7 man

bisonlj · #1 (**permalink**) Mon Sep 01, 2008, 08:34pm

If that was the ESPN game between Elder and St. Thomas (FL), I was disappointed in a lot of the mechanics I saw. The umpire was starting 10-12 yards back on scrimmage plays and hardly moved on any play. The R struggled with most of his penalty announcements. They threw several penalty flags in the parts I watched but they all seemed correct. It's easy to criticize when watching others but I didn't get a good impression.

grantsrc · #2 (**permalink**) Mon Sep 01, 2008, 09:08pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by bisonlj

If that was the ESPN game between Elder and St. Thomas (FL), I was disappointed in a lot of the mechanics I saw. The umpire was starting 10-12 yards back on scrimmage plays and hardly moved on any play. The R struggled with most of his penalty announcements. They threw several penalty flags in the parts I watched but they all seemed correct. It's easy to criticize when watching others but I didn't get a good impression.

My thoughts exactly. I posted this on another site, but the game here in Kansas City was worked 5 man, or normal mechanics. I assume they left it that way for the very reason you mentioned- many times when you work with more and the officials aren't used to it, the outcome is usually poor. I hate to take about a crew because it's easy to comment from sitting on the lazy boy, but there were many occassions were the mechanics went bad, especially with some of the deep wings. The announcements were poor at best.

Texas Aggie · #3 (**permalink**) Mon Sep 01, 2008, 09:49pm

I didn't see an actual game using it, but I heard one or more of the games here in Texas that were interstate games used 7 officials. TASO (Texas state ref org) now has a 7 man manual and has approved the use of 7 man. I suspect it will be used in early season games like this for several years but won't be a part of varsity play for a while now. I know of some coaches who already want us go to 7 man, but I'm not sure their superintendents are ready to pay for it. I also don't think its going to appear for playoff games without first being used consistently in the regular season.

It also creates other problems. Since we work (primarily) in crews for large school games, we'd either have to go to 7 man crews (in whole or in part) or have crews pick up 2 extra guys either out of the "pool" or from other 5 man crews on games they work with 7. My solution would be to have guys that are "floaters." Technically, they'd be in the pool, but if we had enough games for them, they'd move around to different crews and the individual crews would decide where to put them.