JustRules

The correct call would depend on the actual facts of the play. You are providing the facts as you saw them and believe the crew signaled them but that may not be the same facts the crew used to make their decision. Based on the facts as you know them (free kick touched ground and went more than 10 yards before K recovered, K committed a personal foul prior to recovery, R committed a personal foul as well) the right enforcement would depend on the timing of R's foul. You ultimately land at the same spot but for different reasons. If R's personal foul was live you have offsetting penalties and rekick from the K40. If R's personal foul was a dead ball foul, you enforce both starting from the previous spot and replay the down. Go back 15 for K's live ball foul and forward 15 for R's dead ball foul and rekick from the K40.

The worst area for these abuse issues are youth leagues. The coaches are often less trained and have nothing to lose. A high school coach has to answer to an athletic director and crossing the line too many times could cost him his job. Parents and fans at youth games are also much closer and can more easily engage the officials. In HS we are largely separated from the fans. We usually don't hear individual comments during games and rarely does anyone confront us on our way off the field. Many locations we don't cross through fans to get to our locker room. I think we are losing more officials who are working the youth games than those working primarily high school games due to abuse reasons. It seems most who leave the high school field are advancing in college (we have a disproportionate number of college officials working D2 through NFL compared to nearby states), work/family demands, relocation, or age/health reasons.

Lawrence North started in 1976 and it's first graduation class was 1978. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_North_High_School

A lot happened obviously on the play and several different factors would determine the outcome. Much of what you shared rarely happens on the same play so it's not something the crew deals with on a regular basis. They may have gotten it wrong, but it was probably doing the best they could at the time with what they had. They probably couldn't deal with giving the ball to K because of their original targeting foul and recent rule changes have tried to prevent rekicks. I'm pretty confident there was some kind of action on the play that resulted in the second foul as part of the discussion. My only other thought was if the R signaled the wrong way first and then corrected it so there was only one foul but confusing signals.

As a district Lawrence Township grew more than any district in Marian County last year. I don't know where they are coming from because there isn't a ton of new development in the district, but the superintendent alluded to the fact that students are transferring back from private schools and moving in from other districts. It's one of the most diverse districts in the state in many measures with tons of success stories. I found this demographic information. From 2013-14 to 2018-19 the district grew from 14,871 to 16,035, an 8% growth. https://www.ltschools.org/about/district-profile/demographics

Even then it's not automatic choice. You are pre-assigned to one of the schools and have to go through some process to attend the other one unless you in the immersion program. You are already mapped to LN. But you still don't have a direct bus route to LN. You either have to arrange your own ride or take the shuttle to and from LC.

Open enrollment to an extent. You are assigned to an elementary, middle and high school depending on neighborhood. There is some ability to choose schools, but I believe there is a process to it if you want to go where you aren't assigned. You can't have 1200 students at one elementary school and 200 at another. If you don't attend the school where you are assigned you are responsible for transportation. They do offer a shuttle between the high schools so students who live in an LC neighborhood but attend LN can take the bus to LC and then shuttle to LN. The issue is they miss the first 20 minutes of the first period and last 15 minutes of the last period. I've heard most kids try to carpool with others in their neighborhood. I think the middle schools have a similar shuttle.

I wasn't sure who they competed with in most sectionals so I looked up the boys sectionals from last year. It's almost always other Marion County schools. It was a heavy dose of Tech, North Central, Cathedral, Chatard, and Warren Central. Brebeuf, Heritage Christian, Scecina showed up a couple times. The only non-Marion County schools I found were New Pal (Baseball), Shelbyville (Swimming) and Mount Vernon (Track and Wrestling). Track was the one real oddball. It was the only sport where LN and LC were split. LN was with a bunch of small schools in Hancock, Madison, and east. LC was with most of the same other Marion County schools. I didn't look at the girls sports, but I assume they are similar.

When you have 15-17 year olds you never know how they will behave/react. I've worked LC games and never had any issues with the coaching, leadership or discipline. That includes the current coaching staff and team. I'm not saying you are wrong with what you saw Friday night because I didn't see it, but it's easy to be critical from afar. I believe they may have lost their starting quarterback so their backup may not have been as good. And Center Grove can make a lot of teams look bad. But they are also 2-4 because the MIC is very good!

