Question about offsetting penalties
This question is about the play where Peoples-Jones was targeted after committing a block in the back penalty. On that play, Higdon picked up a 29 yard gain, and the block in the back would have been assessed at the spot of the foul, reducing Michigan to a 19 yard gain. When targeting was called, the penalties offset, so Michigan went from gaining 19 yards to...gaining none. Effectively Maryland gained 19 yards by committing the penalty.
I don't know if it occurred to the coaches or officials that assessing the penalty against Maryland was actually going to negatively impact Michigan. I'm sure that the referee ruling was correct (a rare phrase on this board), but is Harbaugh able to decline the Maryland penalty in that situation?
October 7th, 2018 at 11:50 AM ^
I thought the same thing. It's a weird situation where you are better off having a penalty on you and not the other team, but that seemed to be the case. I am curious if they would have been allowed to decline the personal foul.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^
OTOH, Maryland lost the player for the rest of the game due to the targeting ejection, so it's questionable whether they truly benefitted. Losing a player to save a bit of field position isn't a great tradeoff (unless it's the very end of the game).
October 7th, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^
I fully admit I am replying to this post in order to get my answer to the top (for people who read oldest-to-newest). Please don't hold it against me. ;)
The issue here is that there are two conflicting rules. 10-1(b) says "Any penalty may be declined, but a disqualified player must leave the game whether the penalty is accepted or declined." However, 10-4 says "If live-ball fouls by both teams are reported to the referee, the fouls offset and the down is repeated." It then gives three exceptions, none of which apply. (For completeness: it also incorporates two approved rulings, which don't apply either).
I don't know how to determine which of these two rules take precedence, so I don't know what the proper ruling is.
What I think needs to happen is that 10-4 needs to be amended to indicate that the ball should be placed at the basic spot after offsetting penalties, which, in this case, would have been the spot of the foul. That ensures that it is never to the defense's advantage to commit a foul. As it was, Maryland earned 20 yards of field position by committing a targeting foul, which is asinine and clearly not within the spirit of the rule.
In short -- maybe Michigan should have been able to decline the penalty, but the rules shouldn't have required them to do so in the first place.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
All right but why didn’t we just decline. The guy is still ejected for Targeting. We made a coaching mistake here.
October 7th, 2018 at 3:04 PM ^
Because the rules conflict, and I'm not sure whether or not they were allowed to decline by rule. 10-1(b) says yes, but 10-4 implies no.
October 7th, 2018 at 7:41 PM ^
They are not in conflict if you give it a more technical reading.
Note the differing words: Rule 10-1-1: "penalty." Rule 10-1-4: "foul."
Players commit fouls, teams are assessed penalties (sometimes) when one of their players commits a foul. Confusing, I know, but it's the key here.
So what 10-1-4 says is that if there are live ball fouls by both teams on a play, there is no penalty. What 10-1-1 says is that a penalty can be declined. What happened on this weird play on Saturday is that there were 2 fouls, they offset, so there was no penalty (other than the ejection) and therefore there was nothing to be declined.
Make sense?
October 7th, 2018 at 11:06 PM ^
OK, I can buy that. I stand by my opinion that the rules are wrong, but I agree that they aren't contradictory under your reading, which I think is correct -- at a minimum, it's internally consistent, and it would also explain why Harbaugh wouldn't decline the targeting penalty.
Perhaps this game will be the impetus to correcting this rule, as I can't believe the rules committee would be happy with the unintended consequences.
Thanks for pointing out the difference though. :)
October 7th, 2018 at 11:15 PM ^
You have 100 percent agreement from me: assuming the rule was properly enforced on Saturday, the rule is a bad one and needs to be changed. Maryland gained yards because they were called for a foul. No sane person would design a rule so that could happen, but here we are.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:52 AM ^
I remember being told a few years ago that you can decline Any penalty.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:56 AM ^
This also prompts the question: "If you decline a targeting penalty, is the player still ejected?"
October 7th, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
Other than dead ball penalties.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
No, that's not true. You can decline any penalty, even a dead ball penalty.
