Question Regarding Punts

[Muhast]

Have you ever noticed, when a team punts and the ball is angled out of bounds, that the officials seem to have no idea where it actually goes out, and simply run to a spot that they THINK it may have went out at?

I am not talking about just Cowboys games. I remember playing in HS and College and it generally seemed like the refs have no clue, and just guess where it went out at.

Does anybody else notice that? And if any of you have ever officiated during a game, what is the general procedure for that? Is there any rule or plan on how to guess where it actually leaves the playing field at?

I've seen several times where a punt goes out at say the 18 or so, and the refs down it out of bounds a good 5-10 yards past that point. I would imagine it's a very hard call to make.

 

[csirl]

Procedure is as follows:

If one of the officials is not close enough or its difficult to judge, the deep official on the sideline backpedals/moves forward to close to where the ball went out. Referee then watches him with arm in the air and drops his arm when the official reaches the correct spot.

Difficult to explain unless you actually do it - but it works - uses parallax/triangulation to judge the position.