Quote:
Originally Posted by parepat
Neat being in your pregame. I thought the WH could have been better in each situation. In the pregame I felt he wasn't assertive enough. On the hurdling call I felt that he overstepped his bounds.
Pregame. In the 1st 11 minutes you covered three things. 80 % of it focused on the rare instance where a field goal in excess of 20 yards is attempted to win the game. Get a feeling what the crew wants to do. Clearly restate the change and move on. He himhawed around for 8 minutes. This is a state semi final. I m sure there is more to talk about.
|
I think I need to clarify a couple of things.
We had not talked about this issue or come to a conclusion all year even though there were come opinions I had shared about the approved mechanic. And considering this was a playoff game between some pretty big rivals that changed the nature of the conversation. For two years together (all 5 of us) and the year before this was kind of a sore subject with me as a Back Judge. I personally do not like this mechanic, but it almost never gets implemented because most kickers are not trying a kick that long. We talked about it a lot because this would go against the IHSA Mechanic philosophy and 3 of the officials in the room are IHSA Football Clinicians. I think that is why there was a debate and somewhat more discussion that probably needed to be. We have talked about this in passing, but not to a conclusion. And the wind that day was a factor so it is possible that might have been attempted. But I do agree that we could have come to a conclusion earlier and moved on, but I understand why the conversation took so long too.
Also understand we have been together for some time and we talk in detail a lot of things throughout the season. We do not cover a lot of things that other crews might because we have already come to conclusions on many things and did not need to have further conversations on those matters. Also this conversation was clearly after we were dressed and ready to go. We had had some preliminary conversations before the taping. I had not seen all of this video until today.
Finally I want to address the conversation about the State Final assignment. I am a firm believer in being honest with the situation you are faced with. We were selected and there were many people that knew this before this game. We had to keep doing what got us there and not just say we got a big assignment and we did not have to still work games up to a certain standard. This was a common conversation or theme all year long because we knew we were likely to go to the State Finals based on previous years and who and how crews were assigned. We just wanted to make sure we had 3 more very well officiated games and this was just apart of that. We really were not a crew that had to nickel and dime over mechanics because those in my opinion were very good and were seen as very good. Even when we worked the State Final game, we had a lot of educated observers that thought we did very good things. And so far we did not make the “tape” by not applying prescribed mechanics. This is a conversation to keep our eyes on the prize. And this was just an example of a pre-game, I am sure other crews would talk about different things based on what their state wants. For example sidelines are a big deal in our state and this is why it was talked about to some extent because we have been threatened by our administrator if we did not apply the rules on the sideline properly, it would hurt assignments. I am sure there are places this is not a big deal, but here it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by parepat
Hurdling. This was a close call. But, it was your call.
|
I will comment on this later. I want more opinions before I say a word.
Peace