It happens sometimes that a team on the 1-yard-line takes a delay of game penalty to set up an easier angle for a field goal, only to have the defense decline the penalty.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
Wasn’t a dead ball penalty anyway.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
EDIT: Never mind, I think evenyoubrutus is right on the dead ball versus live ball penalties.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
In Jim Harbaugh's America, you can decline a penalty
October 7th, 2018 at 12:30 PM ^
The rulebook says an offsetting penalty can only be declined in several specific circumstances, none of which applied there.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:54 AM ^
yep. a definite screw up there; either by the refs or harbaugh.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
Im not 100% but I dont think you can decline a personal foul call, and I would guess 99.8% of the time you never would lol
October 7th, 2018 at 1:29 PM ^
Right, because even on a touchdown, Its enforced on the kickoff.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:15 PM ^
A personal foul may be declined.
Rule 10-1-1-b: "Any penalty may be declined, but a disqualified player must leave the game whether the penalty is accepted or declined."
October 7th, 2018 at 12:02 PM ^
I don't think anybody screwed up. The penalties were administered properly. Some quick research tells me that any penalty can be declined but I don't know what that does in the case of the targeting ejection. As well as the issue with the offsetting penalties. Maybe someone with football officiating experience can clear that one up.
EDIT: Some more research tells me that offsetting penalties where there is no change of possession cannot be accepted or declined because they offset. The down is automatically replayed from the previous spot.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
That's a bit of circular reasoning, isn't it? Easy to understand how pass interference and offensive holding would offset, hard to understand how your team being penalized 10 yards for your team's infraction can essentially turn into a 29 yard penalty because the other team committed a penalty on your team.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:54 PM ^
Not really. As soon as penalties on both teams are reported to the Referee, they offset and the down is replayed. The penalties are neither accepted or declined because as soon as they both happen, they automatically offset. Regardless of the outcome of the now non-existent play.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:04 PM ^
It's not circular reasoning, it's just the rule. Like the other poster said, by rule the penalties offset and the down is replayed. In certain situations, like this one, one of those teams is penalized more than the other, but that's just how the rules are written and tbh it would be too much work to break it down every time there are offsetting penalties.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
I agree that it's the rule, but it's a rule that should be changed, and I don't think it would be too much work to sort out. How often, with offsetting penalties, would either team prefer to have their penalty enforced while declining the opponent's? I can't think of any situation other than a downfield illegal block/holding paired with a defensive penalty. It seems like an easy exception to the rule to say "In the event of the offensive team's penalty being an illegal block or holding penalty more than ten yards beyond the line of scrimmage, the offensive team may decline the penalty on the offensive team, taking the result of the play and the penalty on themselves." Is there a situation where the defense could ever prefer to decline an offensive penalty?
October 7th, 2018 at 1:30 PM ^
ARTICLE 1. a. A penalty is completed when it is accepted, declined or canceled according to rule, or when the choice is obvious to the referee. b. Any penalty may be declined, but a disqualified player must leave the game whether the penalty is accepted or declined (Rule 2-27-12).
b - indicates any penalty can be declined. That rule does not state on exception for offsetting fouls. If there is an exception, the rule book should disclose it.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:33 PM ^
It's not an exception. Once the offsetting penalties happen, the down never happened. So there is nothing to decline.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:13 PM ^
"the down never happened". those are your words, not the rulebook. the rulebook should, indeed, disclose an exception here, but it doesn't.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:40 PM ^
Here's what the rule book does say (10-1-4): "If live-ball fouls on both teams are reported to the referee, the fouls offset and the down is repeated."
Note the words: "reported to the referee." They chose "reported to the referee" rather than "accepted" as the wording.
So as soon as the referee becomes aware of a foul on Team A and a foul on Team B, then that's it--the fouls offset and the down is repeated. No mention of a possibility to decline the foul.
Yes, that is obviously broken and needs to be fixed.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:56 AM ^
This and awarding teams unearned yardage/possession are two things I can't stand about college football rules. if a team is stopped on 3rd down but a defender commits some infraction after the play or away from the ball, it makes no sense to me to then give the ball back to the team that failed to convert, plus and a fresh set of downs and additional yardage. there has to be a better way.if the infraction was during the play or it affected the actual play somehow, fine. but if it occurred after the play or away from any relevant part of the play, then make it a personal foul on the offending player, or even eject him like we do with targeting. either one of those options is much better than potentially changing the outcome of a game based on something a team did not earn.
