Author Topic: NFHS Questionnaire  (Read 23750 times)

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Offline Rulesman

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #25 on: January 03, 2018, 07:57:14 AM »
It is here.  After the 1996 changes, our Friday night start times had to be moved up 30 minutes & the TV highlight shows start 30 minutes later than before.  Most eateries close at 10:00 PM (and I live in a 100,000+ town), leaving only the McDs et al.

I'm not in favor of starting on COP, but starting on INCs and OOBs outside of the last 2 minutes would likely do the trick.
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Offline bossman72

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #26 on: January 03, 2018, 08:16:21 AM »
It is here.  After the 1996 changes, our Friday night start times had to be moved up 30 minutes & the TV highlight shows start 30 minutes later than before.  Most eateries close at 10:00 PM (and I live in a 100,000+ town), leaving only the McDs et al.

I'm not in favor of starting on COP, but starting on INCs and OOBs outside of the last 2 minutes would likely do the trick.

Just curious, what were the timing rules before 1996?

Offline scrounge

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #27 on: January 03, 2018, 08:22:42 AM »
Why not just eliminate stopping the clock after first down? With a 40 sec play clock, it seems redundant - and in the case of unusual chain delay, it can always be stopped on an exception basis and resetting to 25 sec. As chains get more experienced with the pace (at least in varsity!), I'd imagine/hope it wouldn't be much of an issue. If coaches insist, it could still be stopped in the last 2 min of each half. Frankly, I think NCAA should eliminate stopping the clock after 1st down in bounds as well - not just from a game length perspective but from a player safety one as well. Over the course of a 12-14 game season, that's a lot of snaps.

Offline FLAHL

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #28 on: January 03, 2018, 11:43:56 AM »

I'm not in favor of starting on COP, but starting on INCs and OOBs outside of the last 2 minutes would likely do the trick.

+1 Bama

We still kick off at 7:30 and it's extremely rare to finish before 10.  Most of the time, we're headed to the dressing room around 10:15 or so.

Offline Magician

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #29 on: January 03, 2018, 12:02:20 PM »
+1 Bama

We still kick off at 7:30 and it's extremely rare to finish before 10.  Most of the time, we're headed to the dressing room around 10:15 or so.
Do you think it's because of a lot of scoring, a lot of incomplete passes, or a lot of penalty enforcement. The first two probably have the biggest impact to length of game. I don't think you'll see a huge difference either way in game length with the 40/25 clock. We didn't track that closely before and after, but we have been about the same game time anecdotally. We have tracked game time the last two seasons for  our crew and it was 2:20-2:25, and we had several games under 2:15. The other big time killer is getting out of time outs efficiently and change of possession/score. If you clock these you'll find many of them are 2-3 minutes. If you can consistently make those 1 minute you can cut at least 10-15 minutes in game time.

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #30 on: January 03, 2018, 03:09:55 PM »
Do you think it's because of a lot of scoring, a lot of incomplete passes, or a lot of penalty enforcement. The first two probably have the biggest impact to length of game. I don't think you'll see a huge difference either way in game length with the 40/25 clock. We didn't track that closely before and after, but we have been about the same game time anecdotally. We have tracked game time the last two seasons for  our crew and it was 2:20-2:25, and we had several games under 2:15. The other big time killer is getting out of time outs efficiently and change of possession/score. If you clock these you'll find many of them are 2-3 minutes. If you can consistently make those 1 minute you can cut at least 10-15 minutes in game time.
In my opinion...here is the evolution of long games since on or about 2002:
1 - Scoring has increased: frequently, there's either blowout games (that do not meet the criteria for a running clock), or games in excess of 60+ points scored between the two teams.
2 - Incomplete passes have increased: I just looked up stats for a state finals game.  Combined the passing was 27/53..or 26 incomplete passes..or time standing still for these plays until the next snap.
2A - Turnovers have increased: a byproduct of more passing.  Or time standing still for COP.
3 - Increased OOB. "back in my day" I never saw Walter Paytin, Barry Sanders, Lynn Swann, etc. dash for the sidelines v getting an extra yard.  Nowadays, a player (emulating NFL/NCAA) sees a sideline they're running for it.  More time standing still.

Not so long ago, when black pants replaced knickers and folks were communnicating their displeasure...but eventually liked the idea of the black pants, it seems the game' rules regarding timing can also evolve to consider the time involved for these contests (at a HS level no-less).

For several reasons, the NFL, and FB overall, has lower viewership.  It seems somewhere on this list of reasons is that folks do not want to sit through a 2.75-hour HS game or a 3.5-hour ncaa/nfl game.

While i'm no fan, for the most popular sport in the world, soccer, games are 2-hours long--even including stoppage time.
A few weeks ago, Manchester United played Manchester City in a regular season contest with nothing "on the line", yet 600 million world-wide was watching. or about 500% more than sees the 4-hour long super bowl world-wide.

