HS Varsity Crew Sizes
 

I'm a newer (2nd year) official in Georgia where we use 6-man crews for varsity games. I am potentially moving over the next year and recently discovered that the state to which I am moving uses 5-man crews for varsity. This got me thinking a little about what the ideal crew size is for a varsity game. Personally, I think it helps tremendously to have two deep officials because this not only adds coverage downfield but also puts two guys on each sideline.

I know a lot of states use 5 man, some use 6, and I think one or two may even use 7. I'm just curious what other states use and what everyone thinks about the effectiveness of each respective scenario.

In Michigan, we use 5 man crews for varsity games. However, there is speculation, that we could be going to 6 man crews in the future.

Nebraska and Iowa uses 5 man crews for varsity. Use of 4 and 3 man at the subvarsity and junior high levels vary by school or conference.

Texas normally uses 5 but 7 man crews are authorized and we do have a 7 man manual. They are rarely used though. We have never, and I doubt we will ever, b authorized to use 6 man crews Experience has shown you are better off dropping the 6th and just use 5 or go to 7 since using 6 leaves a huge no man's land that does not get covered well.

Ontario: each officiating group assigns officials based on the number that they have. In my area, we are lucky to have a large enough membership to use 4 for regular season games, 5 for county playoffs, and 6 for county finals, sectional, regional, and provincial playoff games and finals. (7 is used only in CIS (equiv. to NCAA).)

However, we sometimes put 5 or 6 on RS games - but these additionally officials are not paid - they volunteer for the experience of another game, or to gain experience in crew sizes of greater than 4 officials.

N.C. standard for varsity is 5. JV's use 4 or 5 depending on local procedure.
Middle school and youth use 4. Some rec leagues may go with 3.

Illinois uses 5-man crews. However, I've heard some are using 6.

Ohio uses 5 man crews. I like either 5 man or 7. Like to have a guy deep in the middle of the field.

ND does not mandate it. Most games are 5-man crews. Some of the really small schools will request 4 to save money but that is becoming more infrequent. Large schools will pay for 5 for JV but most are 4-man games. JHS is anywhere from 3-4 depending on who can make it to a 4:30 game.

5-man for all playoff games.

I agree with rather having 5 than 6 in order to have the middle man for better angles.

I can't see us ever going to 6 because we have enough trouble trying fill our 5-man crews. We need more people!

Oregon is now using 5 man on almost all Varsity games (yes we still have a few that use 4 man). JV is 4, freshman is 3. We've been fighting for years to get 5 on every varsity game (some schools won't pay), so I doubt we'll see more anytime soon.

I have not done playoff games, but I understand that we use 6 for them. I have heard that we will go to 6 for all varsity games in the next 2-3 years.

Indiana uses mostly 5-man crews but some crews have gone to 6 on their own. Most of the schools they contact (schedules are usually set 5-6 years in advance so at this point it is contacting the schools you've already contracted with) are agreeing to pay for a 6th. If they have 6 they also don't have the issue of replacing one guy on the crew if he can't make it that week for some reason. For the playoffs, the state will not allow 6-man crews so one member of the crew has to realize he won't be working any playoff games going in.

I've heard the same issue about 6 man crews leaving a gap in the middle of the field. It's never come from a crew that works 6-man though. I can see where there would be coverage issues with 6 but you also gain additional downfield coverage by having an extra official down there and the short wings can stay closer to the line of scrimmage.

Gotta agree with bisonlj. I've worked a fair bit of 6 here in the UK and Europe and I'm amazed that folks might actually prefer to leave an extra man out so there is a 5. I don't see that the occasional benefits of the guy in the middle concerning angles on the play would outweigh the benefits that you have with 6:- extra pair of eyes hence better dead ball coverage, better sideline coverage, better goal line coverage, better kicking play coverage, better receiver coverage on passing plays........

IMHO 5 is better than 4, 6 is better than 5, 7 is better than 6.

Illinois has five. Sometimes officials may use 6 if they have a sixth man on the crew who is a designated sub (one official has a kid who plays football, etc.). If all six are available they may work the game. There is NO guarentee that the sixth man will get a check, though...if that happens the five split their checks with him.

