JustRules

Don't use HS rules and philosophies on it because I've seen very similar action called DH in many NFL games. Not sure what element of it is a foul but it could be any contact at the time of a route cut could be a foul. Different league different rules.

That act is called defensive holding in the NFL. Not sure if their rule or philosophy is different or there is something about it we aren't picking up on. Us HS officials are in no position to determine if that call was correct or incorrect per NFL rules.

Your local association would also be a great resource. Reach out to your football chair. They usually have a good feel for which crews are looking for new members. This is a networking profession!

Not from what I've heard. We have some MIC games on our schedule the next few years involving Carmel and CG, and I'm being told they will likely not change.

Looks like we agree. So many people are saying the touchback was by far the worst are option are not accurate. They were all very likely to succeed but required execution. The other options had a similar risk of low failure. They all should have worked. Just because this one didn't work had little to do with the decision to kick it into the end zone and more to do with the failure of the defense to make one play.

The squib kick could have been recovered and immediately downed depending on where it was recovered. I've also seen squib kicks that hit the back of a receiving team member sooner than expected and recovered before the 40. The risk of a pooch kick is it could be fair caught with no time off the clock (or 1 second) in better field position than the 25. If it's hear the sideline it also has the risk of going OOB giving them the ball at the 35 or further depending on where it goes out. None of the options are risk free so pick the one you feel the most comfortable doing. Just because this one didn't work in this case doesn't mean it was the wrong option or that one of the other options would have worked better. KC had to make two awesome plays to get in position for the tying FG.

If Hill somehow got that kick and returned for a TD or long enough to set up the FG they would have been skewered for that. Or if the kick had gone OOB the Chiefs would get the ball at the 40. As a coach you have to pick one and realize good or bad could happen either way. The one he picked turned out to not work, but that doesn't the mother options would have worked.

I agree with this. These officials work together at clinics and pre-season camps, attend the same meetings, and often change crews year to year. Mixed crews in the NFL is very different than mixed crews at the HS level. I also believe the NFL philosophy is to make this a catch even if the whistle blew shortly before the catch. The only other time I remember this happening was a Patriots game a few years ago. Brady had rolled out to the near side and threw a pass downfield. It was caught and the receiver advance several yards and possibly a TD. The defensive coach was on the near sideline and he was upset about something (missed hold maybe?). He actually got in front of the wing official during the play. This distraction caused him to blow his whistle while the ball was in the air and just before the receiver caught it. They ruled the whistle had no impact on the catch so they awarded the catch but not the advance. I believe they were supported on that ruling. Rules can be complex but they don't always address every combination of every situation in a game. That's why it's so important for the officials to know the intent and philosophy of the rules to handle situations like this.

Great reply SenatorFan. It's entirely possible many fans don't realize how they contribute to the abuse of officials and words like "robbed" have very specific meaning. You personally aren't responsible for our shortage but comments like the ones you made collectively do. It's important to point that out when we see it. Less of a concern but something to consider as well. Judgement calls are just that. The official making the call has training, rules knowledge, mechanics knowledge, philosophy knowledge all in their tool box to see what they see and make a judgement. Angles and other players in the way contribute to that judgement as well. In many cases these types of judgements will not have a right or wrong answer. Even with the benefit of excellent video you could have disagreement among officials on judgement calls like this. That's why many officials who respond to plays like this are going to support it even if they think they may have had a different judgement on the field. In this particular play most of the officials I've talked to have said they felt it was the right judgement but others say they would have let it play out a little longer and rule TD. Most of the latter group though also said they would have also flagged the other UT player for assisting the runner. That is a huge assertion because that's a very rare foul and needs to be huge. I'm sure there are officials out there who feel this should have been a TD with no foul for assisting the runner, but I haven't talked to one yet. And trust me, this play is a huge point of conversation among officials around the country. The difference is we recognize this as a difference in judgement and not an "I'm right and you are wrong" situation. When a call is blatantly wrong is when the rule is misapplied or an official is out of position to make a call. These are things the officials often notice but fans rarely see. I always find that fascinating. For example, there was a play in the Sugar Bowl where Baylor QB/RB missed a handoff and they ended up with a busted play. The QB scrambled and found a receiver for a pass that gained about 9 yards. The LT had gone to the second level to block when he realized it was a busted play. At that point he was 6-7 yards downfield. He ran back toward the LOS before the pass was thrown. The announcers noted it, but commended him for getting back before the pass was thrown. Unfortunately that is wrong by rule. This was a miss by the crew that did not involve judgement. 6-7 yards is well beyond the allowed 3 yards and it was well before the pass was thrown. The U and probably the L will get downgrades on this. So yes, have an opinion on calls, but also understand when it's a judgement call or a rules application that is more black/white. Disagree with the call but realize it's not necessarily right or wrong. Also realize you may not completely know or understand the rule. Bobref's intent in sharing thoughts on these posts is to educate, and I think he does an excellent job. I try to do my little part as well.

