2019 Rules Changes

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by bisonlj

Also interesting because those are the same people serving as ball boys in our HS games (usually the 10-14 year old son of a coach and his buddies) and they don't have major issues doing it. They are far from perfect and we sometimes have to yell at them because they aren't where they are supposed to be or paying attention but they generally do an adequate job to keep the game flowing.

All I am saying is the rule will be a little more difficult if we do not have a system in place to get more help in this area. Coaches will complain, but I will tell them the truth. That truth is that we need more than one football at times to get the ball set and ready to go consistently. And we do not have a field clock and you will have to keep that in mind. A couple of penalties will make that overall point.

Originally Posted by bisonlj

We almost always check at least 3-4 balls from each team. I know your schools have them if needed. They just need someone (IHSA would be better than the officials) to request multiple balls checked so ball mechanics can be done efficiently. You could live with 2 but 3 or 4 is definitely better. It's not rocket science and most other states seem to do it that way. I know this one is beyond your control.

You are given more footballs than we are given. Usually, 1 and sometimes 2 when they try to tell us "This is the kicking ball." Otherwise, they have one they use or we use what they bring to us when they come to the field. As I said my issue is not that they have more football, the issue is what is the system to allow us to put the ball in play in adequate time. If you are using one football and we have a long gain or the ball is on the track, then are we set up for some failure to apply this rule consistently? I just do not see how this rule makes things "better." It is an opinion. I might change my mind down the road, but I see nothing that changes the game for the better because we have a 40-second clock. And as I have said before, I bet there will be holes in what we do, unlike the NCAA that has all kinds of procedures to apply the rule. The NF love to take one part of a rule and not make it clear how we apply it in specific situations.

Peace

[Robert Goodman]

Remember where this method of starting the play clock began? It was in the WLAF in 1991, which means the NFL was using it to experiment with.

What was the problem they were seeking to address? Variation of the amount of time a team that wanted to exhaust the period clock would have, due to variation in the amount of time officials took to ready the ball after a running play -- which for pro football wasn't much variation.

The amount of time a team that wanted to bleed off the clock could would differ only between plays that ended with a ballcarrier's going down bounds. When the period clock was running, the team on defense could delay the RFP a little by being slightly uncooperative to a degree the officials would not stop the clock. But if the offense wanted to hurry up, having a fixed amount of time between downs with the clock running did not help against such tactics by the defense. It helped only if the team on offense wanted to consume time and the officials were slow, and only when the preceding play left the clock running.

The amount of time the WLAF used at first for this, 35 seconds, produced a pace that was slightly faster than even Canadian football's and was difficult for offenses to use any plays where they had to get a good pre-snap look at the defense or to signal anything complicated, so the NFL never adopted that short a time; when they finally did adopt such a procedure, they made it 45 seconds, which proved in a few years to be a lavish amount of time for them.

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Remember where this method of starting the play clock began? It was in the WLAF in 1991, which means the NFL was using it to experiment with.

What was the problem they were seeking to address? Variation of the amount of time a team that wanted to exhaust the period clock would have, due to variation in the amount of time officials took to ready the ball after a running play -- which for pro football wasn't much variation.

The amount of time a team that wanted to bleed off the clock could would differ only between plays that ended with a ballcarrier's going down bounds. When the period clock was running, the team on defense could delay the RFP a little by being slightly uncooperative to a degree the officials would not stop the clock. But if the offense wanted to hurry up, having a fixed amount of time between downs with the clock running did not help against such tactics by the defense. It helped only if the team on offense wanted to consume time and the officials were slow, and only when the preceding play left the clock running.

The amount of time the WLAF used at first for this, 35 seconds, produced a pace that was slightly faster than even Canadian football's and was difficult for offenses to use any plays where they had to get a good pre-snap look at the defense or to signal anything complicated, so the NFL never adopted that short a time; when they finally did adopt such a procedure, they made it 45 seconds, which proved in a few years to be a lavish amount of time for them.

This is definitely a positive impact of the rule change. We saw it in NCAA when we implemented it and in our NFHS experiment. The other factor is plays where the run ended near the umpire and he spots it quickly. This could result in a dead ball period of less than 40 seconds. Plus it nearly guarantees consistent crew to crew and play to play within games.