The most popular form of racing, F1, has races that are never longer than 2.5-hours...and nascar wonders why viewership is down. Each week, F1 has more viewers world-wide than the "super bowl of nascar"--the Daytona 500.

It would seem reasonable for the football powers that be to look at the big picture and review items 1-3 listed above and do something to get these games moving.

Goodness, I would favor (NFL/NCAA) 25-min running clock quarters (100min) with 'normal' timing the last 2 min of each half. Toss in the normal 20-min halftime.  Rarely would we see a game in excess of 2.5hr.

HS would be 20-min running clock quarters and games would be about 2 hours.


Offline AlUpstateNY

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #31 on: January 03, 2018, 04:34:12 PM »
In my opinion...here is the evolution of long games since on or about 2002:

It would seem reasonable for the football powers that be to look at the big picture and review items 1-3 listed above and do something to get these games moving.

Wouldn't argue or dispute your conclusions and observations, but I would place "wasted time after scores" at the top of the list, with the intermission between periods a close second.  NF 3-7-l establishes the intermission between periods and after scores at 1 minute.  Of course it all depends on where the game is being played, but I'd wager the actual interval is closer to 3 minutes, and may exceed to as much as 5 minutes. if what seems to have evolved as the mandatory "coaching clinic/pep talk" is allowed to extend that far.

Following those situations would be the incomplete pass, and the interval between the pass ending and the offense being ready to call the next play.  The 40 second clock has reduced that interval to a consistent 15 seconds, to do whatever you need to do, before the 25 second RFP, which helps. 

A harsh reality is that both of these situations although controllable by the Referee, and the consistency of enforcement of the stated intervals, however, may simply not be as realistically attainable, on as consistent a basis, when dealing with teenagers and less experienced coaches and coaching staffs as they are with well funded Colleges and/or highly skilled and well paid professional athletes and coaching staffs with unlimited resources and greater experience.
 
Sometimes what may work perfectly well at one level, simply does not translate, exactly as intended, to lower levels (for very practical reasons).

Another major time factor is the difference in handling (on-field, interrupting play)potential player injuries, between levels of play.  Available resources, again on a consistent basis, and the general physical condition of players are practical differences as to how issues and concerns are handled.

I'm not sure who determined 2 hours is the ultimately perfect duration of a football game, at any level, but presuming 3 hours would be considered overly lengthy, leaves a lot of room for acceptable adjustment.    It may well be worthwhile seriously considering possibly adjusting timing interruptions and fluidity of play, and practices at other levels may well be instructional and helpful, but may not be automatically convertible at the exact levels applied at higher levels.

Offline bama_stripes

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2018, 06:20:13 PM »
Just curious, what were the timing rules before 1996?

Start on RFP after COP if no other reason to stop. (OOB or Fair Catch)

That, combined with more passing (and particularly more incomplete passes) and moving to 20-minute halftime (plus the 3-minute warmup) are the main culprits in our area.

Offline ElvisLives

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #33 on: January 03, 2018, 07:09:09 PM »
Regardless of the governing code for high schools, the single most significant change in the game in the past 30 years that extends the length of games is the dramatically increased passing game.
As proof of that, we had a couple of games this year in which there only a handful of passes thrown, total, and we knocked those out in under two hours, each, even with 24 minute halftimes.  Nothing else different - still had teams scoring over 40 combined points, etc.
But, when we ran into games with two high passing teams, those games always easily exceeded 2 1/2 hours.
Regarding NCAA, it ain’t anything about the play of the game that is causing games to exceed 3 hours.  The reason is TV.  TV breaks add from 24 to 40 minutes to every televised NCAA game.  Subtract that from even a 3 1/2 hour game, and you get a very reasonable 2:30 to 2:50 game.
The most annoying thing is that it is TV that is pushing the drive to get games (NFL and NCAA) to fit in three hour windows.  They whine about games taking so long, but it is their field producers that squeeze the extra 10-30 seconds out of each media break.  That adds up.
Sadly, only the NFL has the clout the get TV to reduce the amount of commercial break, if they had the will to do so.
So, the game has to suffer to feed TVs insatiable appetite.
Robert

Offline bossman72

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #34 on: January 03, 2018, 08:51:18 PM »
+1 Bama

We still kick off at 7:30 and it's extremely rare to finish before 10.  Most of the time, we're headed to the dressing room around 10:15 or so.

We kept a foul report when I was the R on a HS crew for 2 years.  Some reports had game time on them, some didn't.  Below are game times and score of the game for the ones that had times on them.  Things to note that affect game time:  we have a 35 point mercy rule.  Once you hit 35, the mercy rule stays in effect the whole game.  We have consistent 20 min halftimes plus 3 min warm up period.  Our crew was very very efficient in penalty enforcement, ball rotation, and managing other down time.  My RFP pace was slightly on the quicker side.  Crew of 6 that works together every week.

