6-man football in Nebraska

The article originally appeared in the Omaha World-Herald here in Nebraska (yeah, our version of the New York Times!). Anyhow, the writer of the article isn't a sportswriter, but rather one of those "normal" news beat writers who doesn't have a clue on some of the stuff.

As to having seen six-man ball, I coached at that level for 2 years, and was a clock operator at home games and defensive statistician for road games at the school for 2 years before coaching. It's a whole different ballgame. I kind of hope they bring 6-man ball back in Nebraska as a sanctioned sport, as I'd probably be the only official in the Omaha metro area that knows the inner workings of the game, with the exception of about 4 other officials who worked the games when I was the coach.

One inaccuracy on the rules regarding the clean exchange (unless they changed it since I was a coach-don't have my books for this season with me at work) is that a handoff is illegal. It has to be a clean lateral exchange, i.e. a pitch out or a pass. The penalty for violating this rule is illegal procedure.