The Annoying Clingy Woman’s Quick Guide To Football

I thought I’d help the ladies out this football season. There are a lot of college bowl games coming up, and this is for all you clingy women who can’t stand to spend those two and a half hours away from your man. If you’re going to burden him with your presence over his homeboy’s house to watch the games, at least know what the hell is going on.

Here are a few basic tips that you will need to know.

That blue line that goes across the field is the line of scrimmage. That is where the play will begin. The determination of the line of scrimmage in the beginning of the game is based on where the receiving team catches the ball, or the placement of the ball after the punt receiver finishes his run. So if he catches the ball and runs to the 25 yard line and is tackled, the line of scrimmage will be at the 25 yard line. If a play has started and the running back or receiver is tackled, where the ball goes down at, that is where the line of scrimmage will be. Say there is a 15 yard penalty imposed on the offense, but the receiver caught the ball at the 50 yard line. Well the line of scrimmage will be at the 35 yard line because you have to subtract those 15 yards that was lost.

What is that yellow line across the field? The yellow line is where the first down is. A team receives a first down when the ball has been advanced ten yards from the line of scrimmage. If you forgot what the line of scrimmage is already, I strongly suggest you kick it at the mall while he’s watching the game, because you’re going to be a pain in the butt.

Each time an attempt is made to reach a first down unsuccessfully, it is 2nd and however many inches to the first down, or 3rd and however many inches to the first down. A team has four attempts to make it to the first down successfully, or they have to punt the ball to the other team. Each first down means that the team can continue advancing toward the end zone because they get another set of four downs. For example, if the team is ten yards away from the end zone, they have four tries to get into the end zone. If it is their third try and they still haven’t made a touchdown, it becomes third and goal. They have one more try (you’ll probably see special teams run onto the field to kick a field goal)

Once the ball has been “hiked”, the quarterback must run with it, hand it off to a running back, or pass it. He must pass it behind the line of scrimmage and he must throw the ball forward and he can only do this once. After he passes the line of scrimmage, the ball can be thrown sideways or backward, but it can’t be thrown forward again.

One of the big controversial issues in football occurs with the close calls in the endzone. A touchdown occurs when the ball crosses the plane and the player must have complete possession of the ball. So if a player is on the corner of the endzone and the ball is in his hands and he passes his arms (with the ball in it) through the endzone, then it’s a touchdown. These rulings are very controversial.

Some common penalties in football are:

False start: somebody moves before the ball is snapped and after they have been in their set position. I think the penalty is five yards? I’m not sure

Off sides: Before the ball is snapped, a player moves forward…often cause by movement of a player on the opposing team. Penalty is five yards. Now if somebody on the defense jumps across the line of scrimmage, but jumps back into his place before the ball is snapped, there is no penalty.

Intentional grounding: The quarterback throws the ball away intentionally to avoid being sacked or pushed back behind the line of scrimmage which would result in a loss. Penalty is the loss of a down

Holding: a penalty against the offense when they grab on or tackle a defending player (10 yard penalty)

Pass interference: a defensive player keeps an offensive player from catching a pass that has not been touched by anyone else. (this is when the referee rolls his arms and makes a pushing gesture) Penalty is an automatic first down.

And of course there are other penalties like roughing the kicker, late hit, crowd noise, advancing a dead ball, face mask, celebration (like throwing up their fraternity sign in somebody’s face after making a touchdown)

Now, when a team gets a penalty in their favor, the coach can either accept it or decline it. For example, line of scrimmage is the 5 yard line. The quarterback throws a completed pass to the 30, but there’s a flag on the play. Let’s say the penalty is 10 yards. The coach will decline the penalty and the play will stand. What that means is if he had accepted the penalty, the penalty would be tacked on at the line of scrimmage, so the play would have ended at the 15 yard line, but the quarterback actually threw the ball further than the 15, so it would be stupid to accept the penalty and backtrack to the 15 yard line when you ended the play on the 30.You would lose 15 yards. Now let’s flip it and say the line of scrimmage was the 5 and the quarterback handed it off to the running back and he made it the 8 yard line. Same penalty. The coach would accept the penalty because those yards the other team was penalized would put him 7 yards further than where the play stopped.

Flags: The referee flag is yellow. If you see the yellow flag come out there is a penalty. (I think there is a white flag too??? but I don’t know what that one means.) The coach’s flag is red. If the coach throws his flag out that means he is challenging a call. In college football, the coach can only throw his flag out once. In the NFL, well we all know how much Jon Gruden (Tampa Bay) throws his flag out there, so you get the idea. A coach will throw out his flag say if a pass in the end zone was called as no good, but everybody and they mama saw the player land both feet in the end zone, chill, take a couple of pictures with some fans, sign a few autographs, talk to his agent, take a couple thousand dollars from some alumni to buy some “books”, get a few numbers from some groupies, and then go out of bounds.

There’s a lot more to football…but these are just some of the basics. Please go home and practice on a few Saturday College games before you crash his buddies Rose Bowl party and start screaming out “Pass Interference” after a botched field goal attempt. I would really hate for all my hard work to be in vain.