Calls or No Calls?

[Reason is Lost]

Having read many posts over the last couple of weeks, I dat back ans realized how many of them mentioned officiating... To clarify, the threads mankind comments rarely mention "outstanding" as descriptors. I can't help but think how much officials impact these (playoff games) and, quite frankly, more than they should. There are discussions about "home cooking", situational misses, mystery flags, and huge impact ones that change outcomes. Why is that? I realize they aren't professionals and paid accordingly, but to some degree, I wonder how many of them review and discuss film provided to them by coaches. Or, if they don't, why don't they solicit film to enhance their product? I just read a thread about an official doing games at a school his child attended. Are you kidding me? Not to mention anyone by name, how many of you know officials and could rank them as oustanding, efficient, tolerable, to downright lousy? Most would probably say that if the team executed well enough, fewer opportunities for flags would be had, but is that always true? Would anyone make the argument that they are prone to more flags because of reputation? That's a stretch, but can't be out of the realm of possibility.
I'm not looking for confrontation, but the discussions raised an eyebrow, so I opened a thread...

 

[Tom Potter]

I would think the Coaches would know the most about the officials and their proficiency levels and tendencies.
I give the high school refs the benefit of the doubt almost always; I didn't always due this....

I have only witnessed one H.S. game where the refs basically threw the game to the other team. The refs from that game sprinted off the field at the end of the game because they knew the livid parents in the stand were going to get medieval on them if they caught them.

The youth football refs are a different story! Although this year there was marked improvement in the ULYFL.

Bottom line; refs are human, make mistakes but I believe the overwhelming majority call the games as fairly as they can be expected to.

Now if the coaches or players or fan starting riding them all bets are off.....

 

[shauntclair]

Being a Ref in HS Football is a thankless job. They really have to do it for love of the game considering the abuse they often take. All that said, yes, from everything posted here there was an inordinate amount of penalties last night in a whole bunch of games. Maybe coincidence. Maybe not. Just hate to see penalties impacting wins and losses at playoff time. I mean, I know in the Courtland/EV game last night, there were 3 ineligible receiver downfield penalties in a row. That just doesn't seem possible but it happened. Most teams had over 100 yards of penalties. Also unusual but also something that needs to be left behind.

Every team earned a win last night despite the final scores. They played hard. But in the end, only two will get to Liberty and this is the way it will be every week until then. GL to all next week and Happy Turkey Day.

 

[DEVILSLB99]

Having read many posts over the last couple of weeks, I dat back ans realized how many of them mentioned officiating... To clarify, the threads mankind comments rarely mention "outstanding" as descriptors. I can't help but think how much officials impact these (playoff games) and, quite frankly, more than they should. There are discussions about "home cooking", situational misses, mystery flags, and huge impact ones that change outcomes. Why is that? I realize they aren't professionals and paid accordingly, but to some degree, I wonder how many of them review and discuss film provided to them by coaches. Or, if they don't, why don't they solicit film to enhance their product? I just read a thread about an official doing games at a school his child attended. Are you kidding me? Not to mention anyone by name, how many of you know officials and could rank them as oustanding, efficient, tolerable, to downright lousy? Most would probably say that if the team executed well enough, fewer opportunities for flags would be had, but is that always true? Would anyone make the argument that they are prone to more flags because of reputation? That's a stretch, but can't be out of the realm of possibility.
I'm not looking for confrontation, but the discussions raised an eyebrow, so I opened a thread...

I'm not going to complain about calls because it is what it is, but there are crews that when you see them show up on the field you already know what kind of night you are going to have. I applaud the refs for doing this job for the love of the game, but when your crew has a reputation for not being good its time to bust them up.

 

[VaPrepsRod]

I can almost vividly remember when I made the conscious decision to never worry about an official's call and how they handle a game.

One of the rare great decisions that I've made in my life.

 

[OCBoy]

Being a Ref in HS Football is a thankless job. They really have to do it for love of the game considering the abuse they often take. All that said, yes, from everything posted here there was an inordinate amount of penalties last night in a whole bunch of games. Maybe coincidence. Maybe not. Just hate to see penalties impacting wins and losses at playoff time. I mean, I know in the Courtland/EV game last night, there were 3 ineligible receiver downfield penalties in a row. That just doesn't seem possible but it happened. Most teams had over 100 yards of penalties. Also unusual but also something that needs to be left behind.

