.

I have refereed High School football for years. Your friend is correct with the snap to the holder, who can rise from his knee for a fake. however, it looks that after the ball was kicked and blocked the holder retrieved the ball while his knee was still on the ground, which in this case would have established him as down. I will say it is EXTREMELY close on whether he was rising or not, and I was watching in in slow motion, so I would never hold a play that close a gainst a referee without the benefit of slow motion made available to him. I give major kudos to the referees in this game holding their whistle's, which would have nullified the play and made them retry, it is hard to swallow your whistle and let the play kill itself, especially in a game winning play like this one.

Is that still the case even after the kick is blocked? The ball is live at that point, and the kick has already taken place. Seems to me that he is just another player, and if his knee is down, it's play over (in HS and College).