Coming up on 2H (11/24-11/25)

November 23, 2012

The fall season finishes up this weekend at Ford Field with eight MHSAA 11-player Football Finals, even-numbered divisions playing Friday and odds Saturday. And there are a variety of ways to follow the action. 

  • Check in to Second Half within hours after each game for coverage by Geoff Kimmerly and Bill Khan, plus links to photos and an embed of the full press conference. 
  • Go to MHSAA.tv to watch those press conferences streamed live. 
  • Visit our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @MHSAA. 
  • New this year: See some of what happens behind the scenes on our Instagram page. 

Be the Referee: Intentional Grounding Change

By Sam Davis
MHSAA Director of Officials

August 23, 2022

Be The Referee is a series of short messages designed to help educate people on the rules of different sports, to help them better understand the art of officiating, and to recruit officials.

Below is this week's segment – Intentional Grounding Change - Listen

New this year in football is a change to intentional grounding.

What’s staying the same? A quarterback in the free block zone – who throws a pass to an area with no receiver nearby – will continue to be flagged for intentional grounding. That’s a five-yard penalty and loss of down.

So what’s different? Now … a quarterback outside of the free blocking zone can legally throw the ball away as long as the pass lands past the original line of scrimmage. This used to be flagged for grounding, but is now legal.

In fact, this rule doesn’t just pertain to the quarterback. Any passer, outside of the free blocking zone, can throw the ball away as long as it lands past the line of scrimmage.