You can play when the opposition has the ball. Just not during the actual play. Like the policy states, when a team breaks huddle, band is supposed to stop. If no huddle, when center is over the ball, band is supposed to stop.
Like you said, it's not enforced most times.
I've seen it flagged once before last night. In one of the deep round playoff games last season, a band was flagged at a critical time, and it affected the outcome of the game.
In another game last season, where I was in attendance, a band was warned to stop playing, but there was no flag thrown.
I don't know how critical last night's band penalty was, there were so many penalties trading back and forth during that time.
Yes, it's FB Crawford.
First year of varsity play. No senior class. 4A DI for this alignment but most likely will move up to 5A DII or DI next realignment.