50-60mph winds tonight for playoffs
 

This should be fun!!!! Crazy things on kick plays, no passing, throw the flag and have it blown back into your face. Be prepared for some wacky stories from Wisconsin tomorrow.

I'm in Minnesota and we have those same winds on top of rain. It's going to be a fun night.

If the wind gets really bad, maybe you need to be flagging things Dennis Eckersley sidearm style....

Going with the wind tonight could make for some interesting coin toss choices.

Dark=heads, light=tails. In the playoffs here, the kids don't even get to call the coin. :D

Yep, this should be an interesting night.

I know one of the teams in my game likes to run the shotgun-spread, no-huddle offense. I'm interested to see how they adjust.

Natural grass field too. Gonna have to bring the extra towel with me.

Windy Day
 

Well it is 40 degrees here in NW WI with Windshield of 28 already. Game TIme is 4 hours away...not looking so hot...oh by the way I have seen a few snowflakes....Captin you have won the toss....I WILL TAKE THE WIND...sir!!Have a great game men...be safe and dress warm!!!;)

or submarine style a la Quisenberry (RIP)

http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedi...uisenberry.jpg

Or if the wind is behind you a 10-yard toss ends up going 30.

The teams that can run tonight will have the advantage. At this precise second, it's 50 degrees with a 28 MPH wind (gusting over 40).

Time to get ready and head to the school. Bringing the gloves tonight.

Here is SD the same story. Light rain, steady wind of 30-35 MPH, gusts over 58 MPH. And if that isn't enough, snow later! Hopefully after the game. I have done games in worse conditions, but I can't think of too much worse than these.

A running game is your asset tonight. Enjoy...Jim

Wind might even blow a coach across the field or something.

Football....on Tuesday?????

In MN, the first round of our section playoffs are on Tuesday and the semi-finals are on Saturday. Section finals are next week on Friday.

3 games in 10 days.

Dark team won the toss and deferred last night. Light team chose to defend the South goal. When we tried to talk the spokesman into taking the ball, his exact words were; "I know...we'll be kicking both halves. We want to pin them with the wind." Had an almost constant 35+ wind out of the S-SW last night, the entire game.

The goal post uprights at this school are about 2" pipe and they were bent about 5 or 6 feet out of square from the wind. I can never remember working a game on a natural grass field where you had to stand over the ball to keep it from blowing away.

On a side note....the victorious team passed quite a bit, but every long pass over 25 yards in the air had absolutely no chance by either team last night.

It was very memorable last night. I threw a sideline warning flag and my flag ended up at the base of the fence next to the bleachers about 20 yards away. The referee, Umpire and BJ kept losing their hats. We have 1 completed pass with about 7 attempted. All the punts were low line drives and the PAT's were interesting as well.

Our BJ almost got into the one deep pass play because the ball moved about 15 yards from Left to Right. Both teams were extremely competitive and very sportsmanlike. It was a fun game to do despite the weather!

Forgot....also had a high kickoff by the home team that went about 25 yards and by the time it touched the ground, it was going backwards toward the kick-line. Receiving team backed up to block on the return and the ball ended up bouncing about 15 yards from the kick line...recovered by K.

Saw alot of crazy stuff last night.

Every kickoff with the wind at the kicker's back ended up going over my head (at the goal line). I saw a punt last night that started going way out of bounds and ended up being blown back to the middle of the field.

At least it didn't rain.

Weird, weird game. The visiting team got stopped 4th and goal about a foot short of the goal line. Later in the half they were driving and fumbled and the home team picked it up and went 85 yards the other way for a TD. Those 2 scores and the resulting scores the other way could've made it a very different game. It was 28-6 at the half.

The home team decided to stay in the locker room the second half and escaped by hanging on and scoring late. On a TD play we had sideline interference (5 yards) on the offense and a PF face mask on the defense. You should've heard the PA guy try to explain that one. Of course, I had to go over to the defense's sideline on that one to explain it to him.

I wore UA Cold Gear up top and on the bottom, an UA hood, and a pair of UA gloves. I looked like a walking billboard. With all that on, I was comfy. Of course, watching the highlights on TV, saw a lot of crews wearing striped coats. Could anything possibly look worse than a football official wearing a striped jacket to work a game?

We had one punt caught by K 9 yards behind the LOS. But the kicker had the wind at his back!!!!! That was one play we never anticipated. :)

A few passes, but pretty much everything on the ground in a running clock game. So nothing spectacular - only two lost hats and it was the same guy.

I don't allow jackets - we wear black before the game but don't reverse them unless it's a downpour. I just wore three layers, no gloves, and actually worked up a bit of a sweat.

