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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Take 10: Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My fellow fans, if you make Take Ten the Grand Poobah of Georgia high school football, you will not regret it. We will make changes that benefit the masses and entertain ourselves at the same time. As great as the sport is around here, there are ways to make it better. And while Take Ten’s self-serving nature would give each stadium comfy recliners for the press and professional stat-keepers to make our jobs simple, these changes go beyond that.
We want to make Georgia a better place for high school football with our magic wand. These are our promises to you, the fans, if you vote to help put Take Ten in office.
10: No more “top two teams qualify from each subregion”
As of now, regions that divide into subregions are given the choice of how they want to determine their playoff participants. Many of them send the top two teams from each subregion to the postseason. But the goal of each region should be to send its best representatives to the playoffs, and subregions too often are unbalanced. Three teams from a subregion must be allowed.
9: Teams can’t play up
Under our rule, teams won’t have the option to play in a higher classification than the one to which they’re assigned. As the ultimate ruler, we sometimes have to save schools from themselves when they’re drawn by the allure of Class AAAAA. Everyone stays where they belong.
8: Eliminate neutral-site counties
DeKalb is the biggest example of a county where the schools play at neutral-site municipal stadiums. No more. Overnight, we would give each school its own stadium, complete with Sprinturf, a JumboTron and plush carpeting in the press box. And each DeKalb football coach would love us unconditionally.
7: Tigers, Bears and Eagles not allowed
There are too many of these team names at the pro and college levels. In fact, all the copied names would be tossed aside, while teams like the Atom Smashers and the Syrupmakers would be spotted 10 points in every game until their opponents came up with a name worth having.
6: Coin flips are gone
Sure, we’ll keep them for determining possession at the beginning of a game or overtime, but that’s it. No flipping coins for playoff tie-breakers or for home-field advantage. We’d find some tie-breaker, no matter how convoluted it seemed, or just rule by fiat if necessary. And if we had to use something completely arbitrary like a coin flip, we’d turn to Paper-Rock-Scissors.
5: Dump the PAT kicks
What’s the point, anyway? Even at the high school level, they’re pretty rarely missed. It’s such a simple kick that we might even be able to make it every once in awhile. Let’s either make teams go for two every time or just have six points be the end of it.
4: No more automatic touchbacks
Why is it more dangerous for kids to run back kicks from the end zone than it is for them to run them back from the 1-yard line? Let them play. If a returner thinks he can get the ball out past the 20, he should be able to go for it. And if the coverage team can snag the guy before he gets there, they should be rewarded for that too.
3: Put microphones on the officials
If you’re looking down or sitting on the visitor’s side, you often can’t tell what the call is on a penalty, even if you do know what the hand signal for an equipment violation is. So why not give the officials a microphone like the college and NFL referees use? Even if our heads were buried in a vat of greasy nachos, we could still hear the call loud enough for us to scream about how wrong they were.
2: Instant replay for semifinals (and maybe the finals)
Some other states are already doing it, and it’s time for Georgia to give it a shot. You can’t hold back technology, even though we love to try. The semifinals at the Dome would be the perfect time to have it as an experiment because the technology is in place. The GHSA could provide it for the finals, since there are only five games.
1: Give us a play clock
It’s about time to get this done. Coaches and players don’t know how much time is left on the play clock. There’s too much opportunity for officials to give, or not give, leeway on the issue. Officials call delay of game, and everybody’s confused. There would be some cost, but it seems like that’s something that can be overcome. An electronic play clock could open up offenses, allowing for more opportunities for shifts and complex sets.
Go on. Take Ten. What would you do if you had the job of changing high school football? Let us know.
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Football fights cause GHSA concern
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For two weeks in a row, fights have ended high school football games early.
First, it was Luella-Union Grove, resulting in 10 suspended players and triple-digit fines for both teams. Then, it was Glenn Hills-Thomson, where a smaller, but still alarming, altercation led to one suspended player.
Two fights does not necessarily equal a trend, but it does mean coaches and administrators should be turning their awareness levels up a notch or two.
“One way of looking at it is [that] two [fights] out of 300 games isn’t a big deal,” Georgia High School Association executive director Ralph Swearngin said. “Our standpoint is that one is too many. We don’t think it’s a trend, but we’re concerned.”
While Swearngin was quick to point out that the administrators at the schools handled the incidents as well as they could, he also had to levy punishment on Luella and Union Grove after watching video of Union Grove players entering the Luella sideline to initiate the altercation two weeks ago.
Those two schools are now on watch for the next calendar year, with much stiffer penalties to come if they have similar issues.
GHSA rules state that players who are ejected from one game must sit out the next game. A second ejection during the same season would result in at least a two-game suspension, and the school may have to show cause why the student shouldn’t be out longer. A third ejection would be an automatic season-long suspension.
Penalties for teams can include everything from small fines to shutting down the entire program, with postseason ineligibility being a reasonable middle-of-the-road option.
You make the call: Are these penalties strong enough? Does something need to be done to prevent fights like these from occurring in the future? If so, what can the GHSA or schools themselves do to take preemptive action on in-game fighting like we’ve seen the past two weeks?
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