JustRules

I agree those would have created more great games. It's too bad it didn't work out. Conference realign every year, and I would expect Chatard and Roncalli to be desirable schools for most conferences. Someone mentioned geography, but Chatard and Roncalli are easier to access to most of the existing schools than Guerin or Brebeuf. I doubt geography played into it. If I had to guess, it would be bad blood with some prior recruiting instances. Brebeuf and Guerin are much less likely to get students from those communities. Chatard is close enough to Mt. Vernon while Roncalli and New Pal may have had some battles in the past. Those would have made some great matchups though!

Exactly! That is often the case. We had a coach one time tell us he was going to run a fake punt by throwing a high arching pass to a gunner. The defender on the gunner will assume it's a punt and block the kicking team player from getting to it. Since it's a pass this is DPI (NCAA has an exception on this type of play to indicate that is not DPI...NFHS does not). We told him if there was contact on the intended receiver it very well could be DPI. Just before they ran the play he told the wing official on his sideline he was going to run it. This was before the use of radios so the official had no way to discretely communicate anything to the crew. The play happens as described and the ball falls incomplete. The coach goes nuts because there is no flag. The reason? The gunner did such a good job he beat the defender and 3 or 4 steps on him. There was no contact!

I have heard these Pylon events specifically are ones to avoid. They apparently encourage taunting and celebration and that seems to feed into a frenzy that is not healthy. They also don't hold coaches and fans accountable to abuse toward officials (or probably parents to coaches). The level of talent is good, but the other stuff leads to situations like this unfortunately. Although officials don't appear to have been involved in this incident, this activity seems to jive with what I've heard about the atmosphere at these events. I never plan to work one of their events.

Any dangling mouth piece is not allowed. It needs to be in the mouth period. The rule change is more for extra things hanging off the mouth piece. The best example is having a mouth piece that looks like a baby pacifier on the outside with the hook. There may be other examples. Robert told us to enforce that last year as well although I've never seen anything like that on the field. It doesn't seem to be an issue around here.

Looks like they are playing a full MIC conference schedule next year.

It's supposed to be required in NCAA as well (and I assume NFL), but the latest fad is definitely having the dangling mouth piece. It used to be players who had a second one in their mouth and one either stuck in their face mask or dangling, but they gave up no the one in the mouth. Unfortunately the D1 guys are told to not be uniform police, so they rarely enforce anything uniform related. Nobody wants to see you send out Mendoza on a key 3rd down play because he failed to put in his mouthpiece before the previous snap. I don't agree with this, but we see it all the time. And small college and high school players are copy cats. The mouth piece is an easy one that should be enforced at all levels.

They only had 2 time outs remaining. Absent that foul, the other team would have been able to kneel out the game on the 3rd down play. I assume they still took the 2 knees assuming the punt would pin the other team deeper. They did not expect to shank the punt that far. Losing the 5 yards on each kneel down definitely hurt them as well.

I've always assumed the way NIL will work for HS students is for agents to get connected with HS athletes so they can represent them on their college NIL. Not so much to recruit kids to play at a certain HS (unless it's part of their college recruiting). I could be wrong.

The part Bob answers is correct for both NCAA and NFHS. They are dealt with the same in both codes. The other situation like this is if the receiver steps OOB accidentally with no contact from a defender. Per HS rules, if the receiver does this, he's guilty of illegal participation the moment he steps back in bounds. If he does this while running down the sideline he technically commits the foul every time he steps out of bounds with one foot and then steps in bounds with the other foot. Enforcement is 15 yards from the previous spot and replay the down. He doesn't need to actually participate in order for the foul to occur. It's a very severe penalty. The NCAA rule is different. It only turns into a foul if the receiver is the first to touch a legal forward pass. If the ball isn't throw to him or the pass it tipped by the defense before he touches it. there is no foul. The penalty though if he is the first to touch it is a loss of down at the previous spot. It's essentially treated like an incomplete pass. The ball remains live however. If the receiver tips it, and it's caught by a defender or he catches it and subsequently fumbles and recovered by the defense, it's a turnover. The NCAA officials will drop their hat when they see the receiver go OOB to indicate he saw the receiver go OOB and knows how he got there. Any potential foul is delayed. You'll see some HS officials do the same thing, but it's not necessary. It's either a foul when he returns (went out on his own or didn't return immediately when forced out) and you throw your flag or it's not a foul (forced out and returned immediately) and no flag is thrown.

Think of charter schools as under-funded public schools. Most of the charter schools in Indy are in the IPS district. The schools themselves often do well, but their athletics struggle. Especially in football where numbers matter.

Purdue Poly and Tindley are charter schools and not private schools.

When this was set up, 5A was designated as the class that would have any extra schools if the number is above 320 (that was true at the time they made that change). I like the idea of 1A being the other team with 32 schools. Which one do you propose takes the extra teams if we have more than 320 teams?

