JustRules

I've always heard there are more things that can go wrong with a snap to a holder and placing it for a kick than snap to a punter. You also have a lower trajectory since the ball leaves the foot at a lower point and you are also closer to the line of scrimmage. Plus if you are doing this on a long FG your kicker will likely kick it lower. I haven't had one yet, but I waiting for the short kick that roles dead at the B2 yard line and they are shocked when they bring their offense out thinking they get the ball at the 20 when it's the 2.

Great article about the challenges of finding new officials and keeping the ones we get. Sometimes technology isn't a good thing. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27000520/a-crisis-mode-all-levels-how-technology-put-officials-tough-spot Yes there is some verbal and occasional physical threats, but overall it's still a great opportunity to stay involved in the game. Please do 2 things if you read the article. First, look at your behavior at games and ask yourself if you are proud of the way you act. Are you part of the problem? Most people aren't. Second are you or anyone you know a good candidate to become an officials. Men/women, old/young, tall/short, skinny/fan, white/black/yellow/brown/red none of that matters. The men and women who officiate these games love doing it. 120 people spent an entire day Saturday at North Central listening to speakers and being taught on the field by some of the best high school, college, and NFL officials in the Midwest because they love it. Another 500 will attend shorter versions of a similar clinic in their area over the next few weeks. 800-900 will put on the stripes in mid-August as the scrimmages start. Come join in the fun!

All in with random draw on who you play and where you play is illogical. Try to present this to anyone outside of Indiana and they will not believe anyone would have a system like that.

The main reason coaches still support the all-in is because they are hoping their 1-8 team will draw the 2-7 team in the sectional and they have a chance to win. They may even be hoping to upset of the 4-5 team in the sectional. It's the one motivational carrot they can give their players during the season to keep them engaged. But if they draw one of the top teams in the sectional they know their season is over. The last regular season game has no purpose. You could argue more of the season would be the same if they started 0-5 and knew they likely wouldn't make a qualifying tournament. Try explaining this process to someone from another state and they will not believe you. If this really was a good system at least one other state would follow suit. Many of those states have more school but many have fewer. That's a non-issue. The current system does accomplish the goal of crowning a worthy state champion, but the way it gets there is the most illogical system.

This rule change is still creating confusion. I had another coach say they can now legally put two players in "no-man's land". This is the unofficial name of the space occupied by a player if they aren't legally a back or a lineman. That is not true. Definitions are critical here. In simple terms, a lineman is any player breaking the plan of the waist of the snapper. This includes the wide out next to the sideline. Backs are any player not breaking the plane of the nearest lineman (using the definition from the previous sentence). Let's say the tackle is deep but still legal because he's breaking the waist of the snapper. You then have a slot guy who is breaking the tackle's waist but he's not breaking the waist of the snapper. This player by definition is not a back because of his proximity to the tackle who is on the line, but he's not a lineman because of his proximity to the snapper. That is unofficially called no-man's land. Having a player in this space is a foul for illegal formation. It's very rarely if ever called, because it's obvious to most everyone he's trying to be a back. If he's supposed to be on the line but far enough to be behind the snapper you'll only have 6 on the line and that was a foul previously. If you have 11 players on offense it would still be a foul now because you would have more than 4 backs. To make this really simple, what this rule change did was remove the possibility of a team committing a foul because they only have 9 or 10 players on the field (likely a punt, try or FG) and 4 of them line up as backs. This left only 5 or 6 on the line and a foul by the offense even though they put themselves at a disadvantage by being short players. It's also easier to count 4 in the backfield than 7 on the line. That is the only impact. The reason the rule states you are still required to have 5 on the line is because the next rule mentions you need at least 5 players numbered 50-79 on the line. This statement in the rule is unnecessary as it's' already covered, but it's creating a lot of confusion with coaches and some officials.

I've always understood the reason for the rule was to prevent a coach from stacking his JV game with varsity players or limiting participation by the non-varsity players by letting the varsity play their quarters. That's why someone who plays 3 or 4 quarters in a varsity game can only play 4 total quarters

Because it's all perspective. Most people in Indiana are used to driving 20-30 minutes to get to most schools where their team plays. Where I grew up our closest conference rival was 2 hours away! A couple were 3 hours. When post season started the #4 team from the west traveled to the #1 team from the east and vice versa. This resulted in some 5-6 hour drives for a playoff game. Depending on who won you could travel the next week also. As athletes we thought it was pretty cool to get out of school and ride a charter bus to every event!

