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Old Thu Aug 01, 2019, 11:10am
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25/40 Play clock

With the season starting soon, how many states have adopted adding a play clock on the field?

Has there been any discussion for states that aren't using the on-field clock how they are planning on handling long incomplete passes? Are they asking teams to have multiple game balls?
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Old Thu Aug 01, 2019, 11:35am
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This is a NF rule so I am not sure there is a state flat out not adding the rule. I guess that is possible but not likely.

Now we in Illinois will be using the rule and there has been some talk about what should be suggested, but there is not a standard policy of extra balls being available. There is a suggestion, but that means we will have some schools doing this and others will not. Even if you have multiple balls, we still will not have the consistency as we do at the NCAA level to even use multiple balls. The issue as I see it is not the multiple balls, it is the multiple ball boys on both sides to help make this work properly.

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Old Thu Aug 01, 2019, 11:47am
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JRutledge, I meant a physical play clock.

I know in my area having ball boys that are focused in the game is a big problem.
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Old Fri Aug 02, 2019, 08:48am
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Originally Posted by wheels View Post
JRutledge, I meant a physical play clock.

I know in my area having ball boys that are focused in the game is a big problem.
There is no mandate for physical play clocks. If a school has one it is because they decided on their own to make that change or addition.

And we are lucky if we have ball boys at all as it is related to other areas. We usually have one ball boy, on one side of the field and is an injured/backup player or a son of a coach. Not ideal at all.

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Old Mon Aug 05, 2019, 09:33am
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It does surprise me a little how some places only use one ball and chase it all over the field. Every team has multiple balls and finding the 14-year old son of a coach doesn't seem to be too big of a problem here. Some teams will also use an injured player or manager.

If you have historically only used one ball it wouldn't be too hard for the state to mandate schools provide at least 2 or 3 as well as a ball boy. They can definitely use this new rule as a reason. When we experimented they made it optional for us to have balls for both teams on both sides. With the exception of a couple weeks that's what we've done the past 3 years. Occasionally we'll have a visiting team request to place an extra ball boy on the home team side (all change of possession come in from the home side for efficiency) and we are fine with that if they are. It hasn't been a problem.

People keep saying this was a solution in search of a problem. If you consistently can't get the ball ready for play in 25 seconds because you are chasing down footballs, then it was more of a problem than I realized.

I don't know if any of the experimental states were ones where only one ball was used by each team. That should never have happened in the first place and can be easily fixed now.
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Old Mon Aug 05, 2019, 10:18am
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Originally Posted by bisonlj View Post
It does surprise me a little how some places only use one ball and chase it all over the field. Every team has multiple balls and finding the 14-year old son of a coach doesn't seem to be too big of a problem here. Some teams will also use an injured player or manager.

If you have historically only used one ball it wouldn't be too hard for the state to mandate schools provide at least 2 or 3 as well as a ball boy. They can definitely use this new rule as a reason. When we experimented they made it optional for us to have balls for both teams on both sides. With the exception of a couple weeks that's what we've done the past 3 years. Occasionally we'll have a visiting team request to place an extra ball boy on the home team side (all change of possession come in from the home side for efficiency) and we are fine with that if they are. It hasn't been a problem.

People keep saying this was a solution in search of a problem. If you consistently can't get the ball ready for play in 25 seconds because you are chasing down footballs, then it was more of a problem than I realized.

I don't know if any of the experimental states were ones where only one ball was used by each team. That should never have happened in the first place and can be easily fixed now.
I said this to you before. The issue is not if we can get the ball in place at 25 seconds, the issue is that there is not a mechanism to make that happen consistently. If the ball is thrown literally to the track or to the fence in a high school field, then it is an issue if we have started the clock as stated and we have no other help to retrieve the ball in a timely manner. Is that every play? Nope. But it happens enough that this was a serious concern at a couple of meetings I attended.

And none of this solves anything if there is no policy in place to solve obvious hole that was never considered. Again, this rule was a solution looking for a problem. There was nothing needed for this rule because it does not make the game better or even go faster. We still have no play clocks at most fields and we still have no policy for having different balls at least in this state. BTW, the only time we have a coach check different balls is when they think they get a "kicking ball." Otherwise, we get one, sometimes two that they bring to us, but again the same issue is at play. It is one kid or their side of the field that often is not paying attention to the game anyway. We cannot get ball boys in college to pay attention, but we are relying on a one ball boy that often does not know to bring the ball in after an obvious change of possession.

We will work with it and it is going to take some penalties for some coaches to have the light bulb go on or the IHSA to realize we have serious holes, but I am just going to laugh until the fallout.

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Old Thu Aug 01, 2019, 11:40am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wheels View Post
With the season starting soon, how many states have adopted adding a play clock on the field?

