Our local state championship game is being played at a college stadium. We are private so we do not have the money to pay to change the thin uprights to the federation size uprights.

Considering the difference is substantial what would you guys think of this solution.

NCAA - 18 feet six inches
NF - 23.5 i think right?

So what if the kicked ball strikes the NcAA upright it counts as a good kick??

There is not a scenario if you do the math that a ball could hit the college upright and not go through the NCAA upright...

So the compromise would be to in essence make the game be played with about 21 foot uprights...

I mentioned this to the league and their response was..."Its mental. Tell your kickers to get over it."

This is ridiculous...The outcomes could be changed because of this...

Thoughts??

YES, both teams have agreed to play it out, but if my team would have made it, I would not have agreed to play there unless the posts were moved or some compromise was mad...

Don't count on that you would have gotten a college to change the goalposts for one game.

The compromise is in the NF rules book. If both teams agree to play on that field then you use the markings present. You never want to start making up rulings like if it hits the upright then it is good. What happens if it hits at the intersection of the upright and the crossbar? That becomes a huge judgement call.

A couple years ago here in Kansas there was a state championship game played on a college field. One team lost by three and had a field goal attempt hit an upright. If this game had been played on a high school field then there would have been overtime. However both teams knew about this problem before the game and agreed to it.

It's 23 feet, 4 inches not 23.5.

As I see it, no coaches agreement is required. Rule 1-2-5 and CB 1.2.5 discuss this. If they were adjustable, then they must be moved to the correct spacing. Else you play the game as is or don't play it at all.

Your kicker already had an advantage because of narrower inbounds marks. A college field, these are 60 feet from the sidelines as opposed to 53 feet,4 inches. Any complaints about that?

Games are played at fields marked for NCAA games all the time without any complaints. A try or field goal must go between the uprights else the point(s) are no good.
There is only one exception as I recall years ago, an old field had goal posts with both NCAA and NFHS uprights. Striking the NCAA upright with the ball thus causing the kick to not pass though was considered good for obvious reasons.

Jim, you just have to deal it...
 

Sorry, Jim, but you just have to deal with the NCAA uprights... By National Federation rules, high school teams can use fields marked for college or professional play.

We have a field here on Maui, War Memorial Stadium, that hosts only one college game per year: The Hula Bowl. The same field hosts between 30 to 40 high school games per season.

But because the County has this 5 year contract with the Hula Bowl they decided to change the goal posts to the meet college specs.

So our high school teams have to use the narrower uprights. I don't think its fair but the powers to be don't want to spend money to change the uprights once a year.

By the way, good luck to you and your team. We have not heard from you much this year but it sounds like you are having a great season so far.

The private school championships in Tennessee are played at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville. I got to hold chains for one of the championship games last year. They were using the NCAA goalposts, but had the NFHS inbounds marks at 53-4. I feel that if they're going to use the college goalposts, they need to use the college field markings as well.

Of course, this weekend would have been an excellent time to put in NFHS goalposts at Vanderbilt Stadium, considering the old ones got torn down last weekend when Vandy ended their 3-year conference losing streak. The biggest shocker to me was that the Vanderbilt athletic department....oh, wait, they don't HAVE an athletic department any more....the intramural department had spare goalposts, as if the 100 or so Vanderbilt students that actually go to football games would tear them down! I loved the quote from one of Vandy's officials that "the student section started to fill up as word got around campus they were winning." Says it all right there.

Score prediction for this week: Vols 45, Vandy 17

You play with what you got. Same advantage/disadvantage for both teams. Life is tough!


Narrower hash marks mean a greater advantage for runners, not as likely to go out of bounds. I wonder how today's narrower hash marks in the NFL would have affected the records of a Jim Brown, the greatest running back of all time. Also, when he started in the NFL, there was only a 12-game season and he never played in a 16-game season. The game has changed.

Hey Mike,

My team faired well without me. They went 6-5. I am currently going to Law School, and working full time on my video business. The private school coaching just wasn't gettning the bills paid the way I needed it to you know?

I will be back in coaching one day. But that season of my life is over. I may start officiating while I attend Law school though...crazy thought I guess ... haha...

Long story short...I tried to fire my defensive co., but guess I forgot he was my Athletic Director as well...oh well...off to Law School...haha....

It is all working out for the best though...

Thanks for asking.

Very interesting, that it is in the NF rules to play with those markings.

HEre is my strategic crazy JimNayzium question now...

we ran triple option all the time, and would have benefited greatly from the college hashes...

Could I lay out my field that way and the opponents just have to play on it?? haha....not a bad idea really...

In CNY lot of intersectional games, sectional play-offs, and state
play offs are in the Syracuse Carrier Dome. The goal posts were
always considered "legal" for those games. For a while we used
imaginary hash marks, but finally and wisely used the field markings
for ball placement.
I worked about 25 games there over the years and I'll tell you,
it was a pleasure to be able to work indoors in November in CNY !!
Anyone who saw last weeks D-2 Colgate game played in a driving
snowstorm while Syracuse U played Notre Dame in the dome can
appreciate what i'm saying !

Actually, Colgate is in the Patriot League and is D1-AA.
That was some snow storm. Didn't see any blue bean bags either.

I watched a playoff game involving two NJ teams and the NFL goal posts were what was used durng the game as it was played in Giants Stadium. Kickers had no problems from what I saw of the game.
They did not use the NFL inbounds lines. They used the standard NFHS inbounds distances as there were some very tiny, maybe 4 inches long lines on every major yard line so the ball could be spotted. Don't know if these lines were put there for these NJ playoff games or not.

(fyi nfl goal post width = ncaa )

[Edited by Theisey on Dec 13th, 2003 at 10:09 AM]

The North Carolina 4AA and 4A championship games were played at Groves Stadium (Wake Forest University) and the college goal posts were replaced with HS posts. Also, the HS inbounds marks were painted on the fiels and used for the games.

True. In NC, we play at Duke, NC State, Wake and Carolina and the NCHSAA replaces the college goalposts with HS posts at all 4 game sites.

REPLY: The mini NF hash marks at Giants Stadium that Tom refers to were put in "special" for the NJ playoffs. In fact, by the time our game took place they had all but faded away. They weren't very easy to see from the field--especially from the sideline. Often, our umpire needed to search for them. A few times he forgot about them and inadvertently placed the ball at the NFL hash. We had to remind him. We had a FG and a converted try in our game that split the uprights. Also had a missed try that passed about a foot outside my upright.