JustRules

I believe the clock didn't run prior to the time out like it was supposed to so they had to reset the clock. Once the clock was reset the officials backed out.

Logical and well articulated suggestions. I don't necessarily agree with them, but you bring up good points to support your suggestions. As for the home field part, NCAA (FCS/D2/D3) and NAIA use seeds to determine home field until the finals, but they also limit what teams are allowed to do. It's not as restrictive as IHSAA, but it's similar. They become NCAA/NAIA events but hosted at one school's site.

Many folks were going to be outraged regardless of which way they ruled. That has no impact on the game crew before or after the call. They know it's a no win situation so they just go with what their experience and training have taught them and move on. They have more plays to worry about and after the game have next season to worry about.

Probably right. I didn't get to see the first half but know it went from 14-7 to 49-7 very quickly. That can happen via momentum or domination. Look at the CG-BD game earlier in the season vs. the playoff game. Very different results. I'm told the first game was actually much closer than the score because of a few breaks for CG early in the 3rd quarter. LSU and OU could play again and have a very different outcome.

Look at it this way...the call on the field may have actually been: I'm not 100% certain if it was a catch so I'm going to let replay make the actual decision and not confirm that I think it's a catch. Do you see how that's a different mindset or approach for the replay official?

Clemson winning by that large margin doesn't mean Oklahoma didn't belong. Momentum is a crazy thing. I've seen two teams very closely matched turn into a route because a team got on a roll and everything starts to go their way. I worked a game once where a team was down 7 and inside the 5 about to score with under 2 minutes left in the first half. A turnover turned into a defensive touchdown followed by a quick 3-and-out and another long TD on a fluke play making it a 21-point game at halftime. The leading team gets the ball first in the second half and scores giving them a 28-point lead. In about 5 minutes of clock time a game that was about to be tied turned into a 28-point difference. They went on to win by 42, but the teams were much more closely matched than that. On the field you can tell the different between two teams that are truly 42-points apart and a 42-point game due to major momentum.

Excellent point Mr. Bob! Especially in this case it was such a tight call the same number of people would scream a team was screwed by the call. You could easily argue catch/fumble or incomplete. There is nothing in the rule about number of steps which those arguing for catch are using to justify their position. The key elements of the rule here are time and football act. Because of that you have to watch this replay at full speed. My gut feel the time I saw this live was incomplete. The ball was out very quickly. In slow motion a lot of incomplete passes look complete. I would put this play very much in the "when in doubt" category which the rule clearly states you rule incomplete. The area of the rule book that covers forward/backward also states when in doubt it's forward and incomplete when not caught. It goes on to say though if replay is involved to rule it forward to let it play out. The catch/no catch rule doesn't state that, but the same often applies by philosophy. It's not always easy to overturn an incomplete pass ruling if replay shows it was backward or complete. In this case that can have a huge impact on the role of replay. The covering official is going to do the same thing on the field regardless if he actually rules catch/fumble or let's it play out for replay. They would communicate that decision to the replay official. If it's the former then he's looking at it with the assumption it was a catch and he needs to see something that proves that not to be true. If it's the latter then he's looking at it to make the actual decision of catch/no catch. Those are different thresholds. You could legitimately argue this as a catch or incomplete. It was that close. Based on that neither choice is patently wrong or a team is getting screwed. You could have 100 top officials watch this play and you are probably going to get a 55-45 split and I'm not sure which way they would go. I lean toward incomplete because it was bang bang and it was my initial gut reaction when I saw it live. But I wouldn't tell someone who feels it was a catch they were wrong either. But nobody got screwed by either decision. Ohio State still had a chance to add on to their lead and had an opportunity to stop LSU on that long drive at the end. Even after that they were in striking distance with a chance to win. This call was far from the only reason they lost the game.

This is true but a side impact also is some hires are made not based on ability and experience but on physical appearance. The people working at those levels are still very good officials, but some are moving up much faster because they look the part. They would have benefited from another couple years each of high school and small college football. I think it has had at least a minor impact on the quality of officiating at the NFL and D1 levels.

Pretty sure every school who has ever gone to turf has done this. Everyone I've ever talked with has said the payoff is 8-10 years. You pay more up front but your annual expense is much less. This is true especially when you factor in the ability to use it much often during the year. It could even be a revenue source for schools.