Every team earned a win last night despite the final scores. They played hard. But in the end, only two will get to Liberty and this is the way it will be every week until then. GL to all next week and Happy Turkey Day.

Courtland fans grumbled when the officials came out onto the field saying it was the same crew that did the Massaponax game. I can recall 6 times officials just picked up the flags and waived them off without any explanation or call. The head ref picked up 2 flags that other refs threw and just handed them back to the other refs it was funny

 

[mike salem]

Officials for the Salem-Amherst game did a good job last night. It got chippy near the end and they had to throw offsetting Unsportsmanlike penalties and offsetting PF's to reign things in.

 

[VABallCoach]

I can almost vividly remember when I made the conscious decision to never worry about an official's call and how they handle a game.

One of the rare great decisions that I've made in my life.

you are exactly right, and any good coach would agree... You control what you can control, and officiating is not part of that equation no matter how hard some coaches may try (working the officials... more prevalent in Basketball).

 

[Hampton Roads 6]

I never liked off-setting flags.

 

[dringtuoti]

Officiating is a tough and thankless job and there are definitely some horrible ones out there go attend a girls 1A basketball game) but the majority of them (even if they are bad) don't do anything wrong on purpose - they aren't cheating anyone or the kids on purpose. The officiating in the NBA and NFL is pretty bad at times too, have cost teams a couple of games over the past two weeks, and those guys are professionals.

On a side note, It's tough to police, especially at the high school level. I know of an official several years ago in Southwest VA, who's kid played on a JV team, and he officiated a few of the varsity games on Fridays. He was so over the top to prove he wasn't biased it was beyond ridiculous. Why he ever put himself in that position was beyond me?

 

[EVcyc]

I work in an industry where continuous improvement is mandatory. To dismiss or accept less then satisfactory results from the refs is not fair to the kids and coaches that have put in the work since August. I asked a question early in the season about the feedback process to help improve the on the field work, but it sounds like it isn't robust enough to get any real results. I think to pretend that refs don't impact the results of these games is very naive. I'm not saying intentionally. To say 100's of yards of penalties isn't normal but oh well, is silly. Maybe you can't change that game, but you should fix it for next year or the next game. Also, it's not always how many, but when. I have watched games where it seemed like every big play was called back putting the one team behind where they couldn't manage to catch up. In the Courtland game, EV kicked an onside kick which bounced off a player and was recovered by EV (game was probably unwinnable at the time). But the sideline judge blew the whistle and flagged EV, then they waived it off and made them re-kick. What the hell was that? It didn't look like to me that the crew knew the rules, they were all over the place throwing flags, waiving them off. Very much disrupted the flow of the game.

 

[Hampton Roads 6]

It's better to just "let 'em play" than to throw a flag most every play. My favorite flag remains the flag 30 yards from ball and has no effect on the play, usually holding or block in back.

I have a friend who's a Ref, and he only throws a flag when it's necessary and has effect on game.

 

[VaPrepsRod]

I work in an industry where continuous improvement is mandatory. To dismiss or accept less then satisfactory results from the refs is not fair to the kids and coaches that have put in the work since August. I asked a question early in the season about the feedback process to help improve the on the field work, but it sounds like it isn't robust enough to get any real results. I think to pretend that refs don't impact the results of these games is very naive. I'm not saying intentionally. To say 100's of yards of penalties isn't normal but oh well, is silly. Maybe you can't change that game, but you should fix it for next year or the next game. Also, it's not always how many, but when. I have watched games where it seemed like every big play was called back putting the one team behind where they couldn't manage to catch up. In the Courtland game, EV kicked an onside kick which bounced off a player and was recovered by EV (game was probably unwinnable at the time). But the sideline judge blew the whistle and flagged EV, then they waived it off and made them re-kick. What the hell was that? It didn't look like to me that the crew knew the rules, they were all over the place throwing flags, waiving them off. Very much disrupted the flow of the game.

I assume that your industry also has way to measure the continuous improvement as well, correct?

Do we have any empirical data that shows that the referees haven't improved over the years? Do we have any empirical date that shows that they have not improved?

If you are calling for improvement and continuous improvement, at that, then before any processes can be put in place, one must first measure present performance.

Unfortunately, eye witness accounts from fans ranks among the worst pieces of information that one could use for measuring performance, so we can definitely not include that in process.

 

[freeatlast2013]

I can almost vividly remember when I made the conscious decision to never worry about an official's call and how they handle a game.

One of the rare great decisions that I've made in my life.