The district is divided so theoretically they are equal socio-economically and ethnically. There are Geist neighborhoods that go to LC and some that go to LN. Both schools have plenty of students from that area. Both schools also draw students the poorer areas of the district. It's not a solid north/south or east/west line. Families do have some level of school choice and will choose one school over the other. LC has a phenomenal performing arts program so some families chose them for that reason. Students in the Spanish Immersion program attend LN regardless of where they live. LN tends to do better in other sports. I remember hearing a couple years ago they won sectional in 9 of the 16 sports where they participate. I would say that's a pretty good ratio. I'm also sure they are losing students to HSE/MV and private schools but overall the district is growing. They have an outstanding superintendent and administrative staff in both schools. They have strong academic programs and the McKenzie Career Center is the envy of most other districts in the state. It has everything from auto body to culinary arts to engineering to bio-medical and one of the top robotics teams in the country. The MIC is very competitive. The teams at the bottom of the MIC are still very good and deserving of their top 20 Sagarin ratings. Just because LC didn't look very good against WC doesn't mean they aren't a very good team. If they played in almost any other conference except the MIC or HCC they would likely compete for the conference championships. 3 of LC's losses were by a combined 10 points. All of LN's losses have been within 2 scores. They aren't that far off.

If the acts are simultaneous or after discussion you determine you had two fouls you could call both with just the one flag. There doesn't absolutely have to be 1 foul per flag but ideally there will be. I'm going to use K and R since that's the official designation in the rule book. The K foul was definitely a live ball foul and they didn't get the ball with clean hands so there is no way they should end up with a new series. If after discussion they determined R also committed a personal foul it will vary depending on live ball/dead ball. If it's live then the penalties will offset and K will rekick from the 40. If it was dead then the team K foul would be enforced previous spot and replay the down. Then you enforce R's dead ball personal foul and end up back at the 40 anyway. Rekick. The only way R ends up with the ball is if their foul was a dead ball foul and K's recovery was in the neutral zone (between the 40 and 50). By declining the foul K is guilty of first touching and R can take the ball at that spot. Their dead ball personal foul would then be enforced and R would have 1st and 10 from that spot. The only way R gets the ball at the spot of recovery is if there was first touching in the neutral zone and both fouls were dead ball fouls. You said K targeted before the recovery so that doesn't sound likely. But if the facts the crew had were both dead ball fouls and K recovered in the neutral zone then they got it right. You have other permutations of this based on timing of the fouls in relation to recovery and live/dead and multiple combinations. That's what can lead to long conversations piecing all those facts together. Once you have the facts you can then enforce as defined in the rules.

Double booking happens because crews contract games directly with ADs. Most aren't assigned by a third party. Records are sometimes loosely kept and sometimes lost if there is crew turnover. These games are also booked years in advance (we have a game in 2025 booked already) so the 5 guys on the crew now aren't necessarily the same when the game was booked. When crews split up sometimes they agree to take a set of games and there could have been a miscommunication. We had a game on our schedule a couple years we planned to work but were contacted by another school in the Spring (VERY smart by the AD!) we were still coming and we didn't have it on our schedule. Our referee found the email where he confirmed it and it was before we confirmed the other game. It was a miscommunication on his part. He asked me if we were open and we were at the time, but he never confirmed with me that he took the game. We took the game confirmed first and found another crew for the other game before contacting them. The AD was very happy he still had a crew and had no issue with it. Confirmed here could mean the crew accepted it 5 years ago. It could also mean the AD confirmed earlier this week with the crew and they still failed to show. That is unethical and could be dealt with harshly. This happens often with schools too. They book 2 crews for a game and sometimes the crew doesn't find out until the week of the game. The schools often pay both crews if they recognize the mistake was theirs, but the other crew doesn't always get another game on short notice.

This is not a new decision. Students have been making this decision for years. Just because you may be more aware of it now doesn't mean it never existed.

Anderson Prep Academy has cancelled their season and was scheduled to play North Decatur next week. North Decatur is now traveling to Shelbyville that week so I assume New Pal now has an open date or will be looking for a new opponent.

Generally if a team drops back so far they wouldn't be competitive in the class above them, they likely aren't going to contend for a championship at their current level. Especially at anything below 5A there isn't a huge difference from the top of 1 class to the top of another class. It also depends entirely on the sectional they are assigned. The same team could win the sectional of the class above them but struggle to win their sectional just based on the other teams in their region. I think the success factor has been largely successful in mixing up the teams in each class and isn't public/private specific.

The good crews would probably make this same call with the same observation as this crew. Other crews would probably not fully understand the rule. There is judgement involved in many plays. As Bobref pointed out this could have been ruled an unsportsmanlike conduct and the period not extended if they didn't feel the WC players on the field had an influence on the result. If that's their judgement they aren't wrong. Wiser minds can make either argument. But this crew obviously understood this rule and have proven over and over again they are prepared for this type of play. I trust whatever decision they make in this case. Just because a fan doesn't agree with a call doesn't mean they aren't consistency. Unless you fully understand the rules and philosophies which takes years of study and experience many things won't seem consistent. They are actually much more consistent than you realize. We have a wide variety of experience of ability of officials in HS so you will never have full consistency from crew to crew or game to game. They definitely aren't making a decision based on who they want to win. They are basing it on the facts they know and observed at the time. If you think otherwise you do not understand the role of an official.