Agreed. This view is a talk to especially on the 2nd play of the game. They do it again this far back and it's a flag. They were warned and asked to be moved up. If they are further back than this it could be a flag the first time.

As an observer I think we have a few people who define "forum traffic" as trolls who like to stir up trouble simply for the sake of creating angry responses and conflict for conflict sake. Others like to have intelligent discussions and debate. The people in the latter group keep getting drug into conversations with people in the former group, but the people in the former group have no interest in being a part of the latter group so they try to bring every conversation back into the former group. They feel they are doing a service to the site by generating "forum traffic." This is not unique to GID. I see it on other forums as well.

I've thought they would be a good place for Spegal since they still do run a full back and the full back is also given touches. Their current OC was a bigger running back similar to Spegal. He ran over the Gophers when NDSU beat them in 2007. They have won their last 6 FBS games including 3 Big XII and 2 B1G teams. They aren't Ohio State/Alabama level good, but they would be competitive with the middle of the B1G with their current roster. If you watched the game Saturday former Decatur Central QB Bryce Jefferson started for Illinois State. Late in the 1st half he threw an interception to Michael Tutsie from Warren Central.

I would love someone who has had to financially justify it to share their results. When I've talked with the decision makers on this (various ADs when we've been working games) they said it was pretty easy to justify over a 10-year period, especially when you factor in the ability to use it much more often. And that doesn't include the washing expense or equipment replacement for all the officials who can't get mud stains out of their uniforms or have to buy new shoes because theirs are muddy beyond belief.

Regarding the football speed, here's another example. A friend of mine has been an NFL official for 5 or 6 years. I remember talking to him after his first season and asking if the players were much faster compared to the B1G. He said it wasn't so much open field speed because the B1G has plenty of fast guys. It was other areas. For example, he said a defensive lineman rushing through a gap goes down with minimal contact. When he watched the video he saw the offensive lineman was able to stick his foot out and back to so fast he couldn't see it with the naked eye. It just looked like incidental contact on the field. I'm sure there are dozens of examples like this. Pursuit angles for defenders, change of direction by runners and route receivers, effective use of hands to initiate or shed blocks. Those aren't necessarily something you can teach Usain Bolt just because he can run really fast in a straight line.

The more scholarships you can give the more good players you can recruit. And the players generally want to play at the highest level possible. Opportunities to play earlier, proximity to home, success of the team, academic programs offered all factor in as well. The top teams of FCS are better than the bottom third of FBS and the top teams of D2 are better than the bottom third of FCS. Some of the FCS schools are also non-athletic scholarship. The Pioneer League where Butler plays are all non-athletic scholarship athletes so they are closer to D3 teams. D3 offers no athletic scholarship but many of the student athletes are getting merit and need based aid from the university. NAIA offers some athletic scholarships, but they are limited. Generally NAIA teams are ahead of D3 teams but there is a lot of overlap. D3 and NAIA football is still a very good level of football. Having officiated both the level is a step above the top high school teams. Most of the players were all-conference/all-county in high school. Someone should not think D3/NAIA is below them if it's their only option. It will still be better overall competition than what you have in HS.

Did it ever dawn on anyone he wants to attend IU and this is an opportunity to use his football skills to do that?

Definitely not true. For the longest time LN and LC would not allow Chatard or Cathedral to use their football stadiums. Both schools recruit students (and thus athletes) heavily in Lawrence Township (Cathedral lies in the district boundaries and Chatard is very close) and the athletic staff of both schools don't appreciate their potential athletes getting poached from the LT middle schools. I don't know if that relationship would prevent them from wanting to join a conference with them, but I do know the Lawrence Township schools are very happy and very much a part of the MIC. They have no interest in looking at any other conference.

It seemed like it was a done deal 4-5 years ago. But I think population growth slowed enough it wasn't warranted. You could argue 3 high schools with 2000 students each would work, but you have to look at the incremental cost of a third building. As long as the 2 current buildings can handle the number of students the appetite to build a new one is probably less critical. The growth now is more on the Hancock County side so those students would likely go to Mount Vernon. Other factors affecting growth are people waiting longer to have kids, families with kids graduating aren't leaving so you have more homes with no students, and those having kids are having fewer. The districts look very closely at the numbers and trends starting with the lower grades and can fairly accurately predict enrollment in 10 years.

