JustRules

I learned recently there is a football showcase for players no longer in college but not currently on an NFL roster. There are 4 teams playing in Indy each week. The next games are this Saturday at 3p and 7p at Lucas Oil Stadium. The 3p game is nationally televised on Fox and the later game on FS1. https://thespringleague.com/ A couple local players on the rosters: Reece Horn (Linemen) - Cathedral/UIndy Deontez Alexander (Alphas) - Manual/Franklin

In NCAA you can fair catch anywhere inside the 25 and get it at the 25. It has reduced the number of returns in college, especially on kicks into the corner. I can see the NFHS rules committee adopting it if they want to reduce the number of touchbacks on kicks. They addressed a safety aspect by providing less of a running start, but almost every kickoff is returned in HS football unlike other levels where touchbacks were already much more common. I've never seen any actual evidence of a larger number or more serious injuries happening on kick returns compared to other plays, but it does make sense. Real data would be helpful though.

Not directly. You get it through your cable or streaming provider and most include it. I think you also get it if you have an ESPN+ subscription. I use the ESPN app on my phone or Roku or the ESPN web site on my laptop. The teams are Lindsey Wilson from Kentucky and Northwestern College in Iowa. Both teams are appearing in their first national championship game. It looks like this may be the actual link from your browser. https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/679663a8-9931-41d5-a7d7-b9499f9c637d

Admins may want to move this to The Next Level forum but I thought it would get a little better visibility here. The NAIA National Championship game is tonight at 7p ET on ESPN3. We received an email this morning from the IFOA letting us know the officiating crew consists of 7 officials from the Indianapolis area. These officials all worked HS football games in Indiana recently. Many of them worked games last Fall since their college season was delayed. They work primarily in the GLVC and Mid-States conferences during the season. The referee tonight was the back judge in the 2A championship game in November! Congrats to these officials for such a great honor.

I believe you are correct. Another thing the NFHS rules committee is big on is keeping the rules as simple as possible. Unlike the NFL and NCAA the NFHS has a wider variety of ability of officials. Learning all rules is complex so if they can keep things simple they will prefer. That doesn't mean all rules are simple, but if there is a way to keep things simple they will do it. In this case, any time a kick crosses the goal line plane it's a touchback and the ball is dead. In NCAA and NFL there are many other factors to consider (touched by receiving team, airborne vs. touching in EZ, free kick vs. scrimmage kick, etc.). Most levels are trying to reduce the number of kick returns so anything they can do to reduce the number will probably be strongly considered. Allowing returners to bring a ball out of the end zone would increase the number of returns. That being said, I think a returner should be able to bring a kick out of the end zone.

I can see both sides. Charging a nominal fee would still incentivize people to attend the game in person if they are local. It also allows the schools to generate some revenue for the athletic program including money to help cover any costs associated with the broadcast. But offering the stream for free is good to raise more awareness of casual fans and allow family around the country to more easily see their family member play. I appreciate the schools/services that make their games available on demand so we can watch the game we work to get additional views than what Hudl provides. It can help us review our work. Many were doing that.

Generally less concerned about numbering rules below HS if both coaches are aware. The same is usually true in frosh/JV as well. In a varsity game this is much more strictly enforced although I've had a couple games where we ignored it. One involved city schools and they didn't know which players would show until they got on the bus. Both teams had the same issue so they were fine with it. We had #75 throwing passes to #64. It was very strange. We also had a game that was in running clock mode where they wanted to send in #46 to play RG on the last couple drives. We did check with the other coach and he was fine. We could have possibly made him change jerseys, but there was no need to be strict under the circumstances.

Bob is correct in that you can still have a bunch kick as long as 4 players are on either side of the kicker. I believe the rules committed has considered and states are experimenting with a rule change to require a 2-yard spread between all players on the kicking team as well. That seems pretty hard to enforce other than "are the players generally spread out?"

I know Wayne, Washington, Warren all have excellent career and technology centers that are also open to neighboring districts. They have everything from "shop" classes to engineering to business to culinary arts to beautician. Students who attend these classes learn valuable skills and unique college prep opportunities.

