JustRules

This is true. Occasionally you'll even see that at 6A schools. I remember working a Carmel game and the starting center couldn't have been much more than 5'8" and 200 lb. That's what it says. It's not unusual for 11-man teams to line up in a "tackle over" formation. They will put two eligible numbers on the same side of the line (usually a TE covered by a WR. This leaves a T on the back side with no eligible receiver outside of him. He's eligible by position but not by number. In 8-man that person is now eligible. If the TE lines up on the side now he's no longer an end and isn't eligible.

Not quite. It only says the ends are eligible which is true of 11-man football. What they are saying is the end can be #56 and still be eligible. That's not true in 11-man. As for the big uglies losing opportunities, from my experience there are players in 1A/2A playing OL who are smaller than skill players at larger schools.

I've said from the beginning, if we are going to shut down because 1 or 2 people test positive there is no point in starting. Until this virus is completely gone (which it likely never will be), there will be some spread no matter what we do. We can't be shut down forever so we have to learn to mitigate the spread as much as possible and restore some activities as much as possible. But also respect the dangers of the virus and take it seriously. But shutting everything down completely is not the answer either. Football and other sports though are going to be a lower priority. Remember through there are people who make a living in the sports industry. It's not just a game for us to watch and our kids to play.

I agree. If you take away football you take away the revenue it generates. I have no idea if high schools operate in the black for football, but the revenue definitely helps the overall budget at a minimum. Take away that revenue and you have to find some other reason to get people to pay you money. My kids have played non-revenue sports and been involved in many other activities that are funded either by parents or underwritten by the school. You aren't going to charge parents to attend a quiz bowl event and fans don't attend Key Club events.

This could definitely be a challenge, but if they only added 16 teams and nothing changed on the current 1A/2A side then it's only a net 8 crews. If some of those teams come from the current 1A/2A school the net will be less than that. The officiating shortage is NOT a reason to reject this proposal. It's going to be a challenge regardless.

I believe the issue is the university hosting the event versus renting the venue to another group to use. If that's correct NIU couldn't organize an event for HS teams to play at their stadium, but a conference or state association can contract to host an event there. There may also be rules against coaches or athletic staff being there during the event. It's still a win for the school though because student athletes are on their campus.

You wearing a mask helps others. Them wearing a mask helps you. So if we all collectively do it we reduce the spread. It will never eliminate it, but greatly reducing isn't a bad thing. And in most instances it's really easy to do. A football game isn't one of them though. While eating or drinking isn't one of them. But if you aren't doing activities like that why not? The science clearly states it helps in a significant enough way.

I prefer to live on the west edge of any time zone to maximize daylight at the end of a day rather than the beginning. I'm perfectly fine with ET. I often work with people around the country and I prefer to be aligned with those on ET. If we were CT I would have to start an hour earlier each day to be aligned with those on ET. End of day seems to have more flexibility. Just my personal preference.

I am thinking the same thing regarding officials. If all the teams play, but we have 20% of the officials opt to not work for personal safety reasons, I don't see any way we cover all the games scheduled for Friday night. I would expect to see some moved to Thursday and/or Saturday. If some teams choose not to play it may wash out. It will be interesting to see what happens if games are allowed to happen.

It's about managing risk. Think of it on a scale of 0 to 100. To achieve a risk of 0 you would avoid the flight entirely. To achieve a risk of 100 you would attend the flight in a packed plane with nobody wearing a masks, no deep cleaning between flights and flight attendants shaking your hand as you get off an one. Empty middle seats, spacing on lines to board, pre-packaged food you grab yourself, everyone wearing masks would have a risk of 20. Taking your mask off for the purpose of eating maybe increases your risk to 25 or 30. I'm making up these numbers for demonstration purposes, but you get the idea. Yes, taking off your mask to eat increases your risk, but only slightly compared to not doing anything. And the only way to completely eliminate the risk is to not get on the plane in the first place.

It could still be tricky to line everyone up, but I like the idea. I think you will still see Carmel-CG in the last game of any day if they played. It may not result in more tickets sold, but if I'm an Eastbrook (2A) fan and my team is in the finals and Marion (5A) is also playing, I may want to watch both games if they are back to back. If they are playing on separate days or with a game in between, I'm less likely to watch both.

Both very good posts and my thoughts exactly. I also completely understand those who feel we are crazy for thinking about playing football. I don't agree with them, but I respect their perspective. We are seeing a large spike in other regions of the country, but for the most part it's young people getting infected and some of the rise is due to increased testing. With the exception of a couple cities it doesn't appear the hospitals are being overwhelmed yet. That could change. I assume that means many of these positives are asymptomatic or mild symptoms. That could still impact a team by making players unavailable for a game, but the risk of serious illness is less. The most common argument is what happens if they get infected in practice and then infect their grandparents. If a player is concerned about that he/she should probably not play or stay as far away from those grandparents as possible. One thing I will add is no coach, players, official or others who choose not to participate should not be negatively affected going forward. If Bud Wright decides to not coach this year for his personal safety, he should be able to return next year with no questions asked. If an official decides not to officiate this year his/her rating for next year shouldn't be impacted. If a season ticket holder for the Colts or Notre Dame chooses not to renew this year for personal safety reasons, he/she should not lose their season tickets for the following year. I hope the IHSAA does decide to move forward with Fall sports, but if they choose to cancel the season I would completely respect that decision even if I don't agree with it.

The previous communication from Robert was that masks would NOT be required for officials, but that could definitely change. If masks are required for officials we probably shouldn't be playing. Personally I will probably not officiate if masks are required unless I get some kind of mask that makes it easier for me to breath. I'm all for wearing masks when in public and especially crowds, but there are circumstances where they aren't as practical. And if those impractical activities create too large of a risk they probably shouldn't occur. I would expect anything announced this week also won't be final. A lot can happen from July 1 to August 14/21.

