wabashalwaysfights

"Beefing up" ones schedule is not nearly as simple as it would appear. Sometimes simply getting an opponent, any opponent, is a small miracle. When programs can do it, "beefing up," it obviously is ideal: see Seeger picking up West Lafayette years ago when they were in their hey-day in the early 00s, but sometimes it is simply not possible. Part of this is due to the way conferences have gone to scheduling: the WRC now, like the old Sagamore did years ago, has gone to a format whereby all of your non-conference games have to be in weeks 1 and 2. I am not entirely sure of the rationale for this, though I could hazard a guess, but the result is that schools become limited in their options for those non-conference games.

A really interesting look at the evolution of the modern spread and how it relates back to a lot of these older concepts... Who Actually Invented the Spread Offense

I feel like the Colts are all in on Jones having a Darnold-like bounceback year, which after the smallest of sample size does look promising, but I am certainly not going to hold my breath... What to do with Richardson though? That is the question...

Anyone who has been around the WRC for the last 10-15 years would recognize and tip their cap to what RP has done in that time frame and would need no explanation and would certainly not need to ask this question... please pay attention to reality...

The only appropriate historical response... thanks to DK and the whole admin team!

High risk, high reward. We pulled if off flawlessly once, and I do mean exact to the way I installed it, possession on the opponents 40. We did however get several botched fielding attempts that we recovered. But, teams caught on and coached their kids up; touché.

I always want to keep kids safe on the field and understand the intent of the rule completely. That said, what we called a "sky kick" did not involve bouncing the ball off the turf at all. Bear in mind, we were really only able to do this effectively for a few years when we had a solid kicker, but the set up looked something like this: the kicker would kick the ball as high in the air as he could, aiming for approximately the opposite 40 yardline, aiming for somewhere between the numbers and the sideline. Again I emphasize, he would not bounce the ball off the turf, just kick it straight up in the air off the tee. The purpose was to either catch a team bailing early and cover the ball, force them to botch the fielding of the kick and generate a turnoved that way, or force the opponent to fair catch the ball and we just take the field position hit. It was high risk for us because of the likelihood of a kick our of bounds (which did happen some) and the field position we would give up. And it was pretty good for us: we forced a few turnovers and forced teams to game plan out kick off team more, which was kind of the point. We even saw several teams in our conference copy cat us, which since imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I took as a compliment. We even had a team beat us at our own game twice in one game on the same kid: frustrating for us, but good on them. When the new rule got put in place, I asked why we were not allowed to perform that type of kick and I was actually told by that crew the exact opposite of what has been relayed here. He said, if your kicked one hops it and it goes that high you're good. We tried that later in the year (not nearly as effective by the way) and was told what has been relayed here, much to my great confusion. We took it out of the playbook at that point, but I have continued to chat officials up about it just as a curiosity. I've had guys tell me that this type of kick is illegal under any circumstance, bounce or no bounce, I've had guys tell me it has to travel a certain distance down the field, I've had guys tell me it is 100% a judgement call, I've had guys tell me that it technically doesn't break the rule but violates the "spirit of the rule." And here's the thing: I'm good either way, I just want to know whether it's legal or not. It seems to me that the "spirit" of the rule, as Bobref indicates, is "this type of kick (bounce or no) is too dangerous, so we want it out." That's fine, I disagree, but that's fine. Then just do what the UFL does: NFL style kickoffs and 4th and whatever to retain possession in the 4th quarter only. As I've said, the NFL style kickoff is difficult at the 1A level, but I suppose some kind of adjustment could be made.

At the 1A level especially, the NFL rule is DOA. Kickers at that level tend to be very inconsistent from year to year. Personally, I've coached kids ranging in ability from 5 yards and in to can barely keep a basic squib kick in bounds. Not that I dislike the NFL rules, I agree with you that it has grown on me, but this one is just not possible. Your first two proposals are fine I suppose, but I have a completely separate issue on kickoffs altogether which honestly makes me a bit apathetic about the original post and that is this: can that state please, please clarify the "pop-up" kickoff rules? I believe I have sought explanation on this issue here before, but that is not what I seek here. In this case, I just want the IHSAA to clarify the rule and put it in language that is easier for officials to convey. Since this rule was put into place some 7 or so years ago, I have asked about 10-15 officials to clarify it for me and I have gotten as many explanations back, including, hilariously enough, multiple explanations from the same officiating crews. Personally, I have never come across a question where I have not been able to find something resembling a consensus, and honestly, it's hugely frustrating. Apologies: I don't mean to hijack this thread, but it's kickoff related and has driven me nuts for years at this point.

