Know Your Annoying Penalties: Illegal Formation
by Year2 on Aug 11, 2010 5:00 PM EDT
in SEC Football
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PrintTHE SETUP
Shortly after the snap, a yellow flag goes flying and the stadium sighs as it realizes this is probably a lost play. Inevitably, your running back will hit a crease and go for 17 yards or the quarterback will hit a wide open guy 25 yards up field. You shake your head as the team ends up walking five yards backwards from the previous spot, pondering whether lining up correctly is a problem in practice too.
WHAT IS THIS CRAP?
This rule is on the books to help provide structure for the game. I wouldn't be surprised if it was there for safety as well, to help keep the number of high speed collisions down.
When lining up in a formation, the offense must have at least seven guys on the line of scrimmage. You can have more than that, as you often see in goal line situations. However, you can't have fewer than seven. Since receivers are usually the ones who mess this one up, power rushing teams don't see this one as often.
This is a legal formation:
The five offensive linemen are on the line of scrimmage. So are the X receiver and the Y receiver, who happens to be a tight end. The Z receiver, quarterback, fullback, and halfback are all off of the line. Seven on; four off. Nothing is wrong with this formation.
This, however, is an illegal formation:
Here, the tight end moved off the line and back into the slot. This leaves only six men on the line: the X receiver and the five offensive linemen. One of two things was supposed to happen: either the Y or the Z was supposed to be on the line but had a brain fart and didn't.
There really isn't much excuse for one of these penalties. It's always a player's fault too because offensive coordinators don't draw up plays with illegal formations (or if yours does, he's even more incompetent than you thought). Maybe he's a noob who doesn't know his playbook yet, or maybe he just flaked out. Either way, he's up for a good chewing out session when he returns to the sideline.
One last bit of red tape: on a regular play, you have to have at least five guys on the line of scrimmage wearing a number between 50 and 79, inclusive. You can have more if you like, but never fewer than five. If you have less than five, that's also an illegal formation.
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About that red tape
Which official has the responsibility of checking jersey numbers of guys on the line of scrimmage? I can’t imagine this bit of red tape is ever actually enforced, if it is ever actually violated.
It’s never violated because no one ever tries. Every offensive lineman is issued a number between 50 and 79, and that’s that. A school would be stupid to give an offensive lineman a number outside that span because it would violate this easily followed rule.
The whole point is to help refs recognize who is who. If offensive linemen could wear any number, then they’d have to memorize every roster top to bottom. Instead, they know if No. 57 on offense catches a pass, it’s illegal and if No. 81 catches a pass, it’s kosher.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
This is why Gus Malzahn had a duck fit . . .
. . . when Lee Ziemba caught that pass.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Aug 11, 2010 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions
So have they changed the rules in the past few years
to remove any possibility of the tackle eligible play? Or does this just mean that it you would be required to have 6 guys numbered 50 to 79 on the line for one of them to be eligible?
I don’t know when the rule changed, but the NCAA rules don’t allow for tackle eligible plays. The NFL allows them if you alert the ref that the tackle is eligible and he announces it over the stadium PA system, but in college, receptions by anyone numbered from 50-79 are verboten.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Must have been since 2006
or else there’s more to the rules involving being behind the line of scrimmage and such that I’m not aware of (which is very possible, as I have demonstrated my very limited knowledge of the rules already). I still love Joe Kines for getting Andre Smith that touchdown catch in the 2006 independence bowl.
Thanks for the info, Year2.
that is a load of crap
it’s one thing if the LG does that, but it’s not okay if that happens cause of the TE
"JASON HEYWARD STRIKES AGAIN" :Strongbad
The requirement that there be a minimum number of guys on the line of scrimmage . . .
. . . is a safety precaution, although the number of players required to be there has varied over the years. It was part of football’s early 20th-century transition from rugby-like scrums and flying wedges to the game we know today. Before the requirement that there be at least a certain number of players on the line, teams hurled themselves at one another in phalanxes like ancient Greeks warring with one another.
Go 'Dawgs!
It was Teddy Roosevelt who spearheaded such rule changes, right? Because too many players were literally dying on the field, if I remember correctly.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Yep. That’s why it always amuses me when people say “If you took off the helmets and huge pads, you’d remove the feeling of invincibility and there would be safer, lower-speed collisions.”
"[T]here's only one team that has a chance to try to repeat." ~ Sean Payton
by AllSaintsDay on Aug 12, 2010 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions
Georgia/Florida '07
I always liked the illegal formation penalty Penn Wagers nailed Georgia with because he apparently forgot how to count.
(See also: Forgetting that Mohamed Massaquoi was a WR in Georgia/Tennessee ’08)
Ineligible receiver
Should do one of these for receiver eligibilty, just for fun.
In your example, if Y and Z were both on the line of scrimmage, and the X was off it, the Y would not be eligible since the Z is covering him. People will lose their minds over this penalty because they don’t understand that caveat of receiver eligibility.
by OrangeBritches on Aug 14, 2010 10:08 AM EDT reply actions
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