Generally not true. The more you officiate the more those plays really slow down. It's often more about angle and judgement. You also only have 3 officials trying to watch 5 eligible receivers in routes. You try to focus on the likely match ups and go back and forth in your area of responsibility. The good news here is the IHSAA has full authority to modify OT rules. The NFHS publishes a recommended OT procedure that many states follow, but they are allowed to use whatever they want. I know of other states that start at the 20 or 25 instead. I believe some allow the defense to score on a turnover. I've never heard the IHSAA has seriously considered a change, but if the IFCA were to propose something I'm sure they would probably consider it. Yes, there are circumstances where the offense could be awarded a new first down and your example is one of them. Interestingly it will always be first and goal regardless of the situation. Let's say in your example the offense lost yardage through penalty or sack and were kicking a FG snapped from the B24 that results in roughing the kicker. The penalty would be half the distance to the B12 with an automatic first down. But it would still be first and goal and not first and 10.

As an official who schedules games 4-5 years in advance and then loses games regularly because conferences realign or change schedules I can tell you this happens often. Some years we've lost 3-4 games. Each year there is at least 1 game changed/cancelled.

All of these plans assume the premise the only way to have a successful season is to win a championship. There are other ways to measure success. High school sports are much more than just winning championships. My children all had wonderful high school athletics experiences and the most they won was a sectional championship. I've never officiated a state championship and probably never will. It doesn't mean I consider my officiating career a failure.

From what I understand this is true. Some states have expanded their interpretation to define "immediately" as requiring the blocker be in a 3 or 4-point stance at the snap. Indiana generally doesn't expand on what the rule says so as long as it's immediate it won't matter if they are in a 2-point stance.

Using your analogies I only need 1 of each of those (assuming 1 teacher per class). If I only demand the best/most qualified then I need only the #1 best anywhere in the world. That's obviously not logical. I want someone who is good and qualified and loves what they do. There could be other teachers or mechanics or financial advisors better than mine, but they may not be available or in my school or in my city/state. Are they qualified? If women are minorities are under-represented in any of those areas, I'm perfectly fine with their companies hiring/promoting them if they are qualified.

Absolutely. But again, all of those are subjective qualifications. In our D3 conference there are 42-45 staff officials. I would say at least 20-25 of them are eligible and qualified to work in D2. Some maybe a little more than others but any of them could do the job. And in the footprint of the GLVC there are 4 or 5 other NAIA/D3 conferences that have similar numbers of eligible and qualified people. That means there could be 1000 people with similar qualifications that be hired for the 3-4 spots available. As with any job there are going to be things that help put your name near the top of the list. Right now trying to have more minorities and more women and more fit officials are goals so the similarly or equally qualified people from those groups will be more likely to get the opportunities. There are situations where someone does advance well before they should, but they either rise to the situation and do well or struggle and are removed. It happens every year at all levels.

The officials who are advancing quickly have the merits and hard work as those who feel slighted. As with anything, the people who are hiring are basing it a lot on trust and the little they can observe. It's not unlike recruiting. Are the 2500 best athletes getting recruited to FBS and the next 2500 to FBS, etc.? Absolutely not. The recruiters are relying heavily on the information given to them by the HS coaches they trust, their individual meetings with people, and observing them either in person or on film. Is a coach's son or the younger brother of a current player going to get an advantage over someone else? Absolutely. Because you are taking less of a risk when someone you know and trust can vouch for them. Doesn't mean you always made the right decision, but that is human nature. Being the son of a current NFL/D1 official is a huge help. Being a former NFL/D1 player is a huge help. One of the biggest helps right now is appearance and physical fitness. Is that fair? Does it make you a better official to be fit? Marginally maybe because you may be in better shape. But thinner doesn't always mean better shape. But perception is reality. If you see a heavy guy out there officiating and he makes a potentially bad call, your first thought is going to be "he was out of position or he's too fat to do this." I have known several very good officials who didn't advance entirely because of their weight. Supervisors would pick other officials who were also qualified but not as good as the heavy official. Is that fair? No, but they are all honest about it. And fans don't want to see old or heavy officials on the court/field/pitch.