Hilarious but he will probably be reminded to turn his mic off before doing that next time. Shawn is a great guy, and I'm sure he'll get a lot of positive run on this.

Agreed. For many teams winning a sectional game is a great accomplishment. Or a sectional final or regional final. You don't need a situation where every team has a fair shot to win a state final. Schools are getting rid of valedictorian and top 30/50 designations because it creates too much stress to accomplish or doesn't spread the love enough to more students. That implies not achieving those things is failure. That's now how education should work. That doesn't mean systems can't be tweaked. But if you keep changing it so everyone has a legitimate shot at a championship you remove a key purpose of high school athletics. I'm good with class sports so there are more than 1 opportunity to win a championship. But we don't need 7 or 10 or 12 classes to do it.

If you have an 8-team playoff, the 3v6 and 4v5 games would be good. Maybe 5 and 6 win those games and match up better with 1 and 2 so we have better semi-finals. Or go with a 12-team playoff so the first round is 5v12, 6v11, 7v10, and 8v9. Those would all likely be very good games as well making the overall playoffs entertaining. And teams 5-12 have far fewer teams opt out to start their NFL draft prep or enter the transfer portal. Same would be true for a 24-team playoff which I actually prefer. FCS uses 24, D2 uses 28, and D3 uses 32. There are many very good playoff games at those rounds. Once they figure out how to generate more revenue from 11 or 23 playoff games compared to 42 bowl games and appease the 60+ teams that don't get a postseason opportunity this will happen.

We need to get away from using the word "robbed" in situations like this. It implies the official intentionally made the call incorrectly to benefit Purdue. That questions the credibility of the officials and calling him a cheater. That is absolutely not true. This is a judgement call and it's perfectly understandable to disagree with the judgement. The proliferation of this kind of accusation by players, coaches, fans, and media indirectly contributes to the departure of younger officials and leading to a shortage. If you don't see the connection between comments like this and youth games having to be cancelled or high school varsity games being moved to Thursday or Saturday then I'm not sure I can hlep you. This is such a valid point. I've seen arguments like this posted on line and shared by so-called experts (didn't help the live announcers used it as a point). When I see someone using this argument to indicate it should have been a TD they lose any credibility with me. At least know the rules if you are going to voice your opinion of the call. Progress is as much an art as a science. There are is absolute or black and white on this. There are key things you try to use to apply it consistently but those aren't absolutely either. For example, if he's still churning his feet you let it go. But in this case he's lying on top of a defender and I don't think he's feet are giving him much leverage. This official was in this game for a reason (this was the #3 bowl game for the ACC including the national championship next week) and the covering official was in the NFL development pool. He's more than qualified to make this call and was very confident in making the call. I'm good with that. But this wasn't an obvious call either way. You are not incorrect to argue he could have let it play out. That brings up another issue listed below. You can PUSH a runner or pile, but you can't PULL a runner. It's a rare call because it rarely happens and if you are going to call you need to make sure it's huge. On a 4th down play in OT it really needs to be huge. Did it truly impact the play? If you are going to let it play out here and you feel that pull allowed the runner to extend his arm with the ball then you can absolutely flag it here. If they had ruled TD and flagged him for assisting the runner, UT gets to replay the down from the 6. If you are flagging it you are saying the only reason UT scored was because his arm was pulled enough to free it to extend to the goal line. So UT benefits by getting another down even though they were stopped short and committed a foul that led to a score. If that happened and UT scores on the replay of the down it wouldn't have surprised me to see a call for assisting the runner to become a loss of down penalty. The other things I this this shows in regards to progress though is this player pulling him doesn't help get his body any further forward. That's a pretty good indication his progress is stopped. That's why I think from an analysis standpoint watching the replay multiple times I like the call made on the field. It's not an invalid argument to say his progress wasn't stopped and continue to let it play out. But only one opinion ultimately matters. If this official is hired by the NFL in the next couple years we'll know the powers that be are good with his judgement.

