When zero equals eleven - Part 1

The months of preparation, study, and impatience finally culminated this weekend into a four game block of contests. Unexpectedly, the games were actually pretty good for week zero and none of them were lopsided. I'll cover the HS games in this post, and include a separate post for the college game.

By the way, week zero means the regular season begins next week. The games I worked count as part of the team's overall ten game regular season team record. These same teams will have a BYE sometime during the remaining ten weeks. Stated another way, the teams which did not play Friday night already had their BYE and will play for ten straight weeks. So, the season is eleven weeks long, but the teams all play a ten game season. So why is it called week zero? I just explained it, don't you get it?

Freshman
For one official this was his first high school game. When I asked him if he was nervous he stated, "no, I did two pop warner games last week" Through a sagacious grin I said, "that's good".

Prior to the game, one of the coaches said his son would be the ball boy. The young man was around ten years old I suppose and seemed eager to please. We instructed him to stay with the Line Judge(LJ), follow him around, do what he says, etc. He respectfully said he would. Typically, the home team provids the ball boy and the LJ typically works the home team sideline. The chains are on the opposite side of the field - away from the press box so the announcer can see the down and distance.

This was twenty minutes before game time when I still only had three officials. I was getting pissed and anxious. When the forth official finally arrived, I decided to move him to LJ and the new guy to Head Linesman. (If you are going to be using four-man mechanics, then you want the stronger official on LJ). I forgot to tell the ball boy he now had a new official to follow.

Then, as we were doing the coin toss, the fifth guy shows-up. I'm getting more pissed. I've never worked this guy before, so I moved him to LJ and the fourth guy to Back Judge.

During the first five change of possessions my glorious crew cannot seem to get the right ball on the field. I have to kill the clock, bring the new ball in, slow the game down. We looks like idiots. Now I'm just annoyed as hell.

During a time-out the coach (father of the ball boy) tells me his son is on the other side of the field following the original line judge... just as we instructed. Ooops. I went over-the-top to thank the young man for listening so carefully to our instructions. And promptly told the LJ what a jack-off he was for letting this fiasco go one for half the quarter.

Insert -- voice-over exhale.

One of the new rules came into play - Horse Collar Tackle. The new guy threw two flags on a single play. One was a block in the back and the other was the horse collar. How a new guy can see this, let alone on the same play, is beyond me, but I'll leave that alone. Ok, these two live ball fouls will cancel and we'll replay the down. Then the Back Judge tells me that was not a horse collar. I defer to the BJ and waive off the horse collar. Why? The BJ reported that although one player did have his hands on the inside of the shoulder pads, there were two players tackling him.

Here is the rule:

No player shall: grab the inside back or side collar of the shoulder pads or jersey of the runner and subsequently pull the runner to the ground.

So it is a foul when a single tackler using this technique to pull the runner to the ground. Once you have more than one tackler, then there will be no foul. This was also the interpretation from the 2009 Rules Interpetation Meeting I atteneded.

The game ended 33-22, which is high scoring for Freshman. It could have been 33-29 if one of the players for the visitors was not being stupid and blind sided a guy thirty yards away from the ball. I called back the TD with this flag.

When I asked the new guy how he felt after his first high school game he said, "it's a lot faster than pop warner. And this isn't even varsity!" I promptly resumed my sagacious grin.

This was a longer post that I expected. I'll post the Varsity notes separately.

2009 Rules Interpretation Meeting

During the off-season I had the privilege of attending the 2009 Rules Interpretation Meeting with Steve Stearns, State CIF Football Rules Interpreter for California. I got the inside scoop on all the rule changes before anyone else. It was kinda cool.

Perhaps some explaining is in order. The CIF (California Interscolastic Federation) is the governing body for competitive events between High Schools. They sanction the events, decided which rules will be used, etc. The CIF also certifies sports official associations. I could not work Football games if my association was not certified by the CIF. The schools can only use officials from certified associations.

The CIF, as I mentioned, also decides the Football rules California schools will use. And yes, there are more than one set of rules that can be used. The CIF, as do most states in the country, use the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) rules. The NFHS is the "owner" of High School football. They decide how the game is played. They make the rules. They are the gods. This is where Steve Stearns comes in.

Steve attends the meetings at a national level and brings back to California the interpretations of the new rules. This may seem odd, but quite often, if you do not understand what problem is being addressed, or what the Rules Committee is really trying to prevent the rules cannot be applied properly. Steve is they guy who has the final say for California. If we have some weird play situation that is not clear in the book how it should be handled, then Steve is the guy who helps us decide the official ruling.

As I have outlined in many posts, much of Football officiating is about the "spirit" of a particular rule. This is what Steve does for the CIF.

Think about it -- how frustrating would this be for coaches, players, and fans to have the rules applied differently throughout the state?

The meeting lasted almost 2.5 hours. There are a lot of changes this season and I'll be mentioning these as the season progresses. A few of these will not make the coaches happy.

My first game is this Thursday and I bet one of these new rules will come into play. I'll let you know.

Let's do this thing

Football season is upon us and I once again become part of the greatest game humankind has known. The scrimmages are over, the tests are over, and my patience is over. Let's get this thing started already.

College scrimmages pretty much sucked this year --only inner-team scrimmages. The way I understand it there just is not enough money for teams to travel for scrimmage. This is unfortunate. This problem, however, is not limited to Community Colleges. Many of the High Schools in our area will not be fielding Freshman teams. This is very disappointing.

I received a full schedule from the Community College association and will continue working as Umpire. The complete HS schedule is not out yet, but I have my first game on Thursday as the White Hat and then two games on Friday -- one as White Hat and the other as Line Judge.

I do know I will have two varsity White Hat games this season. Regular readers will know this is a big deal.

During the off-season I was given the job of Chairman of the Certification Program for the HS association. This also means I get the grade all the tests. More on this and some the rule changes next time.