The levels aren't completely linear. It's not like the top NAIA program is below the bottom DII program and so forth. If you were to draw a graph of the teams top to bottom in each division there would be overlap. We are a little skewed here because of the success of Marian and St. Francis. They are like LSU and Oklahoma in FBS. They don't win it every year, but they are in the top 10 and capable of winning. UIndy has had a very good team for several years and would compete with many FCS schools. But they aren't top 10 in DII and thus very competitive with Marian and St. Francis. Mount Union, Whitewater and some of the top DIII schools would definitely compete with these teams as well but in general the NAIA teams are above DIII teams and below DII.

The issue there (similar to advancing certain officials) is the evaluation is subjective. There isn't a huge difference between the 5th best crew and the 20th best crew and maybe even the 50th best crew. Polling and tournament selection for the NCAA tournament are no different. Set up a process and use that process. That's what the IHSAA does. Their process is not intended to find the best crews. It's intended to assign a ranking number to each crew to make it easier to assign. In general the better crews rank higher and the really bad crews rank low. But the big pile in the middle get figured out by "popularity". Not necessarily those who intentionally create popularity but those who are the most involved. Officiate multiple sports, current or former coach or administrator, played college sports with a lot of coaches or administrators, lots of years of experience are all examples. And having that recognizable person as your referee makes a huge difference because that's the person on the ballot. But the IHSAA created the process and they follow the process and most of the crews working the last 2 rounds are good crews. They aren't necessarily the best 6-12 crews, but they are good crews that are well respected by a larger number of schools. The same thing is true of hiring and advancing officials. If a D2 conference has 4 openings there are many factors at play. There are probably 50 strong candidates to take those 4 spots. If a woman or minority is selected for one of those spots over someone who has been in that queue longer it's not that they aren't qualified or better/worse than others in the pool. They maybe just go the invitation sooner than they would have if they weren't a minority or male. There are plenty of examples of people who have benefitted from that for a variety of reasons. Some have definitely advanced before they were ready, but they almost always struggle. Some will rise up though and make sure they are successful. A former Colts player got into officiating a few years ago and LOVED it! He got on to a high school crew his first year. He was working toward getting into D3 college when he got a call inviting him to join the MVFC (D1-FCS). He had never worked a college game and they wanted him in D1! Is that fair to others? Probably not. But you have to understand why. He called me to ask what I thought he should do. He was afraid he wasn't ready for that level and may fail. I told him they feel he's ready and because of who he was they would probably give him a little more rope than others. He was an avid learner and very humble and he worked really hard at it! By all accounts he did well but did make some mistakes due to his limited experience. Unfortunately knee issues from his playing days caused him to retire, but I have no doubt he would have made it to the NFL as an official. Keep this in mind. Sarah Thomas advance a little quicker than others (especially that jump to D1). Yet it still took her 25 years of officiating to get to this point. It's not like she just started 5 years ago. There is no reason woman can't be just as good at officiating as men and getting more women involved will go a long way to alleviate our officiating shortage. We should be celebrating her accomplishments!

Correct but schools like Valpo and Butler don't offer athletic scholarships so they are closer to D3 schools. It would not be an upset if a decent NAIA team beat Butler or Valpo. NAIA football is Indiana is some of the best in the country. St. Francis and Marian have both won national championships in the last 10 years. Indiana Wesleyan is catching up. Taylor is generally competitive with those teams but hasn't become a consistent winner yet. St. Xavier, Sienna Heights, and Concordia have all been highly ranked out of that conference as well.

The block below the waist is called very differently across the country. Many other states have rules interpreters that give additional guidance on this to make it more consistent in their state. Some examples include: If QB is in shot gun can only block low in FBZ if starting in a 3-point stance If QB is in shot gun can only block low in FBA if defender is lined up head up or in an adjacent gap If QB is in shot gun can't low block at all Every year there are rules proposals to match those interpretations or adjust the definition of the FBZ or eliminate it altogether. What this change addresses is to remove the need to know if the ball is still in the FBZ when the block occurs when the QB takes the snap under center. There usually is very little time the ball stays in the FBZ as the QB drops back toward the back. He only has to go back about 2 yards from where he starts behind center to leave the FBZ. This makes it easier to be consistent with whatever interpretation your state uses and makes it the same regardless of under center or shot gun. No more delays before cutting allowed. I've had situations where there was a slight delay, but I couldn't remember if the QB was under center or in shot gun on that play.

