Any official on the field can stop the clock, only the referee in the offensive backfield can wind it to start again. Agree it was the wrong call, but was not the clock operators issue
This is from the "Ask The Ref" thread.
"Last night at the Elder-X game after an Elder play late in the fourth quarter the official at the play (not the referee) waved his arms to stop the clock. There seems to be some disagreement from the posters as to whether he then changed his mind and signaled to start the clock. In any case, the clock operator did not restart the clock until the next snap, which gave X an extra 15 or so seconds when they got the ball for the last time. They kicked the tying field goal with 0:06 left.
A friend who operated a clock on the high school and college level told me that before every game he would go to the officials' dressing room to introduce himself and ask them what they wanted him to do in case he saw them make an obvious error with the clock. Over 95% of the time they told him just to do what they told him to do or, if they didn't tell him to do anything, to do nothing.
He also said that there are some instances in which only the referee can restart the clock but in a case such as this, where the clock was stopped in error after the play, any official can restart the clock. He said that if an official mistakenly stopped the clock he would look at all the other officials to see if any of them caught the error and signaled to restart the clock. If none of them gave a signal he did nothing and started the clock on the next snap.
Clearly, last night if the official who stopped the clock initially then restarted it then it should have been restarted and the clock operator missed it and was at fault. If no official signaled to restart the clock then the clock operator probably did the correct thing.
What is your take on all this? Thanks."
"If an official mistakenly stops the clock, he can (and any of his crew manners) signal to restart the clock. If the clock does not start promptly the crew then should signal an official time out. If the crew knows (with 100% certainty) what the clock should read, the R then should either announce (if wired with a mic) or communicate to the timer to set the clock accordingly.
When the clock is set to start on the ready for play signal, the R has primary responsibility for winding the clock with the with the wing official on the press box sideline mirroring his signal."
