Bobref

Sign me up for the travel mug. I don’t find the analogy of a single weekend event to a multi-month long football season particularly apt.

For a significant number of schools in Indiana, winning a conference or sectional championship is a once-in-a-generation pipe dream. A top 50% qualification format gives many of these kids a chance at an achievement that they can rightly point to with pride. It is all about the kids, remember. What would a comparable level of achievement be now? I’m envisioning t-shirts in the school colors and the legend “Won a game in sectionals because the ping-pong balls matched us up with the Little Sisters of the Poor.”

Back when the brouhaha about whether he would come back to the Packers was going on, Gutekunst basically said “we’ll do anything to keep him.” I think sucking up to him like they did was exactly the wrong tack to take with Rodgers’ personality. Basically, they enabled his “I, me, mine” mentality.

Nor do you hear his teammates talking about what a great leader he is, or a great example to younger players. I guess I’m “old school” in the sense that I believe the QB’s job includes being a team leader. Not just a supremely gifted thrower of the football … which he clearly is.

I saw them Friday night against a woefully undermanned team in Taylor. No idea what Carroll (Flora) brings to the table … but West Central was very underwhelming for a team with only 1 loss on the season.

The main problem is that the team leader is an a$$hat and nobody wants to play for him.

I mean the quality of play and fan interest will be greater than it is now. If that translates to more money, more’s the better. But money isn’t the driver for me. Unfortunately, my formula is proprietary, and I have to safeguard my intellectual property. 😉

According to my calculations, a seeded qualifying format would increase regular season in-game attendance by 24%, media coverage by 36%, and concession stand revenue by a whopping 42%!

I don’t know about “biggest.” But Indiana football would definitely be better if you required teams to demonstrate excellence all season, rather than just from mid-October on.

There’s this kid on Andrean named Bowen. Indiana’s Gatorade Player of the Year last year as a junior. Notre Dame commit. Took over the second half of the championship game last year to get the ring for Andrean. Ring a bell?

The key here, for officials, is that you can shut this play down with a 5 yd. dead ball illegal substitution penalty, as opposed to worrying about illegal participation or unsportsmanlike conduct. The key for coaches is that whatever goofy play you can dream up, if it involves using the substitution process to deceive the opponent, it’s probably illegal.

OK coaches, fans, players, everyone put on your white hat. You are in your pregame meeting with the coaches, and the following takes place: Referee: got any unusual plays you wanna discuss privately after we break up? Coach: Yes. (After opposing coach leaves) Coach: On punts they tend to substitute 7 players for their punt return. What we wanna do on 4th down is have our offense head off the field. Send our punt unit on to trigger their defensive substitutes. After the offense and kicking units pass each other they will both reverse course and the kicking unit will sprint to the sideline. The offensive unit will sprint into formation. We will snap the ball while the defense is trying to readjust and we will run a dive to get the first down. As Referee, your response is: _______________________________. (This is a real life scenario. Happened last night.)

Now I can die a happy man. I’ve lived to see the day when @temptationis rooting for Notre Dame … regardless of his true motivation.

With the prevalence of turf fields with their perfect yard lines and hash marks, you shouldn’t be measuring more than a couple times a season. More than that, and I’m going to have a talk with my Umpire.

@JustRulesthorough discussion of the proper mechanics above highlights the importance of using correct mechanics. To the people (some of them officials, unfortunately) who say “mechanics, shmechanics, all that matters is they got it right,” this is a great example of why that is a fallacy. Even if this crew got it right, by looking horrible while doing so they are letting themselves in for a tough rest of the night. Everything they do from this point on is going to be scrutinized, analyzed, and criticized. And they brought it on themselves.

See @Footballking16’s post above.

Not with a top 50% qualification format.

One of the advantages of seeding would be these two teams would play later in the tournament, which would give people from teams already eliminated a chance to see the game. One of the things I loved about working a sectional final or regional was all the letter jackets from different schools you’d see at the game. That’s better for high school football in general.

How good is this from Brownsburg Coach John Hart?

The mechanics for this measurement were terrible. The back judge is supposed to be on the nose of the football. That doesn’t mean it was inaccurate. But it looked terrible.

Unlikely. The “makeup call” is another myth.

You and most of the PA announcers in the state.

I’ll keep after you until you stop calling it “offsides,” and start calling it “encroachment.”😂

It’s the same every year.

Players are allowed to push and pull each other in a legitimate attempt to get to a loose ball. There are limits, of course. But without video …