I would wish the IHSA would expand to six or even seven man crews, but I don't think there's enough officials (especially downstate) to fill all the spots.

And schools would balk, right?

As far as I know, we have 5 man varsity crews in Arizona. Below that, it's four (more running for the wings). The season-opening game, between Arizona's big school champion and Nevada's, used a seven-man crew (with two from Nevada).

Illinois had five, but we also had five below varsity.

5 for Varsity in Wisconsin, all the way through the playoffs, too.

3, 4, or 5 for subvarsity depending on the school. I will not take my crew to work 3-man anymore, those days are done. Since we get games directly from the schools at the subvarsity levels, I simply turn down any requests for 3-man.

I would go to 6-man in a heartbeat, although my umpire would immediately tell me to find another umpire since he was going to work a deep wing.

In Louisiana we use 5 for varsity games. Once the playoffs start, we still use 5 except for the "Dome crews", who have 6. All of the state championship games (Dome games) are officiated with 6.

I don't understand states that expand crew size for the playoffs or the championship game. It has to be difficult to adjust mechanics for 1-3 games after a whole season working one way. If states go from 5 to 6 man crews in the playoffs, at least 2 of the 6 will be working a different position and it will impact all officials' coverage zones.

Why mess with mechanics during the playoffs? How much do the benefits of increased coverage outweigh and difficulty of adjusting the mechanics?

Major League Baseball does it. You tell me.

Ohio uses 5 man for all playoff games. Who said Ohio is going to 6 man in the future? I have heard H.Z. speak on this and we will not be going to 6 or 7 man anytime soon. Where would we get the officials from, we barely have enough good officials as it is. Only a few schools have 6 or 7 man games, ie. St. Iggy, Canton McK, Massillon, and the like.

In the case of football, I honestly do not see this as a big deal. Working 7 Man is much easier than working 5 man. Working 6 man contributes a lot more work for the Umpire but doable. If you have extensive training, you really make the work easier for the individual official to work the games. With teams passing much more than ever, I have no problem with added officials for that purpose in critical games. All the deep wings really do is help cover passing plays and deep runs. And they help the short wing on sideline plays. I do not see this hurting the game.

Peace

I think the biggest challenge with working 5-man during the year and then going to 6-man in a state finals is the mechanics are different for the short wings and the deep wings aren't used to working those positions. Coverage is probably better but you have to know what your keys are and how the mechanics work in order to do it effectively. My concern would be if the crew members could effectively learn those mechanics in a short period of time.

When I worked my first college scrimmage, I had a hard time getting used to reverse mechanics on turnovers, staying at the LOS on passing plays, and goal line coverage once we started getting close to a score. You can pre-game all that stuff but on the field, instincts take over and if you aren't used to it, it will take some getting used to. I'd hate to have to "get used to it" during a state finals game.

I am not saying it is ideal to work from one mechanics to another. I am saying that in football, there are not the drastic movements that would make it impossible to work with more officials. This is not a situation like basketball or baseball and you completely change the movements of the officials. Even the coverages do not really change that much, because it is good in football to have several eyes on a particular play. Now you have just added angles. That is why on a DPI you might have a certain official on certain calls because they have a much better angle. In those other sports I mentioned, all your responsibilities change when you add officials. Actually from what I understand your responsibilities in football with 6 and 7 officials decrease.

Peace

I only dare speak for the situation in NY, but I suspect the logic is the same elsewhere, although I don't think it makes much sense.

The issue is money. The powers to be recognize that (in NY) utilizing a 5th official for Sectional level games on up, provides a much better level of coverage insuring a better level of competition. I suspect the same is true going from 5 to 6 men, or 6 men to 7.

The falicy is in, although recognizing that the added official(s) improves the operation and management of the game, allowing the games that actually decide who will play in the post season contests be managed by smaller crews than are known, and understood, to be less than optimal.

Unfortunately, it seems those making crew size decisions don't understand, or more likely refuse to even consider, the reality that adding each official not only provides an additional pair of eyes, at each increment it enhances the abilities of each of the other officials regarding their responsibilities.

Most of Massachusetts uses 5 man crews, but the Western part of the state still uses 4 man crews. Very tough.

