JustRules

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.

Hard to say. At a minimum it would be a scramble. The schools would probably start with the 4-5 crews they hired for the Fall and keep them assigned to the same games if they are available. Some guys may have conflicts in the Spring, but I have no idea how to predict that. The same could happen if they shorten the regular season in the Fall which would result in schedule changes. One other possibility though is we always see an increase in new official when in tougher financial times. This would definitely quality. If you are looking to pick up some extra cash to help pay bills, officiating can be a decent side hustle.

I had mentioned this when discussing a shortened or no baseball season and going right into the tournament. This is an example of where the crazy all-in, random draw works. If we have to play a shortened regular season or no regular season, we can still hold the tournament as we've always done. Who knew the IHSAA was more prepared for a Pandemic than any other organization out there?

Yes, I assume the insurance premiums are in M&G. One article I read said the policy covers up to $250m which won't cover all of what was lost from the NCAA men's tournament.

I'm by far not an expert, but my thinking is those are still concerns, but we now have other things in place that can still help accomplish those things. They include additional capacity (beds, ventilators), fewer people susceptible (have immunity due to already contracting the virus), more knowledge of the virus (how it spreads, how it impacts different people), potential therapies that appear to help some people, and a more dedicated approach to person efforts (hygiene, masks, distancing). We are also coming to late Spring and early Summer when most viruses don't survive. With that knowledge and change in context the experts may still feel confident we don't overtax our hospitals by opening things up again. I still feel a huge factor in the immediate future (3-6 months) is the antibody test. Once we know 20% of the people or 60% of the people (or something in between) have already been infected will have a HUGE impact on the models going forward. The higher the number the more people will be comfortable returning to normal activities.

We already do that with a number of other things. This is not to compare the impact of COVID-19 to flu and other causes of death, because I hate when people do that to downplay the significance of this virus. But we could wipe out a lot of lunch cancer by completely eliminating tobacco. We could eliminate DWI and severe injuries and deaths causes by drunk drivers by completely eliminating alcohol. Both of course assume compliance which wouldn't happen. But we still allow tobacco and alcohol and accept that some people will die because of that. Nobody wants people to die because we re-open the economy, but it will inevitably happen. Antibody testing will help. Increased diagnostic testing will help. Isolation and contact tracing will help. Therapies will help. Vaccines will help. Some of those will be available sooner than later. I'm an optimist, but I"m also a realist. I expect students to be back in school in the Fall. I expect sports to be played (with some potential crowd limitations). People will change behaviors. People will be smarter. Those will help flatten the next curve. If the curve stays below the capacity of what our medical facilities can handle, we may have to accept that. We also have to be prepared to shut some things down again. That's the realist in me. The one absolute I do know is I'm not an expert on any of this. I'm not even knowledgeable. We need to rely on those people who are. Like it or not we need to rely on the experts identified by our leaders who we elected. Don't rely on the expert who has a web site or posts a YouTube video. Don't be a lemming either, but be smart on who you listen to.

Based on what? The budgets for all their championships are pretty tight. I've seen reports the basketball tournament generates 75-80% of their revenue and underwrites the cost of most of the other championships. If they decide to start cutting championships that would open up some money. I did a quick Google search and found the 2018-19 Financial Statement (https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/finance/2018-19NCAAFin_NCAAFinancials.pdf). Here is what I found: Revenue was $1.12b of which $867m came from TV and rights fees; I couldn't find how much of the $867m came from men's basketball, but based on future payments I'm assuming it was around $800m (73%) Expenses were $1.05b with a net change of assets of $71m; this is only 7% of their budget. That doesn't give them much wiggle room. High level breakdown of expenses: Distribution to D1 members - $611m D1 championships and programs (including NIT) - $154m D2 members, championships and programs - $54m D3 members, championships and programs - $35m NCAA-wide programs - $150m Management and General - $45m I assume the last group is for the staff, facilities, administrative expenses. These numbers all sound huge because they have the words billions and millions, but most of what comes in is already going out. They will receive a lot less from this year's tournament and the NCAA does have an insurance policy that will cover some of that shortfall. But this will definitely be a hit for them. There is a reduction in expenses due to not holding the tournaments (some Winter and all Spring), but the biggest impact will be payouts to the schools. So the pain will trickle downhill. People much smarter than us are working through the numbers to figure out the actual impacts and things they will do to recover. Endowments will be hit, fundraisers done, and possibly ticket prices raised. But it will be an interesting process to get through.

The article actually mentions several hurdles and say efficacy results by September. Approvals will take place after that. This would be awesome if they can comfortably complete a drug trial by then, but I would be very surprised. There is a reason these trials usually take a lot of time. They don't always go smoothly with the first formulary being valid. That's why they do trials. The FDA provides a lot of validation before approval. And even with a vaccine it's not likely we'll eliminate the virus. Like other viruses it gives us an opportunity to better limit the spread.

It's just important for people to understand the NCAA organization headquartered downtown isn't swimming in money like people think and most of their operations are around compliance and championships. They are not involved with regular season games and the CFP and bowls are not their events. Many people don't understand that. They want to know why the NCAA doesn't change their bowl system to a playoff. A big reason is because it' snot their bowl season and the CFP isn't theirs either.

Money goes to schools and conferences that are also members of the NCAA, but the NCAA organization itself gets no money from the CFP. Since a large percentage of the revenue for the NCAA eventually goes to the schools you could argue it's a semantics thing.

The interesting part of this is the CFP generates $0 for the NCAA. The CFP is a separate organization made of D1 members (and I assume only FBS with power to P5 conferences and schools). The NCAA may have some say over when and how the CFP is allowed to operate, but I doubt the CFP as an organization has any authority over what the NCAA decides to do. Most likely that influence would come from the members of the CFP in their roles within the NCAA. It's an interesting and complicated dynamic that could create some interesting conflict here.

Stax...the issue with the Abbott 5-minute test (https://www.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/product-and-innovation/detect-covid-19-in-as-little-as-5-minutes.html) is you can only do one at a time. And it involves a blood draw. Even if you could somehow get a result in 5 minutes you need to account for a couple minutes to prep the person, draw the blood, and analyze the rules. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say 5 minutes for each one. If you have 1000 people at an event, it would take 5000 minutes to test everyone. That's 83 hours. For a Friday night game you are starting Tuesday afternoon and the first person you tested has to stay there until the game to prevent from contracting it in the interim. The diagnostic equipment is expensive, but if you wanted to buy 4 of them instead of 1 you could at least cut down the time to 20 hours. With 160 football games on a Friday night you would only need 640 in the state. The Roche machine and test kits that were the first approved test available to be run in under a day takes longer for each test, but they can process more at a time. Based on information I found online (https://diagnostics.roche.com/us/en/products/params/cobas-sars-cov-2-test.html) you can do 1056 tests in 8 hours which overall would be quicker to test the same number of people. Would you have all those people come to the same place at the same time? What if one is positive and potentially infected others there while waiting for the test? I want football back just as much as anyone and I'm very hopeful it will be back. It won't happen with testing everyone as they enter the stadium. Mass anti-body screening will be much more effective if they can confirm (likely) someone who has been infected is now immune. If we find out 50% of the people are immune, that greatly reduces but far from eliminates the risk.

What happened this Spring or what would happen this Fall if there was only 1 year of points to evaluate? I assume nobody would move up and someone could move down if they were playing up?

You may be right. My only question about that is if did exist in November/December and nobody was practicing any social distancing how did it not spread like crazy? My guess is it may have been a less contagious and less deadly version. Whether that will be enough to create individual immunity experts probably don't know yet.