Hey now...

This is a former student and player of mine, a real good kid. I'm not suprised that he's giving this thing a full go and, unfortunately, that some jack wagon would take advantage of his good nature.

The man had demons no doubt, but he has to be considered one of the best owners in the NFL, and considering the history of the Colts and the way they ended up in Indianapolis, that's saying something. Rest in peace.

I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain that South Putnam has turf.

The only change that I could see would be to keep the clock stoppage rules after a first down: it would keep things moving while still allowing for a team to get a few more in game reps and more tape. Even without that, I think it's been a good change on the whole.

Love the end zones. Midfield setup is cool, but for our officials on the board: don't they need some kind of either continuation of the white of the 50 yard line or a break on either side? There is a nice looking A in the middle of our field and we were told we had to use filed paint to finish the 50 yard line because the logo interrupts the 50.

This is the way I read it. So you could have a Rossville-Clinton Central co-op with a total enrollment figure of 532 (Rossville's 283 + Clinton Central's 249) or an Attica-Frontier-Indianapolis Tindley (I just picked the three schools with the lowest enrollment at the last re-class, I realize that geographically this is not feasible) with a total enrollment figure of 507 (Attica's 158 + Frontier's 171 + Indianapolis Tindley's 178). Again, just the way I read it, I could be mistaken.

Based on the rules for combining (individual schools must have less than 300 students, total enrollment cannot exceed 700) I would imagine that classification would be based on total enrollment, but that is just a guess. If so, that could cause some hesitancy among schools not wanting to avoid class jumps based on enrollment. To use Muda's example: Rossville would only be allowed to co-op with Clinton Central (as both of their enrollments are below 300), and their total enrollment would be 532. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm guessing that would easily put them in 2A and I don't know that Clinton Central would want to avoid that, but they might.

That one I am less enthralled with, but to each his own. I'm not sure this was made clear or not, but if I understand correctly the co-oping schools would agree to play under the name of one of the schools correct?

I do feel like Co-op programs is the one thing that Illinois has gotten right in a good long time.

4x100 gets all the attention, but the 4x400 is the best. Last event of the night, kids get hyped for it (or the fact that when it's over they get to go home), and it's a test of who's got the toughest 4 sprinters on the track. Great event. Sadly in our area, so many kids find track to be "boring" and would rather not do anything in the spring. It's maddening honestly. I don't know how many times I have told kids that if you aren't going to run track, at least play baseball, but more often than not it seems like it falls on deaf ears. If nothing else, the fact that kids are going out and learning how to compete in those spring sports is value added in and of itself, to say nothing of the physical carry over effects.

This is not the point of this thread, so I apologize to the original poster, but I have asked about 5 different crews about this exact rule and gotten about 5 different answers. My question is specific to "sky kicks" where in the kicker kicks the ball at an incredibly steep angle directly in the air, not striking the ground first. I have been told that such kicks are illegal under the "pop-up kick rules" and have actually been told that we would need to do exactly what the text of this rule seems to specifically rule out. Very frustrating; I've had fantastic success with sky kicks in the past, but haven't used them since 2017 because of disputes over this rule. As to quickest scores: as with a previous poster, it came after halftime, but I told our kick-off return team coming out of halftime of a game years ago that it was going to be the only shot we had to return one all night, so we'd better house it. My returners actually played rock-paper-scissors to decide which one of them got to take the return. We took it back from about our own 30 in about 5ish seconds, but it got called back on a very cheap block in the back... we scored roughly 2 plays later...

Not attacking at all, because I understand what you're doing, but to devil's advocate your devil's advocate: just because some get away with it doesn't mean it should be gotten rid of. Rules are rules. I don't like seatbelt laws, I think they are kinda stupid honestly. Still, just because I think they are stupid does not mean that I am exempt from them. Likewise to the Pro/College point; people getting away without wearing their seatbelts doesn't mean I'm exempt.

Similarish issue: should a player be punished for not having their mouthpiece in at the start of a play? Chinstrap buckled?

This.

Depends, how big is the boat, what us the asking price, and does it come with conservative talking points?

No damage out of the ordinary in the West Central portion of the state: some power outages on Sunday scattered throughout the area and some building damage from straight line winds, but nothing that we haven't seen before and, thankfully, no injuries. A colleague of mine and I were discussing this: is the weather actually more severe than it has been in the past or are people just more concerned about it than we used to be?