Double Header Positions

[IA Linesman]

Our crew is starting to do more double headers on Friday nights.  So far we have been switching positions for the freshman game so that we are fresher for the Varsity.  Any thoughts or opinions out there?  One of the biggest problems is second white hat.  The only other person on our crew that is willing is not necessarily able.   

Which leads me to my second question.  Any advice for a wing official to start learning the R?  I've officiated soccer for 7 years and this will be my 4th year for tackle football.  Penalty enforcement is my biggest concern.  Not only knowing the rules and enforcement but doing it in a timely manner.  I hope to work in to some junior high games this fall.

[Ralph Damren]

Henry Ford once said to Congress something to the effect of : "I'm not smart enough to build a car, just smart enough to know those that are smart enough to build a car." Having a veteran umpire is a good start as he should have a working knowledge of penalty enforcement and can help. While on the wings, try to run the penalty enforcement of every flag in your head and see if you agree with the white hat. If not, during the next downtime, ask why you were wrong. Good luck IA Linesman, and welcome to the forum. Assuming IA indicates Iowa, who knows what their final post-season tiebreaker is .

[HLinNC]

Working freshman games should allow him the opportunity to make him "able".

Freshman football (nee' 9th grade under the jr. high system) is dead on this end of the state when 9th grade got moved to sr. high.  They are on JV's here.

Friday nights are dedicated to varsity football here.  One of our two private boarding schools added lights a couple of years ago so they moved there games from Fri/Sat afternoon to Friday nights.  We do have a home school league that plays a double header on Friday nights every so often.  We assign sub-varsity officials to them.

The only Friday doubleheader I ever worked was a 4:30 start at a private school which has no lights.  I then had to jet over to the opposite side of the county for a 7:30 public school game.  I walked in about halfway through the R's pre-game.  I had been taken out on the sideline in the earlier game so I had a fairly noticible dirt stain on my knickers.  Stupid me wasn't thinking to pack an extra pair.  I could tell the R was displeased.

[IA Linesman]

Thanks for the advice,  as to the tie-breaker,  anything that involves the alphabet for a tie-breaker is not a good system.  IMHO.

[bossman72]

Our crew is starting to do more double headers on Friday nights.  So far we have been switching positions for the freshman game so that we are fresher for the Varsity.  Any thoughts or opinions out there?  One of the biggest problems is second white hat.  The only other person on our crew that is willing is not necessarily able.   

Which leads me to my second question.  Any advice for a wing official to start learning the R?  I've officiated soccer for 7 years and this will be my 4th year for tackle football.  Penalty enforcement is my biggest concern.  Not only knowing the rules and enforcement but doing it in a timely manner.  I hope to work in to some junior high games this fall.

Go for it! Its freshman, so no biggie if you mess up. That's what sub varsity games are for

[Ralph Damren]

Thanks for the advice,  as to the tiebreaker,  anything that involves the alphabet for a tiebreaker is not a good system.  IMHO.

award Congrats, linesman. In lieu of a coin toss the final tiebreaker in Iowa is alphabetical order of the school's proper name.Aaron High School would probably go first .

[IA Linesman]

And to make it more fair the alphabet is reversed every other year.  Just in case. 

[Atlanta Blue]

And to make it more fair the alphabet is reversed every other year.  Just in case.

More fair?  Really?

[VALJ]

Which leads me to my second question.  Any advice for a wing official to start learning the R?  I've officiated soccer for 7 years and this will be my 4th year for tackle football.  Penalty enforcement is my biggest concern.  Not only knowing the rules and enforcement but doing it in a timely manner.  I hope to work in to some junior high games this fall.

In our association, the protocol is that the H is the one who steps in as the white hat if he goes down, unless there's agreement by the entire crew that someone else (say, an R who's working as a different position for the night) will do it.  The idea for us is that the H should be strong on penalty enforcement, since he's the one working the chains anyway. 

