Answering The Question

Since Friday night's game I have been bombarded with the question was it a legit fumble or should there have been a penalty on roughing the kicker.

Yes there was a fumble on the our last drive. A couple of tacklers were there and a third came up and punched the ball free.

Remember that last season a punched ball saved the Southwest Edgecombe game for us when Brian Goodwin ran their receiver down at the five yard line and from behind punched the ball free.

Even when Brian did his last season I think in the spirit of high school football any action using the fist should be a personal foul.

The rules doesn't cover any such action so in the context of the rules the fumble was legit.

The field goal according to Nick Hahula in the paper Saturday stated that he cramped up and was not able to follow through properly. Because the kick was low there was the appearance that it was blocked .

Even if the kick was blocked and the referee feels it was unnecessary roughness a call can still be made.

Does any body remember just a few years ago when Tarboro beat us over here I think it was in 2002? Their kicker dropped a punt snap and was running for his life and we tackled him and he fumbled or we blocked his kick while he was running then we picked the ball up and scored a touchdown only to be called for roughing the kicker even though he had been running with the ball.

If you think the Gryphons maybe didn't get a call when they could have-have you heard about what happened to Hillside.

Byrd was lining up to kick the winning field goal but Hillside blocked it on the last play of the game. The Hillside players were running in jubilation when a flag was on the field for roughing the snapper.

The rule book states that a snapper cannot be touched while his head is still down.

Earlier in the game Hillside had blocked a field goal by jumping over the snapper. The coaching staff at Byrd had protested and were told that as long as no contact is made with the center that was legal.

The final play the Byrd coaching staff instructed their snapper to raise up with his head down after the snap. Sure enough the player who jumped over the center hit him on the way to the block and here comes the penalty.

Byrd made the next kick to win the game.

Judgement calls are a part of the game. We can only hope that referees are doing the best they can and are not bias in any way for one team or the other while the game is in progress.

Everyone needs to move on. We lost to a good football team that took advantage of our mistakes.

We can only hope that the refereeing crew from Alamance County held no grudges on us.