25/40 Play clock

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

Peace

I am anxious to hear about your implementation. I have several officiating friends in your area so I'll see if their experiences are similar to yours. I would imagine they will be.

I guarantee each of your teams have multiple balls they can check. They choose not to or have never been asked to. I think that's fairly rare around the country but these forums have proven it's more common than I would have expected. Our poorest inner city schools have at least 2 or 3 balls. They may not be great footballs, but they have multiple and have no problem checking them.

I wish you the best of luck!