Hopefully, for your first few games, you've got (as Ralph suggested) a veteran U to keep you straight.  That's the first thing I tell my crew, and especially my U, during the pre-game if I'm wearing the white hat - "don't let me do anything stupid".  I found that my biggest adjustment wasn't penalty enforcement, but were two other things:

(1) the different view from back there really messed up my game sense for a while.  I hate to admit it, but I never played football except for a few pickup games, and I'd been working really hard at getting the feel for the game.  But moving to R really messed that up for a while.

(2) the feel of being in charge of administrating and running the game, instead of just being one of the guys.  I think I had a bit of an advantage adjusting to that, as I've been umpiring little league baseball and softball since I was 15 and was used to being in charge as the plate umpire.  But it's still a big difference being in charge of a little league game and being in charge of a football game in front of hundreds or thousands of people...

That said, if you think you may want to wear the white hat some day, these games would be an excellent chance to try it out. 

And on the tiebreaker note, I agree with IA Linesman - I'd much rather see a coin flip than the alphabet...

[Ralph Damren]

More fair?  Really?

Sounds like  Mainline HS, New Village HS, etc better never plan to win that tiebreaker. For the Iowa suggestion box : Take  each letter from a Scrabble game and draw a letter from a hat to determine where to start in the alphabet. 

[IA Linesman]

I have never heard of a school going all the way to the alphabet, although I'm sure it has happened.  We do head to head first and there is a margin of victory (up to 13 pts) tie breaker if there are 3 or more tied teams.  I know from my playing days that margin of victory was important for us.  We had a drive in the 4th quarter where we needed to score even though we were going to win and could have ran the clock out.  (We made it to the Semi's)   

[Rulesman]

And to make it more fair the alphabet is reversed every other year.  Just in case.

What about the schools in the middle of the alphabet?

[Atlanta Blue]

Sounds like  Mainline HS, New Village HS, etc better never plan to win that tiebreaker.

I was going to use "Maine High School" as my example!

Our tie breakers go through a number of steps, and if those don't settle it, we play "mini-games".

GHSA TIE-BREAKER MINI-GAME PROCEDURE
1. The schools shall meet at a site selected by the GHSA Executive Director for a playoff on the Monday night after the end of the regular season.
2. The games will consist of two five-minute halves. The play begins for the first half with a free kick, and standard game rules and scoring are used.
3. There will be a two-minute intermission between the two halves. Play begins for the second half with a free kick.
4. Each team will be given two (2) timeouts in the first five (5) minutes and one timeout in the second five (5) minutes.
Unused timeouts in the first five minutes may be carried over to the second five minutes.
5. If the score is tied at the end of two overtime periods, the teams will go to the GHSA 15-yard overtime procedure.
6. A coin toss will determine the order of play.
a. When three teams are tied for one open spot, the team winning the toss gets a bye - and then plays the
winning team of the first Tie-Breaker game.
Example: Team “C” gets a bye
Team “A” plays Team “B”
Team “C” plays the winner of game 1
Winner of game 2 qualifies for the playoffs
b. When three teams are tied for two open spots, the following format will be used.
Example: Team “C” get a bye
Team “A” plays Team “B” and the winner qualifies
Team “C” plays the loser of game 1 and the winner qualifies
If Team “C” wins game 2, the regular season winner between Team “C” and
the winner of game 1 will have the higher placement
c. When four teams are tied for one open spot, the pairings will be determined by draw and the following format
will be used.
Example: Team “A” plays Team “B” in game 1
Team “C” plays Team “D” in game 2
Winner of game 1 plays winner of game 2
Winner of game 3 qualifies
d. When four teams are tied for two open spots, the pairings will be determined by draws and the following
format will be used.
Example: Team “A” plays Team “B” in game 1 and the winner qualifies
Team “C” plays Team “D” in game 2 and the winner qualifies
The winner of the regular season game between the two winning teams will
have the higher placement
7. When teams play a mini-game tiebreaker on a Monday, their first round playoff game will be scheduled for the following Saturday unless both schools agree to play on Friday.

NO ONE looks forward to mini-games!

[VALJ]

Does Georgia have a three sided coin for the toss in this situation?   

[Atlanta Blue]

Does Georgia have a three sided coin for the toss in this situation?   

Only if Nickelback is there to do the National Anthem!