Time (Score)
2:08 (47-12)
2:20 (35-20)
2:10 (49-7)
2:17 (35-14)
2:31 (23-21)
1:55 (35-0)
2:40 (38-22)
2:20 (42-7)
2:35 (54-7)
2:13 (10-7)
2:12 (56-0)
2:33 (35-24)

Offline NoVaBJ

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #35 on: January 04, 2018, 09:07:58 AM »
Just curious, what were the timing rules before 1996?

COP started on the ready unless OOB after COP.

Correction: What Bama Stripes said above.

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #36 on: January 04, 2018, 09:32:07 AM »
Wouldn't argue or dispute your conclusions and observations, but I would place "wasted time after scores" at the top of the list, with the intermission between periods a close second.  NF 3-7-l establishes the intermission between periods and after scores at 1 minute.  Of course it all depends on where the game is being played, but I'd wager the actual interval is closer to 3 minutes, and may exceed to as much as 5 minutes. if what seems to have evolved as the mandatory "coaching clinic/pep talk" is allowed to extend that far.

Following those situations would be the incomplete pass, and the interval between the pass ending and the offense being ready to call the next play.  The 40 second clock has reduced that interval to a consistent 15 seconds, to do whatever you need to do, before the 25 second RFP, which helps. 

Wasted time after scores is not an issue round these parts and consistent RFP is not either.

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #37 on: January 04, 2018, 09:46:17 AM »
We kept a foul report when I was the R on a HS crew for 2 years.  Some reports had game time on them, some didn't.  Below are game times and score of the game for the ones that had times on them.  Things to note that affect game time:  we have a 35 point mercy rule.  Once you hit 35, the mercy rule stays in effect the whole game.  We have consistent 20 min halftimes plus 3 min warm up period.  Our crew was very very efficient in penalty enforcement, ball rotation, and managing other down time.  My RFP pace was slightly on the quicker side.  Crew of 6 that works together every week.

Time (Score)
2:08 (47-12)
2:20 (35-20)
2:10 (49-7)
2:17 (35-14)
2:31 (23-21)
1:55 (35-0)
2:40 (38-22)
2:20 (42-7)
2:35 (54-7)
2:13 (10-7)
2:12 (56-0)
2:33 (35-24)

If I read accurately...which could be questionnable..
12 games
6 were 35 point differential
6 were standard-length games.
...of those 6, avg time was 2:24
Curious what these numbers would have looked like in year 2002 or so....of course in 2002 I dont think they invented the mercy rule yet also...

Offline yarnnelg

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #38 on: January 05, 2018, 10:38:16 PM »
I agree Tampa. In St Pete, we hustled to cut down scoring delays and had the ball boys always at the ready. Besides ... Hooter's, Winghouse and Nickle City were always open late. SFOA

Offline Ralph Damren

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #39 on: January 08, 2018, 01:06:42 PM »
In 1996 we passed the rule that started the clock on the snap following COP plays.

In 1997 there was a national squabble over the additional length of games this caused.

In 1998 I attended a game with note pad, stop watch, and a thermos of hot coco. As I recall, my results were approx. :

(1) 4 minutes + from TD > KO;
(2) 35-30 game =9 TDs = 36+ minutes
    (a) player scores TD =  pHiNzuP  pHiNzuP ;
    (b) band plays , cheerleaders prance  tR:oLl tR:oLl ;
    (c) PAT team shows up;
    (d) ball kicked into pucker brush;
    (e) band plays again, cheerleaders do push-ups  tR:oLl pHiNzuP tR:oLl;
    (f) teams huddle on sidelines  while z^ dig out ball;
    (g) kickoff teams show up.

(3) COP rule change had added a little over 10 minutes to the game - remember, incomplete passes and OOB on 4th down would have started on snap anyway and often A didn't use full 25 seconds after RFP.

IMHO,
Wide open offenses have increased scoring which have increased dead-time after scores.

Much more passing then yesteryear = many more incomplete passes then yesteryear.

WTD (what to do)?
Start on RFP if run ends OOB ++++ tiphat:

WELCOME SUGGESTIONS....
« Last Edit: January 08, 2018, 01:24:38 PM by Ralph Damren »

Offline bossman72

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #40 on: January 08, 2018, 01:51:00 PM »
One advantage of the 40/25 is that on first downs gained in bounds, the R can basically wind the clock immediately if he wants to, since it doesn't affect the play clock.