I agree 6 is better than 5 but if I'm asked to work a 6-man crew rather than 5, I don't know how my responsibilities change. I might key on a particular receiver if we have a 5-man crew but that may change on a 6-man crew. If I don't realize that (and neither does the deep wing), we could both be watching the same receiver and nobody is watching the receiver who is fouled. On a 5-man crew, I have the entire sideline and the goal line on almost every play. On a 6-man crew, I now know the deep wing has anything inside the 2 and I have to reverse mechanics on any COP. If I had not previously worked a 7-man crew in a college scrimmage I would not have known that. I still have a long way to go to learn the 7-man mechanics and I would hate to have my first experience with anything over 5 to be a state championship game. There are enough differences for many of the positions that something will get missed if you don't understand the mechanics.

If you've worked with various numbers of officials and done it long enough, you can adjust, right? If you have enough experience to be getting playoff games, it shouldn't take you too long in a particular game to focus and re-adjust what you have to do in a 6-man game versus a 5-man game or a 5-man versus a 4-man. You just do it. You have to do it.

If you have never worked 6-man or reviewed the mechanics, just talking about them in a pre-game is not enough preparation no matter how much you've worked. I've been there and done that but luckily it was just a couple college JV games and scrimmages. The mechanics for the wings is very different between 5 and 6-man (much more than the variations some 5-man crews use). I was surprised at all the differences when I started working 7-man in college games this year. I assume you've worked some 6 or 7-man mechanics but do you remember how long it took you to learn them? Would you really want that first experience to be a game as important as the state finals. I would be more comfortable if the additional officials were added in the first round of the playoffs so the officials had at least a few rounds to become accustomed with the new mechanics.

W. PA uses 6 for regular season and 7 for playoffs. State playoffs use 7 as well.

I would guess the mechanics from 6 to 7 are much less dramatic than from 5 to 6. Anyone who has been through that care to elaborate?

Five for 11 man football is hard enough. Four for 12 man football?

:eek:

In 5 years I've been in 4 states...

Illinois - 5 officials all the way through, and yes, downstate we have plenty of officials to go to more. (I did see a 6-man crew work a tv game, and they were as sloppy as could be, I think they added a 6th since they were on tv and made up the mechanics)

Indiana - 5

Missouri - 5 officials regular season, districts, and state playoffs.

Nebraska - Outside of the Omaha-Lincoln areas 5 officials has just recently become the norm. In fact there are still a dozen or so crews working 4 officials on 8-man games. The state only allows 5 man crews to apply for playoffs. Here schools pay the crew, so its $300 for the crew whether you bring 4 or 7. Since I just moved here, I was #6 on our crew, and we worked 6-man in the old Illini-Badger NCAA d3 conference, but I wouldn't try to teach that to a crew of 5 guys who have only worked 5 for 3 years in a pregame. We're now wrestling with school in basketball, state wants to go to 3 and schools who have been paying $100 for 2 are only willing to pay $120 for 3.

Having worked 6 man I enjoyed the dead-ball help on the sidelines, and the over-the-top help. I worked both a deep wing and an umpire, as a deep wing you have to be a little slower and trust your umpire to kill the obvious short-hop in front of the player. Umpire, has to do what he is suposed to do anyway, he just has to be more diligent about it.

All that being said, I would rather have 10 well trained eyes, than 12 so-so trained eyes.

New Jersey -

5 man crew for varsity. There's been some chatter about expanding this to 7 man for post season play.

3 or 4 for subvarsity, depending on how many the league or school is willing to pay.

Yes. Naturally, we do not see some things. But the number of times that a coach complains is very very minimal.

On a crew of 4, the limiting factor is when a newbie is on the crew. Sometimes, we have a senior guy as a volunteer 5th, working deep, and slightly favouring the newbie's (as HL) sideline. When I'm a U or R, I also favour the newbie's sideline.

In recent memory, I've had only 1 call that I saw that I didn't flag that I should have. :mad:

We do four-man here on Saturdays (6th, 7th and 8th grade games) and six-man on Friday nights. It's a big transition, and the first time some of our younger officials get on the field after doing four-man for several years they're a little awkward on the mechanics. But they quickly pick it up.