I expect that once they decide to go beyond 4 teams the idea of neutral sites (especially using bowls) will move to hosted sites. Expecting a team's fans to travel to a conference championship game, and 3 playoff games will be very difficult. Having 3 week of playoff games will take more attention and interest away from the lower tier bowl games. If there are 12-16 playoff teams the interest in the lower bowls will be even less, and I don't see how they remain. Ultimately an expanded playoff will result in a decision to move from a bowl postseason to a playoff postseason. A 16-team playoff system doesn't assume all 16 teams have a realistic chance to win the championship. We don't have that expectation for the 68 teams in the basketball tournament or the 14 teams in the NFL playoffs. For some teams it will be considered a success to make the playoffs and have a crack against one of the top teams. For some teams it will be a great accomplishment to be the 11th seed and beat the 6 seed on the road. The championship team will likely come from the top 4-6 teams which is fine. I love the bowl games so I'm perfectly fine with the current set up. The fact that players are opting out of the games to prepare for the NFL (I don't fault them at all) shows the importance to many has become much less. I think it's time to scrap bowls and go to an expanded playoffs like FCS, D2, and D3 do.

The HCAC has 6 crews so 42 staff officials. I would estimate about half of them still work on a HS varsity crew and some of them are in Ohio. Some of the others keep their HS license but aren't likely to work HS sub-varsity any longer. There are also 20-25 D1/D2 officials and some of them still maintain a HS license to work an occasional HS varsity game. There are also 10-15 HCAC applicants who may keep their Saturdays open to tag along with a college crew or be available in case there are last minute needs for subs. With over 900 licensed HS officials the impact of the college officials is minimal.

In this case I'm not sure what the reasoning is for not allowing a kicking team member to advance a kick. The only exception is a scrimmage kick recovered by the kicking team behind the neutral zone. I've never heard the logic of there being no defense to stop them on a punt (scrimmage kick). I don't see that logic because there's no defense to stop them on a sack/fumble either. My assumption is it's related to intentionally giving up team possession by way of a scrimmage kick or free kick. It could also be to simplify the rules to not allow advancement if A, B or C exist but allow it if D, E or F exist. What would be your cut off for advance a free kick you define as an onside kick? 10-20 yards beyond the free kick line? What if it's a pooch kick they recover at the 20? Should the kicking team be able to advance that kick? Would you argue that a kicking team should be able to advance any free kick they recover? Why not scrimmage kicks? Ultimately the best answer is because it's always been the rule. But that's not the answer you want.

It kind of exists already anyway since advantage/disadvantage comes into play. But it's still a lower threshold than the NCAA or NFL rule. Action that would not be a foul at those levels would be a foul in HS. Even at those levels it's applied very rarely so I don't feel it formally needs to be added to the HS rule. As for automatic first down and spot foul less than 15 yards, I'm for both of those 100%!

I agree. As Bobref has posted several times, this is a zero-sum game. Anyone who doesn't get assigned will feel the the process is unfair and can show it by leaving. We don't gain anything by using this as a collective justification for changing the process. The same number of officials/crews will be upset. It will just be a different group. I have friends in college and NFL officiating and they complain about their rating and post-season assigning process as well. Yes, the process needs to be updated, but retention of officials is not a primary reason. The other comment about having to "start over", they technically do. A crew who worked a state final is only eligible for a sectional final the following year just like every other crew. They often return because they are still getting the votes required to advance. Crews that only get 1 or 2 games need to realize the crew working regional and beyond aren't the ones they are "competing" against. They are competing against the crews getting the 2nd round and sectional final games. At that level performance has more of an impact than the number of votes. But there are still a limited number of games and good crews will be excluded no matter what.

Congrats on a great career and good luck with your retirement! I had the pleasure of working with you once. 40 years of of high school teaching and coaching is a great accomplishment. Thank you for all you've done.

Do you officiate basketball by chance? I believe "legal guarding position" is term used in basketball. I was able to find that clip and I think that should have been a DPI. There is definitely a restriction and a version of a hook and turn. It does appear to start before the ball is thrown, but if it was still occurring with the ball in the air it will become DPI. In this case the foul ruled is not critical as both with be half the distance penalties and result in a first down as enforcement is beyond the line to gain. The H probably should have gotten there quick enough to see this. It's not easy to do, but if he's doing his job well he would get there in time. The U would pivot to help with catch/no catch but would not rule on anything DPI or DH related. If the B has good periphery they would get there quicker as well even though their initial focus is on the other side of the field. This play is an example of the benefit of a 7-man crew in the playoffs or at least state championship. There would be a side judge on the pylon and this receiver would be his key. He would have him from the snap and would have a great view of this. Hopefully we'll get there eventually. There are always a handful of plays in each game where having deep wings make it much easier to get a call correct. You are going to have holes in 5-man.