Other instances would be after a punt or any other change of possession or a runner going out of bounds. The clock will continue to run during those times as I understand the rule. Most states include COP in their mercy rule, but it's not listed here. The acronym is often TIPS (time outs, injury, possession, score). It's not as efficient as a pure running clock but it will still reduce the number of plays and get everyone out of there at least 15-20 minutes quicker. When a game time is only 2:15 on average anyway that's a pretty significant cut especially the second half (40 minutes instead of 60 minutes is a 33% reduction).

If they got 2 points they would STAY in 5A. I believe that means if they won a sectional final in both years or a regional final in 1 year they would stay. That's pretty competitive for that leve.

Yes there will but they'll get there faster. If the coaches didn't want to have a running clock the second half of those games could still take 60-90 minutes. Now they'll take 30-45 minutes. It usually took a 45-0 halftime to have a running clock. Now if the game ends up 42-7 early in the 4th quarter the rest of the game will go quicker. This still gives the backups a chance at plays on a varsity field, but it will minimize the number of plays and thus injury exposure.

Glad we finally have a mercy rule although this will make some of the games longer. With the previous allowance we had a couple 2nd halves that took 25 minutes because the clock didn't stop for anything. With this mercy rule it will stop for time outs, scores or injuries. There are more games though that will result in a running clock because of this so overall it's a good change.

Our school district has a robotics team attending the World Robotics competition in Detroit this weekend. They left yesterday so will miss 3 days of school this week. They missed a day twice in March/April already for a total of 5 missed days. Granted the competition is within the 300 mile range, but they are competing against teams from all over the world. I know they are outside the scope of the IHSAA but the same schools that make up the sports rule have no problem allowing these kids to miss school. Same with marching band competitions. I agree this should be a local issue and the IHSAA membership should approve this change.

As I understand it, scout video still belongs to the team who originally uploaded. They aren't creating new instances of those files when they are exchanged. The core video still exists. Your version just has layers over it that allow you to view it, add your own telestrations, etc. I would be surprised if scount video counts toward this limit. Definitely check with Hudl. VAR's promotional videos tout them as server based rather than internet based. It sounds like they are assuming only one coach is using it on his laptop. What if all coaches want to access it? How can players access and review? How can they create highlight videos? If it's server based you need to be connected to the server in order to view it. The internet is nothing more than a series of shared servers. I think the VAR guys have a great analytics tool but they either don't understand how others will be using it or they are glossing over it hoping you won't notice and buy their service. The exchange part does send the video to the team with Hudl, but they now have to download it from your Google Drive (time consuming) and then upload it to their Hudl account (time consuming). Good luck with that. Like them or love them, Hudl has created a very efficient system for video sharing. Jimmy makes great points above regarding data storage. I also work in IT and highly recommend teams keep any practice or game video they want in the future offline. Use Hudl for 3-4 years worth of game video, current season practice video, and any scout video (assuming it won't count against you because the video itself isn't stored on your account). If you buy something like VAR you are doing it for your own analytics purposes if that's worth the additional cost to you.

It's ultimately just another person's judgement whether it's a Sky Judge or the main office in NYC making the call based on video. Most of them aren't as obvious as the NFC Championship game. We'll see how it's implemented but I'm guessing it will eventually be as technical as the catch rule has become. That's when people will hate it because it will either slow the game down even more or it will result in a judgement call by replay they feel is incorrect. Let's say the NFC Championship play was closer to bang-bang. Does replay make that DPI if they can stop the video 2 frames before the ball arrives and see contact? When do you define "ball arrived" if the receiver doesn't touch it? How much contact is too much? Those things are all judgement better left to the naked eye and address the 2 or 3 times per season an error of that size is made.

Partial schedules exist because their opponents have submitted their schedule. If Carmel provides their schedule every opponent will have the Carmel game show up on their schedule because the opponent is tied in the database. I wonder how often teams submit conflicts and discover their opponent doesn't have the same game on their schedule.

That's up to each state to decide. 5 should still be the minimum because you'll have even more passing than 11-man. 6, 8, and 9 man games are often very high scoring. If you go to 4-man crews the position you lose ii the back judge so you wouldn't have anyone at the goal line on many plays snapped outside the 10. Many states have 5 and 7 man crews now for HS football but we are far from that for two reasons: increased cost and shortage of licensed officials.