This may surprise many school and league andministrators, but the game of football has evolved, just somewhat, over the past 30 years. The way the game is generally played today, a 4 man configuration places coverage requirements on the wing officials, that is simply unrealistic.

The players are faster, the strategies employed are far more complex, varied and spread out and they develop over much wider portions of the field. Couple that with this increasingly nonsensical expectation of microscopic precision on the most minute detail and it's no wonder the frustration level is so high on the review of 4 man mechanics.

With the development of decades of youth football, the notion that sub-varsity contests are somehow less complicated or can be managed with a 3 man configuration is just wishful thinking. Added to that environment is the component of younger, less experienced coaches whose expectations are often "off the charts". There's simply no arguing 3 man mechanics, whether it's R-U-L or R-LJ-L or any attempt at a variation, you can't fill 4 holes with 3 pegs.

Advocates and critics agree that experience is beneficial. The more snaps, games and exposure the better. Unfortunately, snaps, games and exposure also naturally bring "years" with them, as the years increase so does age and one of the things that age doesn't mix that well with (in most instances) is continued or increased physical speed, which may be the greatest assest a wing official needs in a 4 man configuration.

Adding a 5th official (BJ) makes a big difference, although the coverage responsibilities of the wing officials remains considerable. The 6th man, makes a huge difference in the responsibilities, and focus of the LJ and L while the reduced coverage area suits a more experienced (older) official's physical capabilities (in general).

About the only things that have remained totally unchanged in the game of football, over the past 30ish years, is the mechanics for 3 and 4 man coverage, while the game itself has evolved dramatically. Doing an even outstanding job with a 4 man crew, isn't serving the game as well as the game deserves, which is not a negative reflection on the officials busting their tails chasing the game.

Someone mentioned that the U has more responsibilities in 6-man compared to 5-man. Can you elaborate?

U handles the kicking team on free kicks. After the kick, monitors action on the kicker and then watches initial blocks in center of field.

More vs. different?

Five for subvarsity? wow.

in MASS, we have 5 for varsity. Mostly 3 for subvarsity. but some conferences only use TWO officials for subvarsity.

Well sort of - don't forget that 6 man crews are mandated for all quarter-final and semi-final games also.

We have a couple schools around Indy that will hire 5 for JV but most do 4

5-man for Varsity FB here in WI...4 minimum in an emergency, I guess. Have yet to see a Varsity game with 4. 4 are recommended and 3 required for JV or Frosh games. Work AAYFL youth league games that use their own mixed with Fed rules and we've been trying like he11 to get 4 man mandated, but there's enough upside down offciating that they won't vote it in due to inconsistencies.....like QB's throwing the ball away under pressure and a white hat saying: "No, he was out of the pocket." Ouch.

I have heard of JV games getting worked with guys and their regular 5 man line-up, but that's rare and I don't see a trend to that. I've never worked a 6 or 7 man, but would be interested in seeing how it worked out. I ump on most Friday night JV/FR games and white hat the rest.

TWO...? Are you kidding me...?...and "kidding" is not the word I thought of here..

Playoffs use 5in OH. The state (Hank Z) indicated that Ohio would go to 7 before it went to 6 at the state meeting in Columbus.

I think my post got corrected last year, shortly after I posted it. :rolleyes:

Same thing in MN. I do have one JV game on my schedule where they've scheduled 4 officials, but I'm pretty sure that was an error on the part of our association's schedulers.

My subvarsity stuff is about half 3-man and half 2-man.

We have it good here. I never work less than 4-man and have all the work I could possibly want. If a school asks us to send three, I reply we only work 4-man and up and they can pay for 4 or find another crew. I've only had to tell one school that in 3 years and they were happy to pay for my entire crew (5!)-- they just thought they couldn't get more than 3 so that's what they asked for.

4 man for everything below varsity.
5 man for varsity.
7 man for the SD Section semi-finals & finals.

In my part of Pennsylvania

4 officials for games under varsity
6 officials for varsity
7 officials in every playoff game

In section 5 of NY, we use 5 man for all varisty, but only 3 for JV. Which is a joke, quite frankly. You cannot officiate a football game with 3 people.