Offline FLAHL

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #41 on: January 08, 2018, 02:08:36 PM »
Our association has 20+ schools under contract.  Exactly 1 has a visible 25 second clock, so I don't see us going to 40/25 any time soon.  The #1 contributor to longer games around here is spread offenses with more passes and more incomplete passes.  Because these teams run the spread, they can't (or won't) move to a running game when they're ahead by 3 or 4 touchdowns either.  Several others have already identified the major things that would help us - start the clock on the ready after OOB and INC until the last 2 minutes of each half.  I bet that would cut 20 minutes from our game times.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2018, 02:14:48 PM by FLAHL »

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #42 on: January 08, 2018, 03:04:02 PM »
Our association has 20+ schools under contract.  Exactly 1 has a visible 25 second clock, so I don't see us going to 40/25 any time soon.  The #1 contributor to longer games around here is spread offenses with more passes and more incomplete passes.  Because these teams run the spread, they can't (or won't) move to a running game when they're ahead by 3 or 4 touchdowns either.  Several others have already identified the major things that would help us - start the clock on the ready after OOB and INC until the last 2 minutes of each half.  I bet that would cut 20 minutes from our game times.
Knowing where FLAHL is, I'm betting the one school is a private school.
...and to my knowledge, that other county next to yours has zero playclocks.
I know for a fact 0 schools have a playclock to the North of where FLAHL is..

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #43 on: January 08, 2018, 03:11:48 PM »
In 1996 we passed the rule that started the clock on the snap following COP plays.

In 1997 there was a national squabble over the additional length of games this caused.

In 1998 I attended a game with note pad, stop watch, and a thermos of hot coco. As I recall, my results were approx. :

(1) 4 minutes + from TD > KO;
(2) 35-30 game =9 TDs = 36+ minutes
    (a) player scores TD =  pHiNzuP  pHiNzuP ;
    (b) band plays , cheerleaders prance  tR:oLl tR:oLl ;
    (c) PAT team shows up;
    (d) ball kicked into pucker brush;
    (e) band plays again, cheerleaders do push-ups  tR:oLl pHiNzuP tR:oLl;
    (f) teams huddle on sidelines  while z^ dig out ball;
    (g) kickoff teams show up.

(3) COP rule change had added a little over 10 minutes to the game - remember, incomplete passes and OOB on 4th down would have started on snap anyway and often A didn't use full 25 seconds after RFP.

IMHO,
Wide open offenses have increased scoring which have increased dead-time after scores.

Much more passing then yesteryear = many more incomplete passes then yesteryear.

WTD (what to do)?
Start on RFP if run ends OOB ++++ tiphat:

WELCOME SUGGESTIONS....

At a bare minimum, WTD: start on RFP on OOB.
...but as you said, more passing = more incomplete = more time standing still.  also start on RFP after INC.

Offline bossman72

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #44 on: January 08, 2018, 03:19:41 PM »
Exactly 1 has a visible 25 second clock, so I don't see us going to 40/25 any time soon.

As stated many times on this site, that's not a necessity of the 40/25.

Offline TampaSteve

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #45 on: January 08, 2018, 03:24:18 PM »
As stated many times on this site, that's not a necessity of the 40/25.
Agreed, but a big change for BJ....some of which cant get the 25 sec correct now...

Offline AlUpstateNY

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #46 on: January 08, 2018, 04:01:53 PM »

WELCOME SUGGESTIONS....

After Scores:  Either STRICTLY enforce 1 minute Intermission, or if necessary extend it to a STRICTLY enforced 11/2 minute Intermission (from the completed Try, if after a TD.

Incomplete Pass:  Start the game clock on the Referee's RFP signal (allow for Offensive receivers to return to their side of the LOS before declaring RFP)

COP:  Start game clock on RFP signal (Referees to allow both teams opportunity to replace players)

Offline bama_stripes

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #47 on: January 08, 2018, 06:14:09 PM »
Many of us are fond of saying "Hey, the coaches make the rules -- we just enforce 'em."  But we tend to forget:  Most coaches don't give a dadgum whether the games last 1 1/2 hours or 3 1/2 hours.  It's just not important to them.

In fact, most coaches want to run as many plays as possible.  They get more players in the game, which cuts down on complaints from parents.

Offline CalhounLJ

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NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #48 on: January 08, 2018, 08:06:29 PM »
I was just about to ask what’s wrong with a 3 hour football game? We get paid 100 bucks for one down here and that’s still 30 bucks an hour.


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Offline ncwingman

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Re: NFHS Questionnaire
« Reply #49 on: January 08, 2018, 10:44:48 PM »
Except that even if the game is 3 hours, you've been working for a lot longer. How long before the game did you arrive at the field? How long before that did you leave home? How long will it be after the game before you get home? You're probably going to add 2 to 3 hours on top of game time before all is said and done.

That being said, I'm not complaining about "long" games either. It's not like there's somewhere else I need to be at 10pm on a Friday and these games are keeping me from it.

Also, the coaches night is a lot longer than ours.