JustRules

Did some quick analysis and found the following data points (considering Pike and LC as MIC the entire time): In the last 25 years, a MIC team has won state 20 times (could be 21 this year if CG or BD wins); 3 of the 4 were were 1997-200) In that same time 66% of the games the MIC lost were to other MIC teams Of 59 instances where a MIC team lost to a non-MIC team, the following teams won: Avon 8 (Pike 4 times), Bloomington South 7 (Center Grove 5 times 1997-2006), Fishers 5, and Cathedral 4 (LN and LC both in 2015 and 2016) Surprising teams that knocked out MIC teams were Lafayette Jeff (2002), Noblesville (2000), Northrop (1999), and Homestead (1998)over Carmel; Columbus East (2010), Columbus North (2008), and Terre Haute North (2005) over Center Grove; and Richmond over Warren Central (1997) In the last 9 years since Pike and LC joined the MIC, a MIC team has won every year, 75% of the MIC losses were to other MIC teams In that period MIC teams lost to non-MIC teams only 14 times; 4 were Cathedral and 8 were HCC teams (Avon, Fishers, Brownsburg, Zionsville); Penn had the other 2 The MIC domination of the playoffs has existed for 20+ years but has definitely been greater the past 9 seasons.

The ones I talk understand it. Many of them take it very seriously but also express frustration in seeing crews they like not being able to advance. I believe starting this year they only saw the crews that worked games at their school in the last 3 years (including this year). There are still flaws with that I'm sure you'll address in your next post, but it at least removed the mass of "friendly" votes some crews would get because they know a lot of ADs, especially because they have had success on the basketball side. Most of the crews who previously advanced deep would get 80+ votes while most crews only got 20-30 votes. Those extra 50+ vote are usually all 5s which greatly increases your average. It's a completely unscientific analysis and mostly anecdotal.

Most coaches I've talked with do not like the voting process. I'm not sure they are bought in entirely to having the voice they do.

This is a common complaint and a little myopic. Of the 9 crews working their first sectional final, only 1 is from Central Indiana and they actually worked a sectional final last year with 3 from southern Indiana and 5 from northern Indiana. It may appear that central Indiana crew advance more than others but one third of the licensed officials are from central Indiana. About one third of the assigned crews are from Indy metro so fairly standard representation. This year I count 17 Indy metro crew but I had to include Pendleton, Shelbyville, and Greenfield in that count. You could argue Indy metro is under represented based on percentage of officials. The Region has 5 with 3 from Valpo alone. I also count 4 from the Evansville area and 5 from Fort Wayne. The rest are scattered from around the state. There are no perfect systems. No matter what is done the crews who don't advance will feel slighted. Having the coach vote being the primary basis for the rating though is probably the worst method. I think the reason the IHSAA does it is because it's easy and don't require significant effort. The observer program has been a nice addition, but the fact it has little or no impact on your ability to advance is frustrating. Our crew hasn't advanced as far as we would like and we've been told by several observers we should advance as far as possible, but I have learned to control the things we can control. There is no reason for the IHSAA to change their method because they are generally getting good crews working in the later rounds. This seems to have improved over the past several years. I understand those who say we will lose officials over the rating system, but as another official told me if the system is changed the same number of officials will feel slighted. It may just be a different group. There are only so many spots. I like to hear they are holding back returning state final crews to give more crews an opportunity to work a sectional final. This isn't necessarily to give them extra points in the rating system but to make more crews eligible to advance next year. There are 9 new crews eligible for the regional round next year. As many as 6 of them wouldn't have been eligible if they used the 2020 state final crews. There have also been crews assigned this year who didn't work the previous week. I'm wondering if that is also intentional to give more crews changes to work. I have heard the same rumor Yucca mentioned. Curious to see if it happens. There is no favoritism or politicking taking place. There is a flawed rating system and the IHSAA follows those numbers to place crews in games. You can only manipulate it by adding members to your crew that can give you more tournament experience votes or making the referee be someone who advances deep in the basketball tournament. Otherwise you are at the mercy of how the vote turns out each year.

Hard to say without being there. Official probably had but gaffed on the flag and whistle at the time. He maybe went to R to explain what he had and that he failed to throw his flag. If they decide during the discussion that he should have killed it and it was definitely a foul they probably could drop a flag but it's more of a formality at that point. If this is what happened a possible discussion included the question "are you absolutely certain you had him in the neutral zone before the snap because this is not going to look good if we do this?" But it's better to look bad and be right. This is just one hypothetical.

It doesn't matter how many ball boys you have. It's more about how many bags to do you have to keep the balls dry. A smart team will have multiple balls checked before the game and keep many of them someplace where they'll stay dry. I would take some to the locker room and bring them back at halftime. Or have a case that will stay dry and put it under a tent many teams seems to have on the sideline.

