From the FED Press Release, dated January 21, 2005;

"The throwing of multiple passes in a down in high school football is not a very common occurrence," said Jerry Diehl, NFHS assistant director and liaison to the Football Rules Committee. "Because teams don't see it that often, confusion has existed regarding the second pass.

"Since teams rarely use this option, the committee determined it would be best to not allow more than one forward pass in an effort to reduce confusion regarding when pass interference rules are in effect for either team. This change should assist the offense, the defense and the game officials in determining when pass eligibility rules apply."

What's your point? The post said it was confusing to "officiate fairly". That has nothing to do with confusing the defense because they don't see it often. Eligibilty was much less an issue than determining whether the pass was backward or not IMO.

The point is, that rule was changed to prevent confusion! A-11 is based on confusion!

On that point we certainly agree!

1. Page 96 in 2007 Rule Book details the Coaches Code of Ethics. One such code states "The coach shall master the contest rules and shall teach them to his or her team members. The coach shall not seek an advantage by circumvention of the spirit or letter of the rules." I believe the A-11 does take advantage by circumvention of the intent of the exception to numbering for scrimmage kick plays, since the coach has no intention of actually scrimmage kicking the ball away. As such, the Federation should comment on this particular offense as it pertains to the intent of scrimage kick exceptions.

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Reply:

A. Those items you listed were reviewed during the approval process and were part of our submission package, and discussed in detail with the interpreter before approval. The Coaches Code of Ethics, "not in the spirit of the rules or game, and the travesty" issue were never close to killing the approval, but it was a fair question nevertheless.

B. The A-11 is Not based on confusion, it is based on potentially eligible players and legally creating more possible options. But still, only 5 possible WR's on each play.

Sincerely,

KB

PS - Little bit of an update: As of today, there are now at least 3 states who have contacted us that will teach their officiating crews about the A-11 offense. That is not a bad thing...they have picked up either our Las Lomas or St. Mary's DVD (clearest videos to watch) and how to properly officiate it, and how to properly determine the Eligibles and Ineligibles. (If you happen to Ref in those states you will be contacted and/or you already know about the large or small group training for Officials - and it's not for me to advertise which states. Respectfully, and like I have been saying all along - there is a significant part of the football world who DO view our offense as innovative and worth looking at in terms of what it might/can do for the game from a coaches or officials viewpoint, etc.)

And so, like that one Ref who was so kind to point out in his earlier letter, this will make all of the officials in his state learn the rules even better and become better officials by learning how to officiate when handling an A-11 game or other similar types of offenses. And my point has been all along - we work together, communicate together and learn together. We learn from you Officials and hopefully you might learn a tad bit from us too...

not only that, but I'm sure it will generate a cure for cancer soon too.:p

A. The CA rules interpreter may have a given you the green light, but don't assume that means all of the NFHS has. IMO they tend to take the path of least resistence. My opinion is that the more this grows, the more of a chance it will end.

B. I really don't see how you can state that this formation is not based on confusion. The entire premise is that the eligible receivers are not readily apparent to the defensive. Webster's offers this defintion of confuse: to make indistinct and to fail to differentiate from an often similar or related other

I really believe that the more you push this Billy Mays, oops, I mean Kurt, the sooner you will bring about it's demise. There really can only be two outcomes to this. One is to make it completely legal and do away with the numbering restriction completely or to close the exception loophole as Bob M has suggested by making it like the NCAA rule.

And that, in my view, is the bottom line. Either the numbering requirements will be thrown out (ignoring the entire reasoning for the number requirements in the first place) because using the exception to the rule in this manner makes that rule obsolete. Or some rule revision will be made to the exception so that the loophole will be closed.
Personally, I bet on the revision happening. It may not be this year, it may not even be next year, but if this becomes a "problem" in the view of the rules people, it will happen.

billy mays?
 

* Tom, who is Billy Mays?

Since the A-11 made its debut, we have received many excellent ideas from coaches about where the game of football is headed. Here is some food for thought and feel free to post your ideas about the future of football and what it will become over the next 10 - 20 years:

* The game is becoming much faster at an exponential rate and has nationally morphed into a highly skilled spread run/pass scheme in less than a decade throughout much of the country.


A. Since the actual playing field dimensions in football have Not changed in over 100 years, but the players are faster, bigger and much stronger than their predecessors of over a Century ago, naturally the game has evolved in order to adapt. First it was the implementation of the forward pass (in part to reduce injury when the President of the United States stepped into the fray), then it was in reducing the width between the hashmarks. In other words, the game is always evolving...

Lately offensive teams have attempted to negate sheer brute strength from the game by utilizing the Spread offense and attempting to place each individual Defender on an "island" by himself in order to gain an advantage and create massive running lanes and clearer passing lanes.

B. Several coaches have suggested the game is evolving so fast and with the speed and athleticism of the athletes, and the efficient QB's able to complete 60% or more of their passes regularly, the game is moving toward maximizing the eligible WR's.

How might that happen?

1. The jersey numbering requirments could eventually go away altogether? Maybe, but very unlikely...

2. The current offensive numbering requirments mandating that at least 5 players wearing jersey # (50 - 79) must be on the field - except when in a Scrimmage Kick Formation (SKF) might be reduced.......It could very well be in the near future that those numbering requirments get reduced to Only having to have at least 3 players numbered # (50 - 79) on the field except when in a (SKF). So, a team would then normally have a (LG/C/RG), with everybody else potentially eligible and only 5 of those players could legally be downfield on a forward passing play, etc.

3. If item # 2 is eventually adopted, then it is not to far of a leap to presume that then 6 WR's eligible on a forward passing play would not be too far off either.

4. Other ideas would be to expand the End Zone to a depth of 15 yards.

5. Allowing two players to go in Motion at the same time

6. Allow only one player to still go in Motion but allow that to be towards the L.O.S. as well

** The game has always evolved to fit the needs of the current players and society and it always will evolve - the question is how?

Thanks and hope you enjoyed this food for thought...

KB

Yeah, it's called Arena Football.

The game of football is one of the most popular sports there is. Some say that it is the true American pass time. That being said, don't look for whole sale changes. Changes come about when either the offense or defense seems to get one up on the other. You can't have too much scoring or not enough. The other thing that brings about change is injury, i.e the horsecollar tackle. Your issue is a regional one that needs to be addressed on that basis. Where I grew up in NJ teams played based on size. The same is true in MD. That is the problem you need to fix. I'm shocked that you don't know Billy Mays:

http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/...06/story8.html

I didn't get the Billy Mays reference either. I would have got Ron Popiel maybe!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Popeil

Ron is actually an inventor. Billy is just a slick pitch man. In this case Billy Mays is the better reference.

I hear Canada is a nice place for this type of stuff. Why not take it there?