IOWA FB Officials
 

For those of you that are fortunate to have playoffs assignments this evening good luck and wishing you a clean and smooth game. Sounds as if the weather should be dry with low 40s temp.

I know a few of you kicked off last night as well in the 8 man game playoffs.

Amazing how fast the football season flies by.

Good Luck Iowa boys!!

No tournament assignment here (I just finished my first varsity season), but I'm looking forward to going out and watching a game for fun. The school district I work for is hosting a game and I never see them play since I'm always on the road. Looks like a great night for football weather wise.

Junker you live here in iowa? good to see some new officials from the state. i know from conversations with the assoc in boone they are not in dire straits yet but we definitley need to increase the number of young fb officials here in the state.

what game are you heading to tonight?

Newton-Marshalltown. I'm sure we some of the same schools. My crew doesn't work 4A, but we work 3A on down in the area (and a few long road trips).

We just worked the Newton Lincoln game last week, have pella at boone tonight. If you have interest in the CIML schools let me know i can get you in touch with the assignor. send me a personal message on here.

I was surprised at the score of the Lincoln game. I was going to make it to that one as my regular crew was off, but a friend had a health issue so I went up and worked in Nevada vs Boone. You could have a pretty good game tonight. I'll have to try and catch the highlights. Thanks for the offer on hooking me up in the metro, but the crew I joined has been around for a while and they aren't interested in 4A ball. I do know the assignor through basketball (I've been working hoops for 8 years and baseball for 4). I'm just a newbie on the football field. Do you work any of the lower level DM games for Bill? I get out there every few weeks. WE can try to work to gether sometime if you do.

REPLY:Newton, Iowa...home (make that 'former home') of the Maytag company, right? And still the home of great Maytag Blue Cheese.

Yes, you would be correct Bob. There are a few people out there working for like a week or so and then the doors are closed on Maytag here for good. The dairy is still around and going strong though.

Not to get off the point, but I'm from Omaha and my crew work some Western Iowa games, i.e., Glidden-Ralston, Sidney, Corning, etc. I'm the guy that primarily does the scheduling for our crew, and am looking towards the next 2 year cycle. Are there any schools west of DM that I should avoid contact with because they use an assignor similar to the CIML? I just want to save my time and postage, etc, in contacting schools about our crew's availability. Thanks.

Class 3A District 8 has the AD at Harlan assign game the last two years i know. We usually do 2 games a year over in their district.

The headache in Iowa this time around is their is a strong rumor that the state is going to do the scheduling for all games both district and nondistrict. So schools will have no say so at all.

As far as the wild day after for us officials getting dates will be a nightmare. That is one reason why i like the assignors so i am locked in ahead of time.

Selfish i know but dont miss the 6 am calls from ADs trying to find crews

Good luck tonight....

I'm not sure football will see the huge crush on need for officials, but I sure wonder about basketball sometimes....a lot of these small Iowa schools have separate school districts that share one football program, and then may or may not compete against each other in basketball. So a lot of schools have their own b-ball programs which means the need for more officials in many cases. Some guys I know who have done varsity work over the years are finding little to complain about when reffing lower level games on a local basis, particularly if there are a lot of games to be covered. I know one night in my town, with two high schools and two middle schools, there was a need for something like 20 officials to cover the different games, from 7th grade on up to varsity.

Looked like you had a great game Bobo. I caught the score as I left the Newton game (which was also very well played) and then the highlights on the news. Nice job from the 45 seconds of the game I got to see. :D

It has been my understanding that the state was sitting pretty good on football and basketball officials. They REALLY are in need of baseball umpires.

We had Newell Fonda at Bishop Garrigan last night in the first round. 40-13 and a pretty good game actually. Garrigan is pretty good, 10-0 now and it will be interesting to see how the do down the road.
Hoping for a phone call today about a round 2 game.

I'll believe that. The other 4 on my football crew do baseball, and they all already have contracts in Iowa for Summer 2008, with "promises" from the same AD's that they'll have about the same number of games in 2009. The fellas commented that it's easier to get a high school game in Iowa than in Nebraska. I would assume it's because it's a summer sport in Iowa and a spring sport in Nebraska, where it would have to compete with track and whatever else is offered in the spring.