The video wouldn't play for me, but if the slot guy moved up before the snap and got set then the formation is legal. He's covered which is legal. He just can't go downfield if there is a legal forward pass that crosses the neutral zone. Agree with Yucca that the R has no responsibility for counting the number of backs on any play. Almost always at least 1 or 2 of the backs are receivers outside the tackles. This is 100% on the wings. We don't have a signal for confirming both wings have 4 in the backfield. We have a signal if one of them has 5 in the backfield (tap flag). If they both have 4 there is no reason to do anything. In this case they would signal each other they both have 4 as neither had a flag per what's been reported. This post is a good example of why still photos often can't be used to determine if a foul has been committed. There was additional movement after this photo and before the snap which potentially changes the legality of the formation. You can share thoughts with a lot of caveats.

At the point of this photo I would consider this to be an illegal formation if the ball is snapped. We have no idea what the formation was at the snap though. One challenge here is the near wing may not see both of the backs near the interior linemen. The wing on the top has no idea if the slot is being ruled on or off. I've seen similar formations and the slot receiver is either supposed to be on the LOS intentionally being covered up or the end on the other side of the formation.

Some years the observers are asked to vote and some years they aren't. Some years when they vote their vote is factored in. We've had observer votes appears when we weren't observed by that observer. I love and respect the observer program, but it has little or impact on your rating and little or no impact on your advancement. We've been observed twice in a tournament game and given a 5 but didn't work the following week. Why would they observe us if they knew in advance we wouldn't have another game. There is a ton of potential for the observer program to have a greater input on crew ratings. The risk there though is many of the observers know and have worked with many of the crews they are observing. There is a potential for favoritism in that process if the rating has more value.

We generally work at the same pace regardless of how fast the team wants to go. The ball is placed and ready for play with 28-32 seconds on the play clock. Very rarely is a team ready to go when I step away. Some are faster than others after that, but very rarely is the ball snapped above 25 seconds. When most coaches are asking that question they are more worried about having a very slow crew.

In some cases yes, but not as much as some people think. It will probably have a bigger impact now that they've limited votes to crews you've seen in the last 3 years. That will likely compress the difference the coach vote portion will have between crews. I do think some weight needs to be given to those crews who have worked late in the tournament previously. That has to mean something.

That's the only time we've worked at Delta. I believe I was told later the visitors rarely go back to their locker room at halftime because of the distance. I'm not sure if they use the room you mentioned or just stayed on the field somewhere. Definitely not convenient. I checked our Hudl video and there were only 10 fouls called the entire game. Many were procedural (2 false starts, 1 illegal sub, 1 kick out of bounds, 1 illegal shift).

I've never heard that caveat and from what I've seen it doesn't exist. It's based soley on the history of the crew chief and their history of advancement as a crew chief. There have been instances where the crew chief had worked a state final previously but now have a completely different crew. Because of that the IHSAA considers them a "new" crew rather than a returning crew. I can see the logic in that, especially since it's been several years since that crew chief worked a state final. I know two of the four consisted of officials who had never worked a state final and didn't have a lot of the advantages many of the other state final crew have (i.e. educators, former coaches, highly rated basketball/baseball officials). However they were mostly younger, fit and mechanically very solid crews who work a lot of big games in the Indy area. So it can be done. But it's rare.

I agree this portion of the process is not a major differentiator, but it does play a bigger factor than you are implying for crews that consist of 3 more members who worked the state final previously. You'll eventually get into the new/returning aspect of this for the later rounds but ultimately you are either "competing" with crews who have worked a state final or those who have not. 50% of the crews working regional and beyond fall either side of that difference. Most of the crews who feel slighted by the process are on the "new" side of that. The only way a crew gets all 50 points is if they have at least 3 officials who have worked a state final previously. If they've worked a semi-state they start with 49, regional 48, most of the rest 47. That 3-point difference can make a huge difference between crews who work a second round and sectional final. The crews getting regional, semi-state, and state final assignments are usually in the 48-50 range and have a little head start. This makes it easier for the "new" crews who have state final experience start that advancement faster. There are other factors which you'll get to later I'm sure, but I wanted to share my observations as well Many of the crews that don't get assignments or only get 1 round have multiple officials with less experience or fail to attend the required meetings or fail the test. The fact some crews have a head start isn't what is preventing them from advancing. There is a large group of officials stuck in the 2nd round and sectional final that have a hard time getting beyond those levels largely because their "competition" are those new crews that have multiple members with state final experience. It's not uncommon for 2 or 3 of the 3 "new" crews to have state final experience and not truly be new. Last year was a refreshing change. First, there were 4 new crews, and I believe 3 of them were truly officials working their first state final. 3+68/7

I was an official for that game. If they had a coach on the field communicating with the team he didn't do a very good job. We waited until the time expired and didn't see anyone coming in the distance so two of our officials started for the locker room. Near the back of the building we ran into two coaches walking toward the field. We told them they were already late for the second half and they were surprised. One of them ran back to the locker room with the official to get the team. So it was close to 20 minutes after halftime started and 5 minutes after the time on the clock expired before the team left the locker room. Mississinewa had an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at the end of the first half so with the foul for coming out late, Delta was kicking off from the +30 to start the second half. We were surprised they didn't try an onside kick since Mississinewa would still have poor field position if they recovered it. That was one of the most miserable weather nights I've worked with temps in the 40s with strong winds and a cold rain. It was Halloween too as I recall. Mississinewa had a good team that year, but it was obvious the players were miserable with the weather.

