Substitutes

[Trojanmp52]

In the nfl and think college as well if you substitute on offense the defense has time to do the same.  Should that  be implement at the HS level as well.

Edited October 18, 2025 by Trojanmp52

[First_Backer_Inside]

Yes, but I think it would be a nightmare for officials. 

Enforcing it would be difficult for them, so I don't think it will ever happen.

[Bobref]

17 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

Yes, but I think it would be a nightmare for officials. 

Enforcing it would be difficult for them, so I don't think it will ever happen.

You’re right. Can you imagine the inconsistency we would see from crew to crew at the high school level?

[Yuccaguy]

That came up last night.  Told him that's NOT a HS rule.  Dropped immediately by the questioning school.

[First_Backer_Inside]

Honestly, I'm not even sure anyone except for maybe a couple 5A or 6A programs would sub anyone in on defense unless they were a supper deep team. I mean no matter what we see at the 2A level, we usually have the same 11 cats playing D and we adjust based on formation, not personnel. Maybe before the half we take a D-lineman or linebacker out and sub in a more skilled guy. Other than that, not sure this rule would even be used other than to slow down a high paced offense maybe.

[oldtimeqb]

2 hours ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

Yes, but I think it would be a nightmare for officials. 

Enforcing it would be difficult for them, so I don't think it will ever happen.

I agree it would be horribly inconsistent and tough to monitor. 

What would be easy to enforce would be breaking the huddle with 12. That should absolutely be a rule in HS.

 

[Impartial_Observer]

8 hours ago, oldtimeqb said:

What would be easy to enforce would be breaking the huddle with 12. That should absolutely be a rule in HS.

 

If I only had a dollar for everytime I was yelled at me “they broke the huddle with 12”, I’d be smoking a LOT nicer cigar right now. 

[Trojanmp52]

11 hours ago, Bobref said:

You’re right. Can you imagine the inconsistency we would see from crew to crew at the high school level?

Who mean like how they are consistent on call every thing else game to game now.

[Bobref]

1 minute ago, Trojanmp52 said:

Who mean like how they are consistent on call every thing else game to game now.

Translation, please. 😂

[btownqbcoach1]

14 hours ago, Trojanmp52 said:

In the nfl and think college as well if you substitute on offense the defense has time to do the same.  Should that  be implement at the HS level as well.

Yes

[Trojanmp52]

7 hours ago, Bobref said:

Translation, please. 😂

Yes like crew to crew are consistent now on how they are at calling things, say with holding or Starting clock after first down to name a few.   Because it is not consistent, so not making a rule because it would hard to officiate is just dumb to me. But that is what I think and what do I know.

[Bobref]

3 hours ago, Trojanmp52 said:

Yes like crew to crew are consistent now on how they are at calling things, say with holding or Starting clock after first down to name a few.   Because it is not consistent, so not making a rule because it would hard to officiate is just dumb to me. But that is what I think and what do I know.

On a given Friday night there are about 750 officials working high school games. They run the gamut from guys who watch video and do rules tests every week to the guys who don’t think about football until they get off work Friday afternoon … and everything in between. If you expect the caliber of officiating you see in the NFL or D-1, that’s on you for having unrealistic expectations.

[First_Backer_Inside]

5 minutes ago, Bobref said:

On a given Friday night there are about 750 officials working high school games. They run the gamut from guys who watch video and do rules tests every week to the guys who don’t think about football until they get off work Friday afternoon … and everything in between. If you expect the caliber of officiating you see in the NFL or D-1, that’s on you for having unrealistic expectations.

No matter how frustrated I get with some of the inconsistency, once the game is over, I am extremely thankful for those 750 officials. Hopefully we can get that number to grow, or Indiana high school football as we know it could look a lot different in the years to come with not all games happening on Friday nights.

[JustRules]

On 10/18/2025 at 9:21 PM, First_Backer_Inside said:

Honestly, I'm not even sure anyone except for maybe a couple 5A or 6A programs would sub anyone in on defense unless they were a supper deep team. I mean no matter what we see at the 2A level, we usually have the same 11 cats playing D and we adjust based on formation, not personnel. Maybe before the half we take a D-lineman or linebacker out and sub in a more skilled guy. Other than that, not sure this rule would even be used other than to slow down a high paced offense maybe.

It's not that hard to officiate as long as it's effectively communicated. And if the defense doesn't match up in 3 seconds then it really doesn't impact the play at all. So the defense not having subs is not a reason do NOT do it (sorry for the double negative). It also removes the concern someone else had with breaking the huddle with 12. If that happens, the offense will need to complete the sub during which time the defense has the opportunity to match.

The rules committee does factor in difficulty to enforce when it makes new rules. They try to avoid exceptions when possible for this reason. If they feel this is difficult to enforce and the juice isn't worth the squeeze, then they not pass it.

[5GetsYou1]

15 hours ago, Trojanmp52 said:

say with holding or Starting clock after first down

For some reason, it seems the clock operations have been getting worse. I've spoken with a lot of operators that are being told flat out wrong information on when to start/stop the game/play clocks. 

On the other hand, we've had several operators not listen during our pre-game meeting and it feels like a fight to get the play clock started at the correct time.