Mercy Rule

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by APG

Come on, you should know this. Sure a coach can forfeit a game...as an official, I have no power to stop him. A little more paperwork for me is all that will result.

There's paperwork?

But the coach has people to answer to and unless there are outstanding circumstances, it's highly frowned upon to forfeit...which is usually met with suspension to the coach.

I had no idea. It's not like they're playing for money. What is it, like with lawyers, they're supposed to try to win no matter what the overall consider'n of good might be? So even though you, as an official, might think it'd be better for all if the game were aborted, the coaches aren't supposed to make that judgment? Unlike boxing?

I had the impression football was a game.

[maven]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

There's paperwork?

I had no idea. It's not like they're playing for money.

Yes, there's paperwork. Officials are sometimes accused of taking the game away from the players, but a coach forfeiting in the middle of a game is exactly that. It's an abdication of responsibility, and many state associations will hold coaches to account.

[APG]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

There's paperwork?

I had no idea. It's not like they're playing for money. What is it, like with lawyers, they're supposed to try to win no matter what the overall consider'n of good might be? So even though you, as an official, might think it'd be better for all if the game were aborted, the coaches aren't supposed to make that judgment? Unlike boxing?

I had the impression football was a game.

State associations tend to want to know when a coach forfeits a game...for whatever reason.

Like I said, a coach can make that judgement if he wants...he'll just have to deal with the consequences of his judgement. Most states have provisions punishing forfeits/quitting...and if they don't hand any punishments down, it doesn't stop the schools from hashing out their own punishments.

Football is a game, and by a coach deciding to call it quits for his team, he's taken that game away from his players and the opponent. In most people's eyes, there better be a pretty dang good reason for a coach to that, or he's in some trouble.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by APG

Football is a game, and by a coach deciding to call it quits for his team, he's taken that game away from his players and the opponent. In most people's eyes, there better be a pretty dang good reason for a coach to that, or he's in some trouble.

But don't the mercy rules being advocated by many in this thread do the same thing, for the same reason?

[bigjohn]

Happens in Baseball all the time, run rule. Baseball is the one sport where time is not part of the equation and a team could come back and win. So why do they have the run rule where as a football game has to be played.

I don't agree with kids not getting reps. Most of the kids that play in a blowout have a JV game of their own. Now if it is two big schools playing with plenty of non JV backups, play the entire time.

[APG]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

But don't the mercy rules being advocated by many in this thread do the same thing, for the same reason?

No...one outright ends the game.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by APG

No...one outright ends the game.

The traditional 6-man rule was that a 40+ pt. difference at or after halftime was a TKO. Game over. Isn't that one of the possibilities advocated by someone upthread?

[CT1]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

It's not like they're playing for money.

This may come as a shock to you, Robert, but there's a great deal of money involved in HS football in some areas. Coaches are paid well (some as much as six figures), and football receipts help fund the non-revenue sports.

Any coach in our state who forfeits a game will have a bunch of 'splainin' to do.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by CT1

This may come as a shock to you, Robert, but there's a great deal of money involved in HS football in some areas. Coaches are paid well (some as much as six figures), and football receipts help fund the non-revenue sports.

Any coach in our state who forfeits a game will have a bunch of 'splainin' to do.

What I meant was that they're not playing for stakes. AFAIK neither the coaches nor anybody else puts up a stake to be taken by the winner. They may well have bets on the side, but that's not their chief source of remuneration.

When the coach throws in the towel in boxing, the only concern is whether they're paid off to throw the fight, and usually it's evident they're not. I would've thought the same to apply to football. If it's obvious which team has won, with or without a point spread, what's the concern? As I wrote above, the only concern I can see would be from players who didn't get into the game or didn't get as much playing time as they wished.

So I have to ask, what is anyone's motiv'n for ending the game early -- or in some manner that would be considered "early" relative to some standard? Are the officials, the players, and their coaches working at cross purposes, or wouldn't they all have at least approximately the same motiv'ns? The only motiv'n that seems to be a good one is fear of injury -- physical, not psychic, injury. Is there evidence that lopsided games produce more than their share, playing time-wise, of injuries?

[MD Longhorn]

Not just fear of injury, but actual injuries and attrition. Had a C team start with about 16 players. By the 3rd quarter he was down to 11. They were getting slaughtered, and rather than risk worse, we agreed to a 1 minute fourth quarter (avoided the forfeit that way) and the winning team downed the ball to end it.

One other time a game was a blowout and we got lightning. Instead of waiting half an hour and trying to continue, the losing coach agreed to just end it.

The only other time I remember ending a game early or officially shortening it (rather than just running the clock) involved a life-flight helicopter and something like a minute or three left on the clock.

Note that none of these were varsity.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

Not just fear of injury, but actual injuries and attrition. Had a C team start with about 16 players. By the 3rd quarter he was down to 11. They were getting slaughtered, and rather than risk worse, we agreed to a 1 minute fourth quarter (avoided the forfeit that way) and the winning team downed the ball to end it.

Wow, so it really is that different that a technicality and a charade like that would be used to avoid a forfeit on the record?! I wonder why it's so different from boxing -- or wrestling, where they forfeit weight classes all the time.

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Wow, so it really is that different that a technicality and a charade like that would be used to avoid a forfeit on the record?! I wonder why it's so different from boxing -- or wrestling, where they forfeit weight classes all the time.

In some sports, forfeits are common place and not much is thought of them. In other sports, forfeits denote serious malpractice by the forfeiting team and almost never happen. Football is a forfeits almost never happen sport.

If you hear that a football team forfeited a game, your first thought is probably what in the world did they do that was that bad.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

In some sports, forfeits are common place and not much is thought of them. In other sports, forfeits denote serious malpractice by the forfeiting team and almost never happen. Football is a forfeits almost never happen sport.

If you hear that a football team forfeited a game, your first thought is probably what in the world did they do that was that bad.

I never had that thought. If nobody told me the details but I just saw it in a box score, I'd think they made a scheduling mistake that couldn't be better rectified in time, or they didn't have enough players. If I saw in a box score that they had a forfeit in the middle of the season and games before and after it, that would say something different from either starting or ending the season with a run of forfeits. But I could also imagine they were getting beat up in a game and threw in the towel, as in boxing.

What's odd to me is that I'm learning here that although in boxing, both the referee and the coaches are expected to stop the fight according to their judgment, in football you're looking for some uniform rule to stop the fight (the original poster wanted immediate endings, others wanting timing rule changes) early, and although the teams are allowed to do so, it's considered outre for the captain to forfeit under the same sort of conditions and for the same reasons that you want the rules to cause the game to end. So you want to make them do it, but acknowledge that it's bad for them to decide to do it. And it's under circumstances that would be extremely unlikely to make a difference to gamblers. It just seems like a very odd situation to me.