JustRules

Love data! Did you know most high school officials average 4-5.5 miles per game?

Congrats. That is truly an elite group of student athletes who will do well in the future. Maybe some could become officials!

I still hear fans and coaches and commentators complain about calls and laugh at those pool reports. They say the official is just trying cover up or justify their bad call and it doesn't change anything so why bother. I enjoy them as an official, but I don't believe the general public really cares. This forum is a little different because you have established a relationship and trust with the other posters. If you went to some other random HS forum in the country and answered a random rules question, it's not likely you would get the same response.

Another official gave me a great analogy. You are part of a sales team and you've received a request for a proposal for one of the largest contracts you could ever get (conference championship assignment). The due date comes and goes because you forgot to make a note of it (inexcusable error for someone normally really good). If you had bid on it your firm very likely gets it because you are the best in the industry and you are one of the top sales people (top 3 official at your position to be assigned to this game). That's a big financial loss for your company (huge PR nightmare for the NFL but not a financial loss for the league). Are you fired over that one mistake? Probably not because of your proven success in doing the role. If you are a newer sales guy or one that hasn't performed well you likely weren't given that lead just like a newer or lower rated official wouldn't have been given that assignment. The 3 officials involved in that call were rated in the top 3 over the course of the season and had previously worked multiple playoff games including 2 Super Bowls. They just had a really bad, very public error at the most unfortunate time of a critical game.

The only reason the other leagues have full time officials and the NFL doesn't is they have games every day of the week throughout their season. You can't easily have another job during your season. That's different with the NFL. There are no other games for them to work during the week. They spend at least 15-20 hours Monday-Friday reviewing game film, training videos, rules quizzes, crew and position teleconferences, etc. In the offseason they are attending camps and clinics often in a teaching capacity to college and high school officials. I agree with bobref I don't think you'll see a significant difference in performance (they are already right 98% of the time) by hiring them to be full time. Some of these guys make more money from their full time gig than their officiating gig (especially the new guys) so they would have to significantly increase the pay to make them all full time. The old saying "the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze" applies. I think they are using some of the full time guys now to put together training videos and other materials. I believe 2 of the guys working the Rams-Saints game are full-time officials. As for the missed PI call, there are just times where your eyes fool you. That bad of a miss very rarely happens. Maybe a couple times a season. Other "misses" are often very close judgement calls that may only be wrong if you slow it down to watch frame by frame (i.e. some of the catch/no catch calls in the Chiefs-Patriots game). The beauty of football (sports in general) is they aren't perfect. The ball bounces funny. The QB misreads a defender. The receiver slips on his cut. The running back fumbles when he's hit. The coach goes for it on 4th and 2 from his own 28. The defender lines up in the neutral zone. This isn't precision engineering on an airplane. The officials strive to do their very best and the guys working in the NFL are amazing at what they do. But they aren't immune to criticism and it's deserved for that one call.

I think it's because no matter what the official said the average fan wouldn't believe them. All you have to do is read replies to Mike Pereira and Dean Blandino tweets. They give very clear explanations of rules and why something was or wasn't called. They don't hold back any punches and will be critical when necessary. And almost every comment is negative. I would love to see the comments as well, but the general fans just want a punching bag and something to blame. I don't know that it would actually help at all.

I wouldn't be surprised. Be ready for an updated definition of PI similar to the catch/no catch rule. Careful what you ask for. I'm also guessing the calamity rule the NFL has is more for something intentional and outlandish. Like they discovered an entire team got sick during the game because someone gave them rotten food. An incorrect judgement call (regardless of how incorrect) is not a reason to enact this rule. No matter what they do with replay or technology there will still be people involved and there will still be errors. Even when calls are correct fans will complain. There is no way to avoid that.

If you look at his profile he's a radio talk show host in Houston and likes to be controversial based on some of his other posts. That's what columnists and radio hosts are supposed to do. It draws attention. I agree he was probably trying to be funny and it exploded from there. He's an opportunist and took advantage of it. A high school football forum several states away is talking about him. Mission accomplished. BTW...none of my boys are playing football but two of them are into robotics which is very cool. The time and effort the kids put into designing and building the robots and the stress and excitement during one of the competitions is amazing. Indiana has some of the best robotics teams in the world. The VEX State Championship will be in Lucas Oil Stadium in early March and the FRC State Championship will be in Kokomo in early April. Both will send teams to their respective world championships at the end of April. First Lego League is the elementary and middle school feeder into FRC. Here is a highlight video from last year's state competition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDulj5MSnI4

Can you add Unbiased Official back to the school/conference list? I'm not actually from Corydon. I just picked a school at random.

Committee meeting today and will make final votes tomorrow. Announced changes will be mid-February.