I was going to say, I do remember one assignor for an 8-man district calling me a couple years ago. I thought it was odd he was the AD at one school and he was calling me about a game involving two other schools. Then it occured to me that they had district meetings and he must have drew the short straw to get the assigning job (I would have to think it was the short straw...I wouldn't want that job!). But there were other AD's who called me directly about their own games.

Does that rumor "say" that the state association will schedule all the games AND assign the officials OR they will set the dates for specific games? The way I understand it, the district meetings were set up so that the schools could talk about which dates the games were played on, provided they followed the week schedule the state set up.

In Nebraska, the last cycle got screwed up because the state's computer inadvertantly released the schedules 12 hours ahead of schedule. As a result, the schools were screaming the state association should take over the assigning of officials. The board declined, saying they didn't want to be burdened with whining from the schools when they get assigned someone they don't want.

1 of the problems is having to compete with softball. The games are usually shorter and such. Personally I can't take all the chants and cheers so I stay with baseball.

I was watching the Southern Cal/Pleasantville game. The crew was primarily from Sioux City and they did a real good job. You can sure tell the difference between an experienced crew willing to put in a little extra effort, and the crew that shows up each Friday night.

One crucial play towards the game winning scoring drive included a running back who was in three point stance and hiccuped a little during the signal calls. He just jerked slightly, and of course everyone saw it, but he reset, the defense didn't come offside, so the officials let it go. It's very close to simulating the start of the snap, but i've seen more people let it go, than call it. Any thoughts? What if the D sees it and comes offside? Do you blame the back?

I forgot Iowa has softball during the summer too. We don't have that problem in Nebraska. Softball is a fall sport. I guess that would explain the difficulty in finding people to work the baseball games in the summer. Also, you have to remember, Nebraska has Legion baseball in the summer, so our guys do get spread thin with that as well.

I was at the Bettendorf vs. Iowa City High game working the radio broadcast (yes I'm an official and a broadcaster...strange combination I know, but at least I know the rules on the air). The Des Moines area crew that worked the game did an excellent job. I don't have their names, but I wanted to say "great job".

Being in Boone you just wonder whose eyes are in the stands. We had a pretty good game i thought. Course the sidelines may have different view points but what can you do. Seems like every play one of them is searching for something.

All in all great atomosphere, coaches were great, kids great too bad somebody had to lose.

Checkout my first scrimmage play scenario on anothe topic on the board. Blew me away.

In general, Indiana doesn't do any assigning at the varsity level. It is up to crews to network with ADs to schedule games. Our crew is prett full through 2011 already, half a 2012 schedule and 1 game in 2013. I've talked to crews and schools that are booked through 2013. It's a crazy system but at least we have some control over where we work. I wonder if it would be nicer to have an assigner process (we might get an opportunity to work some more interesting schools), but I'm sure that is full of politics. The playoffs are assigned by the state on a week to week basis.

How the heck does Indiana have games scheduled that far in advance? Nebraska and Iowa don't even have the games scheduled yet for 2008 and 2009, as they handle scheduling on a 2-year basis. Even before the states took over the scheduling process, I don't think any school in Nebraska and Iowa had games scheduled 6 years in advance. If they did, it was with some out-of-state school in which special arrangements were part of the deal.

REPLY: The problem is not so much the defense encroaching, but rather the possibility that the defense sees it and relaxes or straightens up out of a 'ready' stance believing that a flag will be thrown. Now A snaps the ball and B is already at a disadvantage in the play. That's why I believe that this false start (that's what it is) should most definitely be called. Too many officials give the backs and WRs a pass saying that they can reset. Too much bad stuff can happen when that's permitted. And there's absolutely no rule support for allowing them to reset. Flag it and shut the play down. You won't hear an argument from either side--except for the possible "They let us reset last week."

I know exactly what you mean. I work baseball there every year and it always leads to a little "heightened awareness" from us. Last night I worked some women's hoops at DMACC and our scorer was at the game. He said it was a great game and mentioned that the officials did a great job. Just thought I'd pass that on.