It can be achieved in all those activities and it probably does. But if the student doesn't want to participate in those activities or those activities don't have enough opportunities (could the Frankfort soccer team absorb the 60 football players that would be looking for something else if the team contracted?) then this is the opportunity that was chosen. I have a lot of respect for players who join a team and stick with it knowing they will likely lose big on the field every Friday night. They have a commitment and heart I would love to hire some day. I've worked many games with teams that have lost a lot more than won (Elmhurst, Edinboro back in the day, Crawfordsville, Frankfort recently) and those players were still playing hard and having fun because they were getting to play high school football on a Friday night. They would definitely prefer to be more competitive but they weren't giving up. And as long as they have enough players to field a team then I'm all for them continuing.

You get to learn what it's like to be part of a team and play a role (leader and follower), learn an offense and/or defense, set goals as a team, have a reason to keep your grades up, be involved and make friends, an activity for the community to rally around and connect, handle adversity, push yourself to get better at something. I'm sure the list is much longer. Yes it's awesome if you can be part of a program that competes every week. Or a program that has a chance to win a sectional final. Or at least upset the huge favorite in the sectional. Or maybe even compete for a state championship. But not everyone can reasonably achieve that and that's OK.

I believe Frankfort had 60 players on their roster this year. They weren't great, but that's 60 kids who want to play football. High school sports aren't only about winning.

The issue with that is there doesn't appear to be a consistent application of "immediate". I talk with umpires who feel as long as it's the first move by the lineman it's legal even if he has to step beyond his gap to reach the defender. How much hesitation becomes too much if you feel there was a delay? Several states have already applied an interpretation that a lineman can't legally cut block if they are in a 2-point stance. I believe a couple have experimented with not allowing low blocks if the QB is in shot gun. At a minimum I like the interpretation for 2-point vs. 3-point. It's hard to be consistent with a definition of immediate which has to drive coaches and players nuts because it's a huge penalty (15 yards). For that reason I think one of two things should happen. The free blocking zone is extended all the way back to the end line or eliminate low blocks if the QB is in shot gun.

They have a lot more in common with the MIC schools than those schools. They are competitive in every sport in the MIC usually finishing in the middle or top. Football wins haven't been great but many games are competitive in most games. No matter how many teams you have someone will be at the bottom. They are very competitive teams (including Pike) against most teams in 6A.

The main reason I've heard against spiking in shot gun is it could potentially give the QB an opportunity to see if he has an open receiver and legally spike it if he doesn't. The same could happen if the QB is under center so I don't see it as a valid complaint. We've had the rule in NCAA for several years and in 10-years I've never seen a team do it in shot gun. It's not a major issue for me either way. The only reason they dropped the auto first down for DPI was due to a compromise on the committee. There had been a proposal for several years to drop the LOD on OPI but it wouldn't pass because several members felt it wasn't balanced with DPI. The only way they could get it to pass was to give up the auto first on DPI as well. Most people see that as a silly compromise so a rule change request since then is to restore the auto first on DPI. Just because NFHS adopts an occasional NCAA rule doesn't mean they need to adopt them all. Every level of football besides HS has an auto first down for PF/UNS. They are major fouls and deserve very punitive results. It makes sense to have them align between the codes.

I would definitely not put Western Boone, New Pal and Valpo in the same affluent category as Carmel and Center Grove. I'm more familiar with Western Boone and New Pal and consider both very solid blue collar/middle class communities with a fair share of lower income people. And Heritage Hills is definitely not private. I looked up the free and reduced lunch ratios for 2019 and this is what I found (lowest to highest). Carmel 9% Center Grove 19% New Palestine 19% Valparaiso 23% Western Boone 30% Heritage Hills 31% Eastbrook 35% East Noble 36% Based on that I would probably only put Carmel in the Affluent Public category and the rest in the Average Public category. Some of the high schools that fell into the 60% or higher group but still successful: Ben Davis 75% Decatur Central 62% Lafayette Jeff 62% Lawrence Central 64% Merrillville 60% Michigan City 65% New Haven 65% Pike 66% Southport 68% Warren Central 71%