USA Football Rules Editor Bill LeMonnier is a former college referee who currently serves as an ESPN NCAA rules analyst. Click here to ask Bill a question. Make sure to put “Ask the Official” in the subject line.

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Can you define face guarding and when it is a penalty? Also, at what levels is face guarding illegal?

Face guarding without contact is a penalty at the high school level only. Rule 7-5-10-b, page 62 of the National Federation of State High School Associations reads:  “Any player who hinders an opponent’s vision without making an attempt to catch, intercept or bat the ball, even though no contact was made … is forward pass interference.”

In this case, for high school games and youth leagues that use NFHS rules, a defender must make a play on the ball – or at least be looking back at the ball – and not just throw his hands up and attempt to get in the way.

At the college level, the rule requires contact. “Contact” is specifically mentioned in all descriptions of pass interference in Rule 7 of the NCAA manual.

This comes into play for an official on a judgment call. If the defender is making a play on the ball, some incidental contact is typically allowed. If the defender doesn’t look back, makes himself an obstacle and makes contact with the receiver, a flag can be thrown (an easy call most of the time). If the defender does not make contact, however, no flag.

In the NFL, by rule, face guarding is allowed but like at the college level that changes if contact is made.

How do they pick which officials work bowl games? Are they always from conferences outside the two teams playing? Also, how do officials get picked for the bowls they work?

All bowl games are officiated by neutral crews, meaning officials cannot work games played by teams from the conferences for which they regularly work.

Each conference has its own rating system to determine who goes to which bowl games. The conferences take the ratings for each referee, umpire, line judge, etc., and create “all-star” crews. These crews are then assigned to bowls based on their rankings and the bowls “prestige,” meaning the seven officials ranked No. 1 at their positions work at the biggest bowl game regardless of whether any worked together during the season or not.