[With_Two_Flakes]

I applaud your desire to be keeping your crew thinking football and trying to make them as good as they can be.

I would argue that you should look more to working on mechanics than rules (at least until the Rule changes come out). Your crew can all be Rules geniuses, but if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time looking in the wrong place............?

If you have no film of yourselves, then get hold of film of anyone from any game. There must be some film that other guys in your local association can copy for you. Ideally you'd like film of experienced guys who know what they are doing, but equally film of some of the newer guys too. Pick out some plays that look interesting and then have a crew session reviewing them.

By interesting plays I don't only mean interesting from the perspective of the play itself or the Rules associated with it, I mean more that you should look at the mechanics of the officials and see if they are covering the play correctly. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Dick Honig a few years ago and watched over his shoulder as he reviewed game film. He was putting together a compilation film for his BigTen crew. He didn't watch film like I did. He watched the crew not the game. He watched each play several times watching one official at a time to check their individual mechanics. It completely changed the way I watch film.

Things to watch for..........

Do the crew box the play in?
Do the R and BJ work side to side or are wings left on their own on OOB plays?
Do the wings have "happy feet" and move all over the place too far and too quick or do they stand still when they should do, and let the play develop? Do they square off taking spots?
Is the clean up guy ball watching and thus mirroring the progress spot 1/100 of a second after the stop or is he correctly focussing 90% on players and 10% on progress?
Do the wings move side to side to keep their bodyshape square on to the field?
Does the HL look round for the front stick (heinous crime!) to see if the play made enough for a 1st down?
How good is the ball relay? Do the crew throw the ball too far? Do they do the ball relay too quick and take their attention off the dead ball action too soon?
PAT. Do they keep attention on the dead ball action? Does the R instantly turn to signal to the press box? Does the U turn round to see if the kick was good? Does the wings instantly start writing the score on their gamecards? Is ANYONE watching players?



Also think about the not so obvious crew mechanics issues.

Does everyone write down the details on a quarter change? If not why not? Better too many folks write it down than not enough and you screw up a quarter change.

If you have an injury delay or a team timeout, does your crew get set up for the next down straight away? Seems callous to be setting the ball and setting up for the next down while some injured kid is being treated on the field, but that is the sort of situation that helps you lose a down.

Ask your crew when during the dead time between downs they change their down marker on their finger. What is it set to on a free kick? What is it set to on a PAT? Do they change it every play?

Personally I set it to 4th on a PAT so I remember that PAT's have 4th down fumble rules too. I set it to 2nd or 3rd on a free kick, I don't want it remaining on 4th from the PAT attempt or a FG score or already set to 1st ready for the next play from scrimmage. I want to be forced to change it on every play,