This week's bizarre high school football score

EDIT: Sorry, wrong thread.

 

Already seeing the evergreen "We need replay and challenges in high school" tweets. But while you may have, say, 10 cameras for a network game (correct me if I'm wrong, TV friends), you're lucky if you have one at a high school game. And unless it's being streamed, definitely not at the 2 pm game of the Podunk Lions Club Christmas Classic.

 

They actually have replay challenges in Alabama for high school football, with the caveat that if there is no broadcast then tough shit.

 

That's the thing with replay. You need to have a legit video source. High schools, especially less affluent high schools, are videoing on cell phones and hoping for the best. Unless there is a dedicated broadcast team—which I've seen, but it is hit and miss—you just can't count on a reliable replay.

 

Cell phones, or any game video the coaches are shooting. Usually done by a kid who may miss a play or two, but when the cheerleaders come out...

 

At least when I was last in Rhode Island covering hoops (2018, 2019), the finals and the semi-finals were recorded, I think. If we're talking solely about the "shot is or isn't good" issue, then it isn't an especially hard or costly problem to use replay for. The hurdles are more of the "but this is how we've always done it" or "hey this is just a high school game" variety.

 

You don't really need the rigamarole of instant replay, VAR or whatever. There is ample evidence the refs kicked this call. This is a no-brainer for the New Jersey UIL.

 

This isn't a score, except maybe for the school's discretionary budget.

Vestavia High School here auctioned off a prime parking place close to the door as a fund raiser. Two parties got in a pissing match and bid it up. It wound up with one of them paying $46k for his daughter to park. He and his wife are both lawyers, plus his daddy was rich rich, left him like a hundred million. Anyhow, holy shit. Many schools that kid would catch a lot of flak, but Vestavia is pretty affluent, so both flak and some sucking up, I guess.

 

Mountain Brook rolls its eyes at such gauche new money behavior.

 

Reddit moderated the posted names. His first name is Lloyd, and he and his wife are both apparently big time lawyers in the 'ham. He may be gauche but if his daddy left 100m it isn't new money.

 

In 2016 a Minnesota high school game made national news. Three buzzer beaters. One by future NFLer Trey Lance tied the game for Marshall. Another won it for Waseca. But the most famous one tied it for Waseca and came from about 75 feet.

The state had a similar game last night between Orono and Benilde-St. Margaret's that made SportsCenter.

Buzzer beater to send it into OT::


Buzzer beater to send it into a second OT:


And then a half-court shot to win it in double OT:


And to refresh your memory or if you've never seen it, that 2016 game.