Several years ago working a playoff game between district rivals although one team was much better than the other. The underdog team though stepped up and made it a good game. In the first half I got a complaint from the home coach saying the defense was barking their signals causing his OL to false start. It's really hard to pick up on that in the middle especially with both teams calling out several different things pre-snap. Late in the 2nd quarter home team is driving to get within one score. QB in shot gun and ball is snapped when he's not looking. Offense does recover it for a loss though. Home coach is going nuts saying they were calling their signals. Nothing jumped out at me unusual, but I tell the defensive linemen, "if you are doing what he said you are doing, you need to stop immediately. If I hear it, it's a 15-yard penalty." The future Rhodes Scholar on the DL (everyone knows the smart linemen play on offense) then tells his teammates, "OK guys, stop doing it." I was actually pissed because I now knew the home coach was right, but I wasn't able to pick up on it. The game was more or less decided in the 4th quarter when home team offense false starts again. I didn't hear anything at all, but the offensive coaches were adamant they barked signals again. I have no idea if they did at that point, but one of the assistant coaches was standing in the middle of the field screaming at me. I should have flagged him 15 yards and possibly ejected him, but I just told him I didn't hear anything and to get back to the sideline. It was the end of a winless season and they were about to lose. I understood the frustration especially if he was right again.

I saw him a couple times in HS games, and he was amazing. He was a great kid who had no attitude on the field. He has a great future.

Thanks for sharing. A great person and great official!

Original message was that it's rare, not none. Clarification is they know there is some spread, but it's hard to prove how much since you can't always tell exactly who passed it on. You also don't know at the time if someone will remain asymptomatic or are pre-symptomatic. Dr. Fauci also added someone who is symptomatic is also much more likely to be contagious because they have more active virus cells in them. But he also said it's like asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people have been responsible for some level of spread. They just don't know what percentage. That being said, I'm hoping we go back to football ASAP! If the plan is to shut down a team/conference/sport if one person tests positive there is no point in starting. There will be some positive cases no matter what. The goal should be to minimize, control, and isolate as much as possible. Good luck to those having to make those decisions though.

I think we are 100% in agreement. I would much rather have games with fans in the stands for all the reasons you mention. Officiating games with fans is much more fun than without fans even if those fans are obnoxious! I worked a Carmel-Cathedral game once where a storm delayed the game at halftime. The first half was packed an exciting. The second half was like working a 7th grade game on Tuesday night. It seemed to affect the players as well. The financial hit of not playing football this Fall would have a devastating impact on HS sports at the schools. Having to play without fans I think would likely be worse. It's possible some of that could be made up by revenue from selling ads/viewing on streams, but would it be enough?

We've always done that if it's hot and humid. We usually take extra time after a change of possession to allow players to get more water. Although if you are in trouble it's because you didn't hydrate enough before the days before the game. Still a good idea. Officials will likely also have to bring out own bottles and find someplace to keep them during the game.

They could also make up the lost revenue from fans attending by selling advertising. Some streams already exist and if they have advertising they could increase it. I'm not sure how many people would pay to watch the stream or if they would pay for multiple feeds on a Friday night. It would be cool if something could be coordinated for a subscription fee to get a variety of feeds. I still think in person will be much better, but it is conceivable they could make up some or most of the revenue with some creativity.

As a number 0.1% is equal to 0.001. If you win 6 of 10 games the ratio is .60 (6/10 = 0.60) but you won 60% of your game. The estimated mortality rate of influenza is 0.1% or 0.001. The estimated mortality rate of COVID is 0.27% or 0.0027. I assume you knew the difference, but wanted to clarify just in case.

I completely agree with you. But I'm also aware of how this is different than any previous virus. People who say there is only a 0.27% mortality rate don't know what that means in terms of actual numbers if it spreads like it could. But I'm on the side of opening things up (slowly at first) and educating people on safety measures and letting them make decisions based on that information just like everything else we do both for us and others. The experts who need to know how this works and how it affects people know a lot more now than they did in February even if it isn't everything. Things have been done to improve the PPE and ventilator situations and we've proven we can built supplemental facilities quickly. If more permanent facilities need to be built then so be it. We have to move forward. If it continues to be a major issue there will be a huge focus on a vaccine. Staying home most of the time is no way to live. The first number (1800) is to compare what the current death numbers could have been assuming a 50% infection spread and the same current mortality rate. The 1675 number for comparison is for the FLU with half the people vaccinated and a lower mortality rate.

The concern is because there is no vaccine so nothing to stop it from spreading to anyone. Let's say only 50% of the people in Indiana are infected (3.35m people), that would result in 9k deaths across the state. As of now there are 1800 reported deaths so would only be 20% of the way there. The flu has an estimated 0.001% mortality, but I believe about half the people get vaccinated. So let's take 50% of the remaining infected (1.7m) and the standard mortality rate (0.1%) and you get 1,675 deaths. That does put the number of deaths in a similar range, but the COVID deaths could be so much higher if we open things up completely.

That is correct. Both schools are still in the Pioneer. As non-scholarship programs, most of the Pioneer is equivalent to good D3 or NAIA. Most of the players are still all-conference/all-county type players, but usually struggle to compete against top FCS teams. San Diego has dominated this conference and won a couple playoff games however.

This seem to be appropriate salaries for the level these coaches have achieved, the responsibility they have, and the amount of work they put in. It's equivalent to mod/senior manager positions at many companies in the Indy metro area.