Bobref

I believe a 1 vote counts as a vote.

We all have. But that’s why all 5 people on the crew need to be paying attention during penalty enforcement. Anyone can have a brain cramp. But all five?

If you’re getting “1” votes, you’re probably not going to need to be concerned about whether you’re getting enough votes to qualify.

This is the first of a 4-part post, the goals of which are: To inform those who do not know how official playoff selection and advancement works. In particular, to explain how the coaches' vote system works, both in theory and practice, and why it is the major determinant in an officiating crew's playoff advancement. To critically examine the coaches' vote system. To offer suggestions as to how the system might be improved to better achieve the articulated goals. In this first post, I've attached an IHSAA public document which explain the process in summary fashion. There is another IHSAA document, publicly available, which goes into painstaking detail how each component of the selection process is calculated. And if I can figure out a way to get it to upload, I'll do that. But before we get too far into the weeds on the way the current process works, I'd like to hear from coaches, fans, officials, anyone out there who has an interest in seeing these games officiated well, in answer to the following question: What goals should an official playoff selection and advancement process be designed to accomplish? And, we might as well get straight from the outset, it is not the purpose of this discussion to serve as a b*tch session for officials who don't like the system and/or are unhappy with their playoff advancement. We will critically examine aspects of the current system. But we do so in the spirit of evaluating the current system in light of the goals we identify, and then discussing how the system might be improved. Finally, there are a lot of really smart and experienced people out there who might know comparatively little about officiating, but know quite a bit about how to devise an evaluative process in order to further some articulated goals. I'd really like to hear some out of the box thinking from those people. Tournament Official Assigning Policy Football.pdf

In truth, most good coaches don’t use this kind of stuff. But it is routine to discuss potential “trick” plays in the pregame conference with coaches, and most coaches understand that this sort of thing should be discussed in advance, so everyone is on the same page. Although, I once had a Hall of Fame coach in a semistate tell me he was going to shift suddenly on 3rd or 4th and less than 5. I told him it was a foul. He did it anyway, and we flagged it as a false start. Incredibly, he did exactly the same thing in the final the next week … with exactly the same result. SMH

There are other, legitimate reasons, for a QB using a hard count. Now a “head bob” or some other actions by shotgun QBs is a different story. But I certainly agree with you that more clarity in the official interpretation of the rule would promote more consistency on the field.

Describe the play and I’ll try to help.

The initial e-mail made fun of DeMaurice Smith. Head of the NFLPA. In other words, a black man who represents a lot of other black men, some of whom are now supposed to play hard for Gruden. As soon as the first e-mail came out, you knew how this was going to end.

This is the biggest reason I started posting on the GID. You left that game the other night, probably along with other people like @psaboy,thinking that the officiating crew screwed up. In fact, their call was absolutely correct. A little education goes a long way. I appreciate people like you who are open to being educated. Not everyone is.

Very disappointing. Penalty enforcement has no grey area. You either do it right or wrong. This was wrong, and the really disappointing thing is that there are 5 guys on that crew that either didn’t know the rule, or knew it, but were unwilling to speak up to save the crew. SMH.

That is not what the rule says … or means. Here’s the rule: “ART. 5 . . . Running into or roughing the kicker or holder. A defensive player shall neither run into the kicker nor holder, which is contact that displaces the kicker or holder without roughing; nor block, tackle or charge into the kicker of a scrimmage kick, or the place-kick holder.” There are 4 instances cited in the Rule where contact against the Kicker/Holder may be excused: Where it is not reasonably certain a kick will be made. where the ball is touched near the kicker. Where contact is slight, and partially caused by the kicker’s movement. Where the defender is blocked into the kicker. In each of these 4 scenarios, the contact by the defender must be unavoidable. The burden is always on the defender to avoid contact if it is at all possible. If there is contact against the kicker/holder, who is displaced by the contact, it’s going to be a foul unless one of these 4 applies.

You’re kidding, right? That is the most obvious roughing the holder foul I have seen in 44 seasons of officiating. Remember that the holder gets exactly the same protection as the kicker. If this contact had been against the kicker, would we be having this discussion?

Why? You said he knocked the holder over trying to get to the ball. Did he get to the ball, i.e., touch the kick?

Could the foul have been roughing the holder? The signals and penalties are the same as roughing the kicker.

The temperature of Jimbo Fisher’s seat just went down about 100 degrees!

All of this was as foretold in the prophecy. The Chosen One will deliver us unto the Promised Land. Like Moses, it will take some time. But the outcome is not in doubt.

This is a double foul because there was a change of possession on the play, and the team in possession at the end of the down (Webo) had fouled before the change of possession, and Webo’s foul was not a post-scrimmage kick foul. Since it’s a double foul, there are no options. The penalties offset and the down is replayed.

@JustRules would have a better handle on that than I.

And this is why coaches keep trying this illegal crap: because sometimes they get away with it. That crew just made it doubly tough on the crews that Coach is going to see the rest of the season. And that’s encroachment. No such thing as “offsides” in high school football.

470 yds. rushing in 5 games (94 yds./game) is very nice production. But “insane?”

It is to me.

Or, the fact that even fewer opportunities for advancement in the playoffs causes even more officials to leave in frustration, and retention rates continue to decline, actually exacerbating the shortage.

So, what was the call? Did they miss roughing and called no foul? Running into vs. roughing? Did they call something that wasn’t really a foul? Got video?

The one big difference is that with IG, this is a safety whether the penalty is accepted or declined.

A false start includes both a shift that simulates the start of the play, and any act clearly designed to cause the defense to encroach.