Pike shows you can't take any team in the MIC lightly. LC gave Carmel a close game as well. A bad MIC team is still a really good team.

Did you have a situation where the crew ruled touchback? I hear that a couple times each season and the crew doesn't realize they got it wrong. If they did it would be considered an inadvertent whistle and the intercepting team can either take the result of the play at the time of the whistle (touchback in this case) or replay the down. They will likely take the result.

Fair is such a subjective term though. Generally in any assignment system I've seen those who don't advance consider the system unfair. States that use observers or association assigners for the post-season are accused of picking their friends or being an old-boys club. That doesn't exist in our system because a mass of people are voting for a mass of crews. A number is assigned to your crew based on those criteria and that number is used to a fault. There is some popularity involved, but it's not a small group of people picking the people they want. They kind of do go through the same process. Just like any new crew they are only eligible for a sectional final the next year. The one difference is they have a little head start on points because of past tournament experience. That's generally not why they advance further though. The bigger reason is because they often get 80-100 votes and you get maybe 20-30. The vast majority of those extra votes are going to be 5s because they are friendly votes from people who know them from various ways (other sports, school administrators, association leaders, assigners, etc.). That increases their rating much more than the 50 the other crew got for previously working a state final. It will be interesting to see if limiting the number of votes this year has an impact for some crews. Don't consider the advancement of your crew as an actual assessment of the time and effort you put into the season and quality of your performance. That's not what the current system is doing. Control what you can control and be happy for those who get to advance. They are working just as hard as you trying to be the best crew they can be. I'm not a fan of the current system at all, but I can't do much to change it.

The crew was notified the game was cancelled but Logansport is trying to find an opponent. I agree Concordia may be a good option.

Good stuff. That is essentially what we do. If a team doesn't indicate if they are taking a knee at the end of the first half or within 8 points at the end of the game, but they get in victory formation. I assume your guidance would be to do nothing? Treat it like a regular play?

North Decatur is now playing at Covenant Christian

If A informs us they are taking a knee I will tell B players "they plan to take a knee but the ball is still live. If they muff or fumble the ball is live and can be recovered." I also remind the A linemen to be ready to block. If it's the second half and the game is not in doubt I'll get into the middle to make sure nothing happens. There is no rule support to flag the offense for saying they are taking a knee and then running a play. The college play above would be legal, but I would expect the offense never told anyone they were taking a knee. They just made it appear they were taking a knee. B needs to be ready to defend the play.

If a crew gets only 7 votes the fact one of them is a 1 is not going to be factor in them advancing very far. Most crews get at least 20-30 votes. Some previously got 80-100 or more if they are well known. There is a new limitation this year allowing schools only to vote for crews who worked their games the last 3 years so the day of 80-100 votes for a crew are likely over. The previous process allowed all schools to vote for all crews with a request to only vote for those you've seen in the last 3 years. Now that will be system controlled based on the scheduled crews in Arbiter or Eventlink. But there is no requirement all schools vote for all crews. Since their ballots will be limited to that group though it's more likely most will get votes. I'm not sure if the ballot indicated to the school which game the crew worked. As for the goal, ultimately you want to make sure you are assigning the best crews with the later round games both for the benefit of the teams participating and rewarding the crews who are doing all the right things. There are many crews who do things the right way mechanically and manage the game well, but if they aren't well known they often do not advance beyond the first or second round. They may do all the things the IHSAA and observer program suggest and they work hard at being a good crew, but if they don't get the votes they don't advance. Meanwhile a crew that is well known often through non-football things like teacher/administrator or high level basketball official benefit from name recognition advances even though they don't follow standard mechanics and fail at administrative things like penalty enforcement. For the most part though the crews advancing the past several years are good crews. But there is no incentive for crews to get better because that will likely have little impact on their ability to advance. You want a system that will reward you for doing things the right way. That is much easier said than done. Best of luck to all the crews working the tournament. Be thankful for whatever games you work and congratulate those who are fortunate enough to advance.

Hard count is different as it's a commonly accepted part of the game, but if the QB makes a sudden movement while doing it then it's likely a false start. If they only do the other actions we've discussed on 3rd or 4th and short then it's different than doing on various 1st and 2nd downs throughout the game. The best example is the wing backs going in motion shortly before the snap. Most teams that do that use that formation and action throughout the game.

Doesn't matter if he's in or out of the pocket in regards to intentional grounding in high school rules. What was the previous spot? Where did they next spot the ball? If the foul was in the end zone the result is going to be safety whether the defense accepts or declines the penalty. They either enforced it from the wrong spot or felt he released the ball outside the end zone.