The timing of any restriction is important to a foul occurring. If it happens just as the ball arrives it's not necessarily a foul. Those are referred to as "bang-bang" plays and you usually don't have a foul. If the official got there just as the ball arrived and see a grab, he's going to have to guess if the contact occurred before the ball arrived. If an official guesses and makes a call, they are going to wrong a lot more than they are going to be right. These are the types of things officials have to process all the time every game. If the official is being graded, he may still get downgraded for missing the call even if he did everything right. He could also be downgraded for mechanics if the call was right, but he was out of position or should have been looking at this action much sooner. I haven't seen the play (the 1:25:30 mark is a halftime interview with the coach) but Bob's judgement comment is likely spot on based on the descriptions I've read. Was there a grab that constitutes a material restriction? Did it take a step away or prevent an opponent from moving toward the ball? If it's after the ball was thrown, what category of DPI do you put it in (there are 6)? If there was restriction was it before or after the ball had passed the receiver? If before you have a DPI. If after you don't have DPI but could have a personal foul depending on how late or unnecessary. Those are all judgement decisions the official has to make based on what his or her eyes tell their brain. They will often replay it again in their mind before making a decision. That is what is meant by a "judgement" call. It's not black and white like other things.

I believe they were using schedules provided by Arbiter and Eventlink so it's very possible you showed up that way for the scrimmage teams. All of our votes were from schools we have worked since 2018 so we must not have had any write in votes. A couple of them were scrimmage teams but we also had them in regular season games in the past 3 years. If the scrimmage teams were included in the vote, we got votes from 45% of the schools eligible to vote for us. I'm not sure if the schools were told which game we worked. They aren't going to remember the name of every crew who worked each game. It would be very interesting to see the rates of votes crews received. I'm also wondering if the spread of write in votes was different than non-write in votes. I'm assuming most write-ins were positive. Could be a coach or AD who moved to that school were familiar with you. Or they saw you work. Or they are friends with a coach who suggested you were solid crew that earned a positive vote.

It's not the 1 votes that hurt you. It's the volume of 5 votes and distribution of 2-4 votes. To advance to a sectional final you generally need as many 5 votes as the others combined. At 128 you were very close to getting a first round game. The rating is for the crew and only the crew chief has access to it. The highest and lowest score are thrown out (more based on the volume of votes, but I'm not sure when that starts to increase) so your 1 was thrown out. There are only 140ish crews applying so you are obviously going to see a lot of the same names. From what I can tell there were 10 or 12 crews that worked the first round that didn't work last year so nearly 10% were different from last year. Many of those were likely crews last year with just a crew chief change. In the regional and beyond half the guidelines indicate half the crews are "returning" crews meaning they have worked a state final. Many think that favors the returning crews, but it actually helps the "new" crews. The last couple new crews who get a regional final probably rank lower than the returning crews who don't get a game. As has been stated many times here the crews who advance benefit from positive votes. Previously they also benefitted from a volume of votes. They likely aren't getting the 80-100 votes they did previously, but they are probably getting close to 45-50 votes which helps. The more votes you get the more likely you are getting 5s because more coaches/ADs know who you are. Having the crew chief work deep into the basketball or possibly baseball tournament is a huge advantage. No matter what they do won't change much as long as the coach vote is the primary factor.

In the past a flaw of the coaches voting for all crews is some crews get 80-100 votes and some only get 20-30. The excess votes are usually the result of a crew (especially the crew chief) advancing in other sports and becoming well known there. All those extra votes are most likely positive (aka 5) votes. We were told this year the ballot did only list the crews who were on the school's schedule using data acquired from the assigning siites (mostly Arbiter and Eventlink). I'm not sure if that was true, but if it is, the crews getting all the extra friendly votes are likely less impactful. I have talked with coaches who do not give a crew a vote rather than giving the crew a bad vote. I don't know how common that is, but I do know it happens. I heard about a coach who only gives votes to crews who earned a 5 in his eyes. He learned last year if you only give 5s, the IHSAA will discard all your votes because they feel you were giving positive votes to all your crews. Even with the limited vote there are issues with who can or can't vote for you. Let's say you had Fountain Central last year but they changed head coaches this year. Fountain Central can vote for you even though the current coach has never seen you. And that coach goes to West Lafayette. He has seen you work, but you haven't had West Lafayette in the last 3 years so this coach that knows you can't vote for you. If used the coach vote should probably be Tuesday-Thursday the week of the game.

They only had 3 and they were all 2001-2004 against Carmel. Another interesting fact. The teams with the most non-MIC losses in the last 25 years were Carmel and Center Grove with 12 (Pike also but that's not surprising). Warren Central has only lost 3 times to a non-MIC school in the playoffs and 2 of them were 24 (Arlington) and 25 (Richmond) years ago.