We had two 70 yard punts and five 5-15 yard punts. A 52 yard wind aided FG...and passes that looked more like ducks. (Waukesha)

We talked about that over a beer last night. You must've seen the Fox 6 Blitz. Did you notice a few guys had on a winter type head wrap over the ears..? Jeepers....what do they do when it actually gets cold out?
I've worn a jacket twice in all these years. Once in Port Washington when there was a 30 MPH wind coming off the lake...bringing the WC to about 20 degrees or less and a game in Hilbert...which was even colder. I had the same get-up as you, minus the head sleeve, and was actually quite comfy in Brown Deer.

Nah, Madison area. I record the 3 network 10PM newscasts. We got about 15 seconds on all of them.

Now see, unless you're expecting the wind to shift or die down, there's no advantage to starting with the wind as there is with games where you don't change ends with the quarters.

One Sat. in the 1970s there was a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that produced two 67-yard FGs (NCAA) and one 69-yarder (Abilene Christian, NAIA).

I don't understand why teams make such a big deal over which goal they defend. They are going to defend both of them for half the game so it shouldn't matter much.

Easy answer. Momentum. Had a game last night where one team couldn't get the ball out of their end and because of the wind didn't punt the ball past the 35 yard line. They gave up 21 points in the quarter and none of the 3 scoring drives were longer than 35 yards. They didn't turn the ball over. They ended up losing by 21 points.

If a team can pin a team deep and score a few TD's while they have the wind at their advantage it can dictate the game.

By "momentum" you mean psychology. If they thought the same way regarding tiebreaking frames, they'd rather "bat in the top of the inning".

BTW, in my club's games we don't change ends at the quarters, because for crowd control reasons they have the team bench areas on the same side of the field, and they don't want to make the subs have to walk thru each other twice (more) a game. So when we had a windy Saturday it did pay to choose an end to defend.

There are more downs at the end of a half than at the end of the 1st or 3rd quarters. It makes sense to most teams to have the wind at one's back and/or be looking at the scoreboard to end a half.

There are more downs only because a team is looking to conserve time. If they had the wind in the odd numbered quarter they could conserve time then.

I cannot believe you are asking about which end to defend when there is a 50 mph wind blowing the length of the field. If you have the wind at your back you can successfully kick or throw the ball if the situation requires it at the end of the game or half. If you fall behind in the scoring and the wind is in your face, you can't do anything drastic at the end of the half or game to get big plays.

Besides, who calls a time out in the 1st and 3rd quarters to "conserve time"?

Let me also add that it mattered little in defensing the other team's passing game and actually hindered the electing team when they were down and needed to pass late in the game. The team that chose wind also was pinched at their own endzone late from a 60+ yard punt that K downed at R's 1....forcing them to have to punt out of their own EZ for a 17 yarder. Is back fire one or two words...?

I'll stay out of the pi$$ing match you guys have got going about number of plays and what not, but in those conditions...there is clearly an advantage in going with the wind.

Worked a youth game last night in nearly the same conditions and had a split end get pushed forward by the wind for a false start. Field was terrible and almost nothing but dirt to the point that my ump had to literally hold the ball between his feet or hold it with his hands or the ball would blow away in a split second until the center got it in his hand...absolutely crazy out there.

I saw a team burn 2 at the end of the first quarter to force a team to punt into the wind a few weeks ago. It ended up being a 12 yard punt and the other team scored a TD quickly.

Actually, in my game Tuesday night, the team that won scored on a 60ish yard pass against the wind with about 2 minutes remaining in the game. (Granted, it was a lucky "heave it up and hope for the best" pass and the defenders collided with each other and fell down, but still).

Same team tried to call a timeout at the very end of the 3rd quarter, so that they could punt with the wind. Unfortunately for them, the play didn't end until after time had expired, so they were unsuccessful in their attempt. I would consider that an attempt to "conserve time".

Several problems in this statement. First, there was no hurricane in the Gulf that day. Even if there was, Abilene is quite a long way from the Gulf and is rarely affected by hurricanes, except for some after-effect rain, but even that doesn't happen much. Second, there was no 67 yard field goal made by any NCAA kicker that day. Tony Franklin of Texas A&M made a 65 yarder -- a record at the time, and then later hit a 64 yarder. 2 60+ yarders are still NCAA records. It was a year later when Russel Erxleben of Texas and Steve Little of Arkansas both kicked 67 yarders 2 weeks apart. Finally, while the wind did aid the Abilene kicker, it was an estimated 16mph wind. Not unusual for ANY fall Saturday in West Texas.

Just FYI, North Texas got some after-effects earlier this year from a hurricane. Any high winds were due to hurricane related tornadoes and their high straight line wind cousins -- and they are very patchy and location specific. The tropical winds from the original storm have long since died down. We didn't get much wind at all where I am, but east Texas got hammered. If hurricane related winds COULD aid a kick, you can be sure they won't be playing the game! At least around here.

While Hard to See.....
 

Kickoff into 40-mph wind travels backward 12 yards - Prep Rally - High School - Yahoo! Sports

This completely messes up the kickers avg...... :(