Drive-over penalties still being called

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by golddragon24

I talked with Mike, one of the referees late Thursday night. (I think. It could have been early this morning.) He said that a question had been raised concerning the interpretation of a word in the new rules. He was unsure of what the exact word was, but I believe it was the word "incidental." Specifically, their question was whether an situation where a team, for example, drives over a ball while trying to control it, is incidental, or if that counts as the teams fault. If a team could have reasonably avoided the penalty, is it incidental?

I definitely agree that there are a lot of penalties being called that are definitely incidental, and are completely random chance. It is nice to know the refs point of view though.

The rule update doesn't say anything about who's "fault" it is or if it might have been avoided. It says it is only a penalty if it is intentional, or if the driver does not clear the ball before proceeding with game play. It is pretty clear to any reasonable reader that the GDC's intent was to eliminate drive-over calls unless they were clearly intentional or were used as a tactic in playing the game. Splitting hairs about the meaning of the word "incidental" is just lawyering the update, as we are often told not to do. Referees should be looking for the obvious spirit of the rule, just as the students are asked to do.