The sanction of the mask in youth football

Can an offensive player be legally tagged for wearing a face covering in youth soccer?

Last season on one of the youth soccer teams I coached, I had a 10-year-old running back who loved to use his stiff arm. He wasn’t very fast or powerful, but he had good field vision. He could get to the open field quite often, but he rarely had the speed to go the distance. Therefore, he had to use other tools at his disposal to try to avoid the inevitable tackler. He over time developed a very consistent stiff arm.

The stiff arm in youth soccer

He usually likes to see the stiff arm used to defend against a diving tackler, with the running back’s hand fending off the tackler’s helmet on the way to the ground on his last attempt to “dive” into a tackle. However, most stiff arms occur when the running back places their hand on the tackler’s upper chest.

However, in youth soccer, that stiff arm can end up handballed almost anywhere. This past season, the aforementioned running back was penalized twice with an offensive penalty for face masking. I had never heard of that call before, but I assumed it was a valid call. At halftime, when I politely asked the official about it, his response was; “Every time someone touches the face mask, we’ll call him, his son didn’t grab it, but he can’t touch it.” After advising this back to keep his hands off the defender’s facemask, I thought nothing more about it until several weeks later, when the same back did the same thing, a glancing blow to the defender’s facemask (not understood). her) and the same penalty. This time I didn’t question it and put it down to poor execution and training on my part. The bad deal was that both penalties resulted in the nullification of gains of over 30 yards, one that could easily have cost us a very close game.

We play by the NFHS rules, which are the high school rules used by 48 of the 50 US states. There are a few little nuances when it comes to extra point kicks and punts for some of the age groups. younger, but we basically use the high school state rules for this league.

What the rules really say

In the offseason, I was looking for information on how to best train stiff arm and came across some interesting facts. It appears that the offensive player cannot receive a facemask penalty unless he grabs the facemask:

Outside of the NFHS rulebook:

Rule 9-4-3-h: No player or non-player shall: Grasp an opponent’s face mask or any edge of a helmet opening. PENALTY: Incidental catch (Art. 3h) – (S45) – 5 yards; grabbing and twisting, twisting or pulling facemask or helmet opening (Art 3h) – (S38, 45) – 15 yds.
9.4.3 Situation G: With second down and five yards to go from the B 30-yard line, A1 throws an eligible pass to A2. After the catch, A2 inadvertently grabs the opening in B1’s mask/helmet at the B 15-yard line as B1 attempts to tackle A2, who scores a touchdown. RULING: If B accepts the penalty for inadvertently grabbing the face mask/helmet opening by A2, the score is void. After enforcement of the penalty, A will go all-in first and 10 at B’s 20-yard line. It does not matter if the player holding the mask/helmet opening is on offense or defense. However, simply having the hand on the opponent’s face/mask or helmet is NOT a foul: the player must grab the face mask or helmet opening (casebook 9-4-3, situations H and J both address this). Therefore, most stiff arms to the facemask will not result in a flag, but if the running back grabs the facemask or helmet opening of the defender, then it will be a foul.

What that means for us as youth soccer coaches

Everyone makes mistakes, I do, you do and even the refs do it by accident from time to time. Now, I’m not suggesting that no one bother the refs or upstage the ref team in the middle of games, but this is a rule that some get wrong. A reasonable method of getting their attention would be to calmly discuss it with them at halftime if they messed up.