Sarah has risen quickly in NFL terms to the Super Bowl in only 6 seasons. One of the other officials is only in his 7th season so it's not that unique. Most have more experience because it often takes that long to get to the top 2 or 3 spots in ranking to earn the Super Bowl spot. There are 17 crews so 17 people at each position. There are many NFL officials who never get the Super Bowl call just from a numbers perspective. #1 probably isn't rated that much higher than #6 so it's entirely possible she was #4 or #5 but not significantly different than #1. I would assume she's very possibly #1 though. She had worked several years at lower levels before reaching the NFL. She started officiating in 1999 so this is her 22nd year as an official. She went from HS to Conference USA in only her 10th season which is fairly quick. I'm not sure if she worked small college before that, but it's very likely. She spent 6 years in FBS which is not uncommon before being hired by the NFL. That overall progression isn't significantly faster than others. Most NFL officials probably have 15-20 years of experience before making that level. She's just on the bottom end of that group. Another group that is advancing even faster than she did is former NFL players. That's a great pool of people to pull from because they know what the NFL is about and usually still in good shape and athletic. One example is Terry Killens former Penn State and NFL LB. Terry started officiating in 2013 and was hired by the NFL in 2019. That is crazy fast. I met him at a college clinic probably in 2014 or 2015. Great guy and very humble about becoming an official. By all accounts he's doing a good job even with the limited experience. But most officials feel the risk to move someone that quickly is too high. Like many things experience and muscle memory are critical to being prepared for anything and the more you work the more likely you are to see more things.

Thanks for the mini-clinic Bob. Great job! I was expecting something different when I read all the comments before watching the video. The action the receiver makes here would definitely warrant an illegal motion if it's done before the snap and he's still moving forward at the snap (he could do this and level off again parallel before the snap). If you have this action strictly as turning up field before the snap you have a false start. If it's just him bending/curving forward at the snap then it's illegal motion. I thought it was close when I saw it the first time not expecting him to do this, but I agree with Bob it wasn't obvious enough to flag it. When I watched again and tried to stop it when he makes the first move, it's entirely possible the ball has already started moving. Adams should be careful on this because he could easily turn forward before the snap because he can't see behind him to know exactly when the snapper starts moving his hand. He's playing with fire and could easily get burned on this.

What you know as spearing is targeting in NCAA. That was an easy call on video but tougher to get in person as quickly as it happened and how it happened. The back judge is probably the only one would see the helmet contact and he's more focused on blocks in front of the runner at that point. The wings wouldn't have an angle and the umpire is straight lined from the other side and don't see the proximity of the defender's helmet. If the defender keeps his head up there is no foul there. The NCAA keeps that foul and keeps it punitive with the ejection because they still want to see that behavior change. Overall I believe the data has shown it has improved. This kind of hit is much more dangerous for the player initiating the hit than the one receiving the hit. Neck injuries and concussions are very common when using the crown of your helmet.

That is NCAA only and how it was handled in the Clemson game because he did not step out of bounds before catching the ball. But if he had signaled and not completed the catch before stepping out of bounds it would either be the return team's ball at the out of bounds spot if he touched it before stepping out of bounds (i.e. muffed or bobbled briefly before touching) or a kick out of bounds with all the options for that foul if he's already out of bounds when he touched it.

Thanks. That is definitely caught behind the LOS as most screen passes are. No chance for OPI on a play like this. It's possible a deep official would flag blocking downfield on a play like this because he has no idea where the ball is caught. He will check with the LOS officials and ask them where the ball was touched. That's why you see officials to huddle after a play. Each person is providing facts that build to the determination of what needs to be ruled or different officials have completely different angles on the same play. Angles are often much more important than distance.