True, but there are crews who are good enough to work a first or second round game but don't get it because there are not enough spots. This creates at least a few more spots for them to have an opportunity. No ranking system is a true level of quality of the crew. I would say it's a pretty good general approximation though. The first quadrant is generally better than the second quadrant. And the 4th quadrant either struggles enough the coaches are consistently giving them lower rating or they have new guys or guys missing meetings or not doing well on the test impacting their overall rating score. This process makes it possible for those crews to get a chance to earn a tournament game credit. With that, I still know a couple very good and competent crews who sat home week 1 for various reasons.

And that ranking contains a fair amount of subjectivity to it due to the coach vote being 40% of it. Just because a crew is ranked 10th doesn't necessarily mean they are the 10th best crew. Some could objectively argue the 40th ranked crew is better than the 10th ranked crew. There are more than 6 crews more than qualified to do an excellent job working a state final. And even if you rotated the same 6 crews every 4 years, there are more than 24 crews more than qualified to do an excellent job. This rotational system does give more qualified crews the opportunity to reach the highest level. That being said, the system works to generally get very good crews to the state finals every years. There is a lot of variability in the quality of crews around the state, but the ones working Thanksgiving weekend are generally pretty good.

The reason for that is to allow additional crews to work the first and second round that otherwise might not have a chance. That creates up to 6 more opportunities for those crews which is excellent. Otherwise those crews wouldn't get credit for working a tournament and not having 3 members of your crew without 5 tournament assignments in 6 years puts you way behind everyone else. There are a few very good crews with newer officials who still can't get first round games because of that.

in your example, the coach yelling would be considered a substitution or simulated substitution so it would meet the requirements of an illegal participation. Based on Bobref's comment from the conversation with the referee, nothing like what you described happened.

A key aspect of this definition is you never see the word "center". There is no mention of the traditional positions in the rule book. The snapper is the person who snaps the ball. There is no center, guard, tackle, quarterback, etc.

Between this play and the last play of the LC-LN game, fans are learning a lot about the rules. Glad the crews got them both right on the field.

It would make for a very good conference. Would love to see Cathedral in it as well.

I've worked games where the football game was just a pre and post-band performance filler. The band attracts more fans than the football team.

Another very strange aspect of this play. Alexandria had 12 players on the field prior to the snap. The 12th player was able to get before the snap thus now foul. If he had stayed on the field not gotten off before the snap, it would have been a double foul. There would still be an untimed down, but it would have been from the previous spot! In a very strange rule anomaly, Alexandria would have benefited by fouling during the play!

I believe it may be a contributing factor. There were 117 games last week. If the 5A and 6A games were played, there would have been another 31 games. They would need 148 crews applying to the tournament to cover it. There may only be 130-135 crews who apply. I don't believe it's as high as 148. You would know more than me though. This is strictly for the officials though based on advancement criteria. Some crews would work a sectional final in week 2 for 5A and 6A and be done because that's the round their ranking placed them. But they only got 2 games instead of 3. If they were given a second sectional final game, then another deserving crew wouldn't get a sectional final. None of this ultimately matters to the teams or the games played. But it was a logistical challenge that may have created some chaos for the staff. IIRC the 5A and 6A teams pushed for it as the primary motivation, but the pending loss of tournament crews was mentioned as a factor.

It's not that hard to officiate as long as it's effectively communicated. And if the defense doesn't match up in 3 seconds then it really doesn't impact the play at all. So the defense not having subs is not a reason do NOT do it (sorry for the double negative). It also removes the concern someone else had with breaking the huddle with 12. If that happens, the offense will need to complete the sub during which time the defense has the opportunity to match. The rules committee does factor in difficulty to enforce when it makes new rules. They try to avoid exceptions when possible for this reason. If they feel this is difficult to enforce and the juice isn't worth the squeeze, then they not pass it.

This is exactly why most teams don't do this once they think about it. Plus add in the fact there is a lot more than can go wrong with a snap, hold, and kick than just a snap to the punter. Plus the kick is made closer to the LOS from a lower angle so it's more likely to get blocked than a punt. The risk doesn't always outweigh the reward. I think it's more likely a decent risk if you are just outside your kicker's FG range. He/she may be able to get a great kick and score 3 points. If it's just short, it will still be a touchback at the 20 which could possibly happen on a punt. Unlike a kick in college (line of scrimmage outside the 20) or NFL (spot of the kick), you aren't giving up good field position on a missed FG.

A FG is essentially a punt that score points. If the FG is no good, the ball will be put in play as if it were punted. If it's a touchback it will go back to the 20. If it rolls dead at the 3, the receiving team will start at the 3. Sounds like it may have been a touchback in your case. This has been the rule in HS since I started officiating in 2001. I'm sure it's been around a lot longer than that. Most missed FGs end up being touchbacks and they are often snapped inside the 20 so you probably never saw one like this.