[IA Linesman]

Only if Nickelback is there to do the National Anthem!

Oh Canada!   

[Ralph Damren]

A novel former final -tier tiebreaker for The Big Ten Conference was : Last team that went to the Rose Bowl is eliminated. Reward the underdog ....I suggested this a few years ago to replace our final tiebreaker of cointoss. The coaches from the powerhouse schools didn't think it was a good idea ...it's still the cointoss

[Curious]

Especially at the Frosh/JV levels, switching positions is, IMHO, an excellent way for newer officials to understand and appreciate what their crew mates have to deal with.

If you have someone who can help out in especially difficult/confusing penalty administration, that would include taking a stab at the R position. 

Not sure if you mean switching on Fridays in a varsity contest.  I DON'T think that's a good idea.

[AlUpstateNY]

Whether it be at the Freshmen level or at the Varsity contest, The Referee shouldn't be alone on ANY penalty situation.  It's not a bad idea for the R, at any level, to acknowledge the penalty being reported to him, verbally, and to voice the penalty options to the reporting official. 

In most situations the options are pretty cut and dried, and the reporting official should be anticipating what the results of his cal should be.  When it gets somewhat complicated, or there are multiple flags, or rare situations, it helps to verbalize what the R is thinking to crew-mates, so everyone knows what's going on and gives any crew-mate, who may have a question, and opportunity to raise it. 

Getting into a habit of sharing what you are planning, and to whatever extent necessary, why can be a valuable learning experience for all concerned and offer the opportunity for everybody to better understand what's going on, and to subtly, and of course professionally, raise questions, that can serve to eliminate a lot of corrections.

Should there be the need for a discussion, it's a private conversation limited to the crew, ONLY.   

[SanDiegoStryker]

In our area almost every varsity game has a preceding JV game and the same crew works both games. It is expected that everyone works a different position for the JV game. The sub-varsity games are great for getting experience at a different position.

[NorCalMike]

NorCal also has JV/V doubleheaders. We usually switch it up. I'm umpire in Varsity. I will usually work R for the JV. We use the JV game to give people experience in other positions. The R for the varsity game will still make sure that no one really screws up the JV came.

When we have had a mistake happen during the JV game, I have actually had to go to both coaches and apologize for the mistake. We tell them that sub varsity games are used for training and errors will occur. We try to fix them before they effect the game. I think we wave off more flags in JV than in varsity for this reason.

Freshman games are used to train our new officials. Usually we will have an experience R and U and the flanks will be first or second year officials.

[Legacy Zebra]

Freshman games are used to train our new officials. Usually we will have an experience R and U and the flanks will be first or second year officials.

We do this as well. It works ok, but I think there is a better way to do it. If you take an experienced R and H and send them with two young guys you can teach a little better. Put one at L and one at U, that way the young U can work with the experienced R and the young L can learn from the experienced H. And if you have two subvarsity games (we sometimes have a 9th and then JV or even a 7th and then 8th) have the two young guys switch so they work a sideline and in the middle and they get experienced advice at both. And if you have the same subvarsity crew all year, maybe towards the end of the season, you start putting the young guys at R to get them a feel for that too.

[NorCalMike]

A couple of years ago, we started putting the new guys with the same R and U for 3 games in a row. This gives the the new guys a little consistency and allows the R and U to evaluate the new guys and work with them on improving. After the 3 games, we switch the new guys to a different crew to allow them to get a different perspective. This seems to work pretty good.

[theunofficialofficial]

The association I work for it is extremely common to swap positions for the JV game before the Varsity. It depends on the crew you are on. If it's your first year a lot of times the Crew Chief will keep you in your regular spot to get the extra reps. But, you can always ask your crew chief and say "Hey I'd like to R can you help me out?" I don't know a football official out there that wouldn't respond favorably to that.

As everyone else on the thread has indicate a good umpire is worth his weight in gold. But, remember everyone on the crew can be a crew saver. So get into NFHS Rule 10 (and case book) on enforcements and get familiar with the all-but-one. Even if you screw it up, hopefully someone on the crew will save you. And one day you might save them too.

Best of luck to you!