I would argue it would be controversial regardless of what they called. They call nothing or go with unsportsmanlike conduct and declare the game over others would say they can't believe they let them get away with it. Officials don't care about the controversy side. They go with the information they have at the time and enforce accordingly. They obviously felt these players had an influence on the play. I know this crew well and trust their judgement.

When I work with new officials or experienced officials who need "help" I also tell them to look the release of the block. For the stuff on the edge especially the release is where the hold actually takes place. It's not an absolute but the more I do this and the more I scrutinize my work the more clearly I see things like this both on video and on the field.

I watch enough high school games to know you are telling the truth. Not every official fully understands this the same way so I agree there is wild inconsistency here. Some will see any jersey stretch and flag it. If the jersey is loose that action doesn't take a step away from the official there is no restriction. I've seen a different flavor of category, but they are similar: grab and restrict, hook and restrict, jerk and restrict, take down, tackle, pull over. One other thing that is generally a part of it as well is the blocker is beat. If he's got good feet meaning he's between the defender and the ball he's probably fine. It's when he's beat that you could have a foul. Feet beat cheat is a good axiom. The defensive categories are pull and shoot, preventing next level, and restricting an eligible receiver from running his route before the pass is thrown.

You lie to an AD telling him your crew is unavailable and leave him hanging to try to find a crew at the last minute and then go work another game. How can you have any credibility on the field after that? Some things need very harsh punishments and that is one of them. There were so many other ways the crew could have handled it. I believe the double booking was an accident and he knew about it several months in advance. Even if he forgot about it, find another crew, contact one of the schools and be honest about the mistake, anything other than lying about it. That will only get you in trouble.

We have done swaps before when a school specifically requested us for a game they considered a big game and wanted a crew they knew they could trust. Especially if the location of the game was more convenient we would consider it. But we always found a replacement crew and offered it to the original school. If they weren't interested in the swap for whatever reason we would honor the original contract. Nobody has rejected that. One instance was when we ended up with the same team in back to back weeks due to an opponent change in one of the contracted games. We don't like to do that, but didn't actively seek a replacement. One came up though and we were able to find a replacement crew for the original game. I have heard of two instances where a crew double booked and didn't notify the original home school until the week of the game and left them hanging without a crew. In one instance the IHSAA found about it and suspended the license of the referee for life and the rest of the crew from the post season that year. In the other instance I'm not aware anyone reported them to the IHSAA. I don't have any respect for what those crews did.

Because for regular season games we are hired directly by the home school and not through a centralized state assigning service or something through our associations. I suppose the IHSAA could set an agreed upon fee schedule but I'm not sure how easy that would be to enforce if the state isn't involved with the scheduling or assigning of officials. The tournament fees are set but the IHSAA does that assigning and reimburses the schools for the expense. I know there are some as low as $65 and has high as $100, but for the past couple years we have always been paid $75-$85 for a varsity game. The others I believe are outliers.

It would definitely help with coverage because there are enough crews who could do both Friday and Saturday. But it wouldn't be an ideal situation, and I definitely prefer HS games on Friday night. There are only about 35 Indiana small college officials (D3/NAIA) and several of those don't work full time on a HS crew so that impact is small. The bigger issue is youth and freshman/JV games as well as other personal conflicts. We mainly just need more people interested in doing this! It really is a great avocation and while the abuse/violence issues are a concern, it doesn't happen every game. It's more prevalent at the youth/sub-varsity level where most people are starting, but on Friday nights it's pretty rare. And if it does happen we honestly don't hear it much unless it's someone greeting us as we walk off the field. The biggest untapped market for potential officials...women! I think there are 4-5 licensed female officials in the state of Indiana. There is nothing about officiating that would preclude a woman from doing it as well as a man. There are many male officials who never played HS football. If you have a passion for the game and want to be involved, please consider it no matter your age or gender. Ideally we want younger adults, but someone in their 50s could still work 10-15 years and have a great experience.

As someone who i has been knocked down in the middle many times from a light bump in the side when I didn't expect the hit I can tell you it doesn't take much contact to knock someone off balance if they don't see the contact coming. I've seen many examples of players who use their hands or legally do a shield block and they are just as effective but much less dangerous. And this was even before the BSB rule came into the rules. Most blind side blocks the blocker lines up the defender from a distance and seeks him out. It's usually not a split second decision.

The key is where the focus of the defender is. If they are squared up but the defender is looking to the side he's not going to see the blocker. 99% of the time the blocker knows this which is why he likes to blow them up. If the defender doesn't see the block coming, it doesn't take much contact to take him out of the play. Lead with your hands and you should be fine. I can't comment on this particular play because without video it would just be speculation.