Would the coaches have to be members of the IFCA? Do they have a criteria for joining? Could a team stack their membership with several lay coaches? If the number of assistants is limited it could help smaller schools as there are twice as many 1A and 2A schools as 5A and 6A schools.

I think Perry and Southport did the same thing when they shared the field at Southport.

Since it's all data driven if 5 of the teams submitted schedules the opponents would be known for all games except for those the 5 unreported teams play each other. I'm sure he could go in and make some assumptions, but each of those teams would be missing 4 games. I imagine he just keep looking or waiting for those other schools to submit their schedules.

Great to hear. Nice stadium but the field was rough especially at the end of the season. I understand the frustration of the teachers and empathize with them. But the school is already spending a bunch of money to maintain the current field so that money will now be saved. Over the life of the field they probably aren't spending any more money with the turf than they did with grass. It's just going to someone different and different timing. The per classroom cost of the field is also probably minimal. I see they had about 29k students in the district and if you assume 30 students per classroom (SWAG), that's $1000 per classroom. That's not an insignificant amount, but it's probably smaller than most people realize. The most recent data I found for teachers was 2016-17 (https://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/personnel.aspx?type=corp&id=0235) and they had 2153 teachers. That breaks down to $450 per teacher. If they invested that money in raises instead, it's probably only a 1% raise. I'm glad they are making facility upgrades, but I also hope they continue to focus on the primary function of the schools and that is education and teachers. Athletics are an important component but they are a supporting component to the overall mission of the school.

You are old school my friend. When I started 20 years ago I was told that was the old school way of doing it. I was taught to just count the backs. As long as there weren't more than 4 and we knew we had 11 there had to be 7 on the line. I knew the 3 on your side of the ball was the original mechanic, but you then had to give 3rd base coach signals to the opposite wing to agree on balanced or unbalanced. This is a much better rule and it matches what most crews have been doing tor years anyway.

That's not close to only being a warning, especially when the slot guy is telling you he's a back (arm punched backward). The wing on top was asleep on that one. The only possible "out" is he may not have seen all 4 guys back with the QB from his angle. Because of how they are stacked one of those players could be blocked from his view. It's still an incorrect no call though unless the slot guy got on the line before the snap.

That's how I was taught nearly 20 years ago anyway and how most officials I know did it. This rule change aligns with how it was usually viewed anyway. I don't ever remember having a flag for only 6 linemen when a a team had 10 players. I'm sure it's happened though and was correctly called if it did.

Incorrect. They still need 5 linemen numbered 50-79 (which is what the rule change is essentially referencing). The snapper needs to legally snap it to a back so you need at least 1 of them. The smallest number you could legally snap with is 6. In your example the team would be guilty of illegal numbering because they don't have 5 players numbered 50-79 on the line of scrimmage. One confusion I've now heard a couple times is the backfield by coach's terminology and rules aren't the same. Any back is in the backfield whether he's behind the guard or next to the sideline. The previous rule said you had to have at least 7 on the line. That also meant no more than 4 in the backfield. Most officials just counted the backfield once they knew they had 11 players. If there were 4 they knew they had 7 linemen. The issue is if a team only has 10 players on the field and 6 of them were on the line they were guilty of an illegal formation because they were short a lineman. This rule change means that is no longer a foul. The offense is already at a disadvantage, why penalize them more? This is really more of a language change than anything to get to the same place.

We had the same set up at my HS in North Dakota. I assume only the larger schools had, but DE was required for HS graduation so not sure how the smaller schools did it (we had REALLY small schools...like 40 kids in the top 4 grades small). I have a 19-year old and a 17-year old that were in no hurry to get their licenses. The same is true for many of their classmates. The 19-year old has friends who still don't have their license and they aren't in a big hurry to get it. My 14-year old plans to get his permit ASAP though. My oldest son did the classroom DE and while it was a pain for 2 weeks to get off work early and rush him there in rush hour to get him there on time. But it was done after 2 weeks. My middle son did the online version and he didn't complete it in the 6-months. He had to pay extra to extend the time twice but he finally completed it. The problem was it only took him 18-hours of online time. They still require 30 hours so we had to log in to a couple computers and watch 10 minute videos over and over to get to the 30 hours. Totally useless time. My youngest son plans to do the classroom version.