High School football question

[Doc Holliday]

I hate the penalties behind the line and mark it from the spot. NFHS really should just go the Texas route and adopt NCAA rules. Of course, that would reduce the NFHS's influence. For the most part, the NCAA has the best set of rules among NFHS, NCAA and NFL.

I've wondered this myself. High School needs a targeting rule. I don't see much high school but as far as I know there is no targeting foul like there is in college.

 

[dirtybird]

What about a holding or illegal block penalty on a running play? In high school, those are 10-yard penalties from the spot of the foul so you get some weird distances marched off.
I've always counted those as runs and gave the person the yardage to the point of the penalty, then minus-10 from there, if the penalty occurred past the line. If the penalty is behind the line and it ends up being a 14-yard penalty or something like that, I just count all of the loss as penalty yardage and no run.
Never been sure if I've been doing it right or wrong all these years.

I did the same. A boss told me that was wrong, but it seemed weird.

 

[dirtybird]

At a shop I was at, a no score came in with a team posting minus-108 rushing yards. My editor called the stringer, who picked up by saying, "yeah, that stat is right."

 

[Batman]

I hate the penalties behind the line and mark it from the spot. NFHS really should just go the Texas route and adopt NCAA rules. Of course, that would reduce the NFHS's influence. For the most part, the NCAA has the best set of rules among NFHS, NCAA and NFL.

Three others that are ridiculous:
1) Pass interference is not an automatic first down. It's just 15 yards. So if you get a PI on third-and-20, it's only third-and-5 instead of first-and-10.
2) That any little twitch into the neutral zone is offsides. Hate, hate, hate that call. If the defense makes contact, or causes the offense to move, or passes an offensive player on the line of scrimmage, fine. But the ones where the defense flinches at the hard count but still gets back without doing any of that stuff, need to go.
3) More of a pet peeve than a rule. Our state mandates heat timeouts at the 6-minute mark of each quarter in August and September. I am so sick of seeing officials treat that 6:00 on the clock as an absolute deadline. If there's a change of possession or a stoppage at 6:05, they'll let the offense run a play and then take the timeout so you get two stoppages instead of one. Or if the offense is at the line about to snap the ball at 6:00 they'll blow the whistle instead of taking the timeout after the play. So much stupidity that breaks up the flow of the game.

 

[MileHigh]

I've wondered this myself. High School needs a targeting rule. I don't see much high school but as far as I know there is no targeting foul like there is in college.

High school has the blindside hit penalty and the need for players to lead with open hands. So, in effect, it's a targeting rule. Officials have the discretion of ejecting players if they are flagrant.

 

[MileHigh]

Three others that are ridiculous:
1) Pass interference is not an automatic first down. It's just 15 yards. So if you get a PI on third-and-20, it's only third-and-5 instead of first-and-10.
2) That any little twitch into the neutral zone is offsides. Hate, hate, hate that call. If the defense makes contact, or causes the offense to move, or passes an offensive player on the line of scrimmage, fine. But the ones where the defense flinches at the hard count but still gets back without doing any of that stuff, need to go.
3) More of a pet peeve than a rule. Our state mandates heat timeouts at the 6-minute mark of each quarter in August and September. I am so sick of seeing officials treat that 6:00 on the clock as an absolute deadline. If there's a change of possession or a stoppage at 6:05, they'll let the offense run a play and then take the timeout so you get two stoppages instead of one. Or if the offense is at the line about to snap the ball at 6:00 they'll blow the whistle instead of taking the timeout after the play. So much stupidity that breaks up the flow of the game.

1. Agree. They went away from the automatic first down a few years ago. I prefer the college rule. It's a spot foul from 1 to 14 yards, otherwise it's 15. With an automatic first down either way. I hate the NFL rule of spot foul for DPI. 15 is enough, not getting a cheap 65.

2. Yup. If they can get back, good for them, unless they get the offense to move. Keep the game going.

3. We don't have the heat issues here. Officials can call a heat/humidity timeout at their discretion. But nothing is mandatory. I'll talk with trainers and go by their guidance.

The one thing that college needs to do better is to not stop the clock on every first down "to move the chains." Just keep it running. If you want to keep that tradition/excitement, stop the clock on first downs in the last two minutes of each half. If a player goes out of bounds with 12:30 left in the first quarter, once the ball is reset, the clock starts again. But not in the last two minutes. Do the same with first downs. If they get it inbounds, stop the clock, set the ball, then roll. High school should also adopt the restart the clock on out-of-bounds plays.

College adopted starting the 40-second play clock right away after touchdowns and kickoffs to avoid lulls this year. A minor/good move in the continued quest to get these games down from 3 1/2 hours.

With so much passing in the game now, the next big one coming -- and I'm in favor of it -- is the same thing on players running out of bounds as incomplete passes. Once the ball is set after an incomplete pass, the clock starts again. Except in the last two minutes of each half.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

I hate the penalties behind the line and mark it from the spot. NFHS really should just go the Texas route and adopt NCAA rules. Of course, that would reduce the NFHS's influence. For the most part, the NCAA has the best set of rules among NFHS, NCAA and NFL.

Next year, Massachusetts is switching to NFHS rules. They're also switching to NFHS rules in baseball and volleyball.

One of the reasons the MIAA cited was a concern about lawsuits. I'm not sure I understand that. Is the argument that if somebody got seriously hurt playing NCAA rules in football or whatever, the school or the MIAA could be sued because the rules weren't as safe as they should have been?