Has there been any discussion for states that aren't using the on-field clock how they are planning on handling long incomplete passes? Are they asking teams to have multiple game balls?
Whether they have a visible play clock or not is a school by school decision, and not really relevant to the rule. If no visible play clock, the BJ (at least in our mechanics, but that seems pretty common) will keep the 40, just like he did with the 25.

Handling long incompletes isn't all that different, I bet, either. Wings grab a new football from the ball handler, BJ polices up the old ball. I've seen varsity teams with just 2 footballs, but never just 1.

In Ohio, we will not be using the 40 sec play clock for subvarsity, thankfully.
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Old Thu Aug 01, 2019, 11:57am
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Originally Posted by scrounge View Post
Whether they have a visible play clock or not is a school by school decision,
It's a state decision here in California.
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Old Fri Aug 16, 2019, 10:42pm
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Arizona started this year. Based on scrimmages, I don't see a problem with 25/40. Ball boys WILL be an issue. They want 3 balls from each team and 2 or more ball boys. 3 balls on H side, 2 balls on V side and game ball. It will undoubtedly be a cluster "#$@&"...
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Old Mon Aug 19, 2019, 07:44am
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We've been using the 40 second play clock in Indiana for 2-3 years now. The state had originally told us they wanted a ball boy on the opposite team's sideline. We did not like that and never did it.

We throw incomplete passes off to the nearest sideline and get another ball in rather quickly. We have radios to communicate with each other and if a ball goes off the field on the wrong sideline will have the ball boy of that team run the opposing team's ball behind a goal post. The ball boy of the team the ball belongs to will then go and recover it.

Keep one ball boy right next to sideline official and another 20 yards up field who runs and collects game balls as they come off the field. If there is a pass heavy team then three ball boys will help things run smoother.
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Old Mon Aug 19, 2019, 09:13am
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Originally Posted by tomes1978 View Post
We've been using the 40 second play clock in Indiana for 2-3 years now. The state had originally told us they wanted a ball boy on the opposite team's sideline. We did not like that and never did it.

We throw incomplete passes off to the nearest sideline and get another ball in rather quickly. We have radios to communicate with each other and if a ball goes off the field on the wrong sideline will have the ball boy of that team run the opposing team's ball behind a goal post. The ball boy of the team the ball belongs to will then go and recover it.

Keep one ball boy right next to sideline official and another 20 yards up field who runs and collects game balls as they come off the field. If there is a pass heavy team then three ball boys will help things run smoother.
This is not always the case, but what happens if the ball is literally thrown out of bounds on the other side of the team on offense? Who gets those ball in your system? That is the biggest problem as I see it. We had a playoff game here where the a team near the end of the game had an exchange problem and they lost a game and that was the blame. And we are lucky if we even have an on-field clock. I am under the impression that Indiana has mostly on-field clocks. Is that correct.

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Old Mon Aug 19, 2019, 09:47am
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Originally Posted by JRutledge View Post
This is not always the case, but what happens if the ball is literally thrown out of bounds on the other side of the team on offense? Who gets those ball in your system? That is the biggest problem as I see it. We had a playoff game here where the a team near the end of the game had an exchange problem and they lost a game and that was the blame. And we are lucky if we even have an on-field clock. I am under the impression that Indiana has mostly on-field clocks. Is that correct.

Peace
Yes, I think I've maybe worked one varsity game in 10 years that did not have an on field play clock.

So your question is a ball is thrown out of bounds to team B's sideline? In that situation the official on team A's sideline would quickly grab a ball from their ball boy and team B's ball boy would run the out of bounds ball under a goal post for one of team A's ball boys to go pick up.
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Old Mon Aug 19, 2019, 10:24am
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Originally Posted by tomes1978 View Post
Yes, I think I've maybe worked one varsity game in 10 years that did not have an on field play clock.
In the past 5 years or so, we have had maybe 5 field clocks. And we had the same team a couple of times over that time so it was the same school. But we are lucky if we get one. Unless some of these schools add a clock this year, we do not have any games with a field-play clock at this point. I think this rule will help with that changing, but it is going to take awhile.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tomes1978 View Post
So your question is a ball is thrown out of bounds to team B's sideline? In that situation the official on team A's sideline would quickly grab a ball from their ball boy and team B's ball boy would run the out of bounds ball under a goal post for one of team A's ball boys to go pick up.
If they do that it would be better for sure, but we do not have a policy here at this point to make that happen across the board. But we will find out here very soon. The season starts in about 2 weeks.

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Old Tue Sep 03, 2019, 03:10pm
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25 or 40?

when does the play clock start after a kickoff? Thank You
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Old Tue Sep 03, 2019, 04:45pm
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when does the play clock start after a kickoff? Thank You
When the Referee blows the RFP which is a 25-second clock.

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