October 7th, 2018 at 11:57 AM ^
Hmm interesting situation there but Maryland does indeed gain in this situation. By rule, penalties offset leading to a replay of the down and the player is ejected, the spot foul on Michigan, holding, is nullified as well as the personal foul and the down is replayed. Unless they change the rules to give automatic first downs on personal foul/targeting calls, thats just the way it is I guess. Luckily our offense was able to execute and minimize the impact of the call.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
Maybe enforce both penalties? Without the personal foul, the block in the back was going to be enforced from the spot of the foul. So March off the block in the back and then march off the personal foul. Michigan (or any team) nets 5 yards in the exchange in most cases. In this case, they also gain a chunk of yards since the block in the back occurred 30 yards down field.
Michigan started the play at their 43. The block in the back occurred at around the 13 as well as the targeting. Walk off 10 to the 23 and then walk off 15 or half the distance to 8 or 12 yard line.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
That's how I felt it should have worked
October 7th, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
I don't actually know if you can decline a targeting penalty. Given the nature of a targeting penalty (designed to protect players), I could imagine that it can't be declined. Otherwise, I imagine the staff would have done so. Harbaugh himself said that it was a weird situation where committing the penalty actually benefited Maryland in this particular case as the rule is read (offsetting live ball penalties lead to a replay of the dime from the previous spot).
October 7th, 2018 at 12:00 PM ^
to decline it you have to wave your arms side to side
October 7th, 2018 at 12:05 PM ^
The whole sequence from when Tru got called for holding and that negated the people jones TD, to the targeting call had me upset about the officiating. I hate when officials feel like they have to make their presence known. At first I thought the call on Tru was BS but on replay it did look like he held the defender on the waist and caused him to fall down. Then I thought we lost both Nico and people jones to injuries, and I was getting angry, luckily we came out alright though.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
You can decline a targeting penalty and the player is still ejected.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
Man, DPJ got lit up on that play, Im glad he was alright and came back and scored a td after that but man was that a hard hit.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
I don't know if you can decline a targeting penalty, but given that it comes with an ejection, I probably wouldn't have. A Maryland guy missing the rest of the game is probably worth more than 19 yards.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:12 PM ^
even if its the difference between an eventual TD versus a FG attempt that you might not make?
October 7th, 2018 at 12:14 PM ^
Well, I don't have a crystal ball to know what the rest of the drive is going to look like. But the way my team is moving the ball, I'm confident we'll score anyway there, and I like them being without one of their starting defenders for the rest of the game.
I think the 19 yards are worth more only if you think your offense won't get back to that position again, which in this case would have been an odd conclusion.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
It's possible the rules are so poorly written that they don't properly anticipate this situation, though I find that hard to believe. I would think that it should be possible to decline the yardage enforcement of the targeting foul (as in, pretend it didn't happen) and take the play as happened, including the offensive penalty. It's likely that the officials and Harbaugh together didn't know the option. Weird though that since there was a delay to review the targeting, they couldn't use that time to figure it out.
Personal Fouls should be treated as dead ball fouls though and enforced separately from normal penalties. The 15 yard penalty is a reflection of the serious nature of the penalty, and it should not be negated by a minor infraction. So it would be the DPJ block enforced first, to move the ball back from the 13 to 23, then the targeting, half the distance to take the ball to the 11.5.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:24 PM ^
I agree with your second paragraph. It's weird though, that you think the officials and Harbaugh and the rest of Michigan's sideline don't know the rules while you're only guessing what they are.
October 7th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
My base assumption was that the rule was not as broken as it is. After further reading thanks to replies above, it is clear that it is, and I shouldn't have thought the officials and coaches did not know the rules. Apparently they did, and there was nothing that they could have done to improve the situation.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:21 PM ^
I am so glad you posted this I have been thinking about this since yesterday we basically got penalized because they decapitated People's Jones. And and watching the game on the Big Ten Network in 60 minutes today the official announced that Michigan have reached the yard the game and it was a spot foul so it would have been 10 yards from the spot of the foul which was around the 11-yard line because then they committed the personal file we ended up losing everything in the end of didn't matter we scored on that drive anyways but that's not the point
October 7th, 2018 at 1:22 PM ^
The question we had at the game is can you not refuse the targeting personal foul call because had we refused that then we would have had the ball down at around the 20-yard line
October 7th, 2018 at 1:27 PM ^
But it's the same as when we scored and they committed personal foul and they mark the yardage off on a kickoff which means you just kick it into the 40th row of the stadium so again how were they penalized on that