Could it be same in baseball, where maybe a kid blows out his arm because there's no pitch count rule in the Official Rules of Baseball that the MIAA currently uses?

 

[apeman33]

What about a holding or illegal block penalty on a running play? In high school, those are 10-yard penalties from the spot of the foul so you get some weird distances marched off.
I've always counted those as runs and gave the person the yardage to the point of the penalty, then minus-10 from there, if the penalty occurred past the line. If the penalty is behind the line and it ends up being a 14-yard penalty or something like that, I just count all of the loss as penalty yardage and no run.
Never been sure if I've been doing it right or wrong all these years.

I count them as runs, then add the penalty, even if the call was behind the line of scrimmage. So, yeah, sometimes I gotta give some poor guy a negative-yard run because the foul happened behind the line of scrimmage.

What gets really weird is on an incomplete pass with a holding penalty behind the line of scrimmage. I give the quarterback a rushing loss on a play on which he threw a pass.

I have no idea if that's right or wrong. I started doing it because if the penalty is 10 yards, the other yards have to be accounted for somehow. Nobody's told me otherwise.

Officials around here walk off plenty of 6- and 11-yard penalties, anyway.

 

[TexasVet]

I hate the stat where we have to credit a passing play when the QB flips the ball forward to a receiver/back who's hauling ass on a jet sweep. I understand that the QB gets an incomplete pass credited if it's dropped. But the guys are literally 1-2 yards apart and you hardly ever/never see one dropped. Sometimes the QB will get a 60-yard passing TD on something nothing more than a handoff, and then we'll look at gaudy passing numbers because of plays like this.

 

[ChrisLong]

We had a team that used shovel passes extensively. Even though it all goes as passing yardage, the QB flips the ball 1 or 2 yards, so the stats are deceiving. One of our prep writers used to keep separate stats for shovel passes and regular downfield passes, just for the sake of his story. One game, the QB completed 57 of 60 passes. One guys said, "Most high school quarterbacks can't complete 57 of 60 handoffs." This QB was a pretty controversial player (multiple transfers in high school). He went to Cal, then left and wound up at C.W. Post. He went to camp with the Falcons.

 

[Justin_Rice]

2) That any little twitch into the neutral zone is offsides.

I want to argue back against this one.

I'm coaching my son's 9U tackle team, and we run the unbalanced Single Wing. We go on the same snap count every down - "Everybody Ready! .... Down! ... SetGo." We never change it up.

But literally the very first play we learned this season - in the first 10 minutes of the first practice - is "No play." We come out, we get in our stance, "Everybody Ready! ... Down! ... SetGo!" and everyone stays right in their stance. It's been good for a free five yards almost every single time we run it (We've false started on it twice, and we have an audible for the one or two times the other team hasn't jumped).

It's silly, but it's really important for us. When you go on the same count all the time, at some point the defense is going to figure it out and start jumping our count. Then we run "No Play" a few times (the worst was the time we ran it successfully three straight plays ) and the defense gets off that. Most importantly: Watching our video, after we've "No Played" a few times, our offensive line starts getting a big edge on the defensive line - the bad guys are still in their stance trying to figure out if the ball actually moved this time.

If kids are allowed to "get back" after jumping offsides but not making contact, there becomes little disincentive to trying to jump the snap count, especially for defenders outside of the free blocking area, where they're not going to bump into anyone. Ceding a one-step head start to edge rushers/contain men is a massive, massive advantage.

 

[Batman]

I want to argue back against this one.

I'm coaching my son's 9U tackle team, and we run the unbalanced Single Wing. We go on the same snap count every down - "Everybody Ready! .... Down! ... SetGo." We never change it up.

But literally the very first play we learned this season - in the first 10 minutes of the first practice - is "No play." We come out, we get in our stance, "Everybody Ready! ... Down! ... SetGo!" and everyone stays right in their stance. It's been good for a free five yards almost every single time we run it (We've false started on it twice, and we have an audible for the one or two times the other team hasn't jumped).

It's silly, but it's really important for us. When you go on the same count all the time, at some point the defense is going to figure it out and start jumping our count. Then we run "No Play" a few times (the worst was the time we ran it successfully three straight plays ) and the defense gets off that. Most importantly: Watching our video, after we've "No Played" a few times, our offensive line starts getting a big edge on the defensive line - the bad guys are still in their stance trying to figure out if the ball actually moved this time.

If kids are allowed to "get back" after jumping offsides but not making contact, there becomes little disincentive to trying to jump the snap count, especially for defenders outside of the free blocking area, where they're not going to bump into anyone. Ceding a one-step head start to edge rushers/contain men is a massive, massive advantage.

I get where you're coming from for a 9U team, but by the time you get to high school you can start changing the snap count once in a while to accomplish the same thing. Just like in baseball, how you have to have two or three sets of signs for when the team picks up on it. Strategize a little bit.
What I really hate is the five free yards for what amounts to nothing. If a defensive player establishes themselves in the neutral zone and has to take a step to get back, that's one thing. I'd even be OK keeping the current rule for standing players like edge rushing linebackers.
I'm more peeved with the flinches where maybe the defensive lineman's shoulder goes into the neutral zone but they don't make contact, get back, and still are flagged anyway. Too many high school teams have plays similar to your "No Play" as part of their regular offense, not just for special situations like third-and-short. At that level it feels cheap.