Taking knees on extra points, taking knees on four-consecutive downs, punting on first down, falling down intentionally with no players within 10 yards, taking intentional safeties, allowing intentional touchdowns, intentionally fumbling, throwing intentional interceptions…
These weekly outrages have come to define the CIAC’s 5-year old and much maligned Score Management Policy — colloquially known as the “Cochran Rule,” named in honor of Jack Cochran, the guy state football coaches were trying to stop from scoring 90 points in any given game.
Now, the state’s coaches are thinking about toning it down, perhaps phasing it out altogether, according to Ned Griffen of the Day.
The CIAC’s football committee will examine alternatives, specifically a running clock, when it meets next Monday.
“It’s a hot-button issue,” said Paul Hoey, the Associate Executive Director for CIAC. “There is some feeling around the table that running clock would make sense. This year, if you look at some of the scores, it would probably be a good thing to do and then talk about phasing out the 50-point rule altogether.”
“It has been a resounding success in us managing scores,” Hand coach Steve Filippone said. “The bottom line is it’s worked, but it is flawed like so many other things. … it’s much harder on us coaches than I think we ever anticipated it would be.”
Enacted in 2006, the score management policy sought to suspend coaches one game for defeating opponents by more than 50 points. The extreme legislation drew universal scourge from observers nationwide when Central football coach Dave Cadelina defeated Bassick 56-0 just weeks into that season.
Central appealed and Cadelina’s suspension was overturned. Beginning this season, the CIAC removed the automatic suspension (pending an appeal) in favor of a more liberal approach. Coaches and game officials now submit reports and a committee rules on whether the policy was violated.
Of the dozen violations, to date, only one coach has been suspended under the policy, Dan Lawrence of East Hartford in 2007, and that was because his school didn’t appeal. Otherwise, appeal rates are 100 percent.
In addition to the exotic ways coaches have employed to avoid violating the policy, another issue has come to light. It stems from Torrington’s 80-39 victory over St. Paul in Week 3.
Up big in the first half, Torrington removed its starters to avoid the 50-point barrier. However, St. Paul’s starters remained and proceeded to score four consecutive touchdowns, making it a 22-point game in the third quarter against Torrington’s limited junior varsity bench. Torrington re-inserted its starters, causing some testy moments between the coaching staffs afterward.
The Day reported a National High School Federation survey that found 30 of 50 states use a running clock anywhere beyond a 30-point margin.
But given a choice in Connecticut, the coaches chose the 50-point policy instead of a running clock — presumably because a running clock would cut down on playing time.
Filippone told The Day he’d support a running clock, “but I’m the only guy.”
My thoughts:
WE’VE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS FIVE YEARS RUNNING YOU BUREAUCRATIC LOONIES!
A running clock, please. And if you’re so concerned with varsity playing time for your freshmen, coaches, let’s set the bar at 50 points and readjust as issues arise.
And Coach Filippone, I love ya and all, but of of course score management has been a ‘rousing success’ in keeping scores down. But so would have tying cinder blocks to the better team’s feet or — better yet — not playing the game at all. Doesn’t make it any less dumb and unnecessary.
After five years railing against this stupid, insane, politically correct piece of over-legislated garbage, here’s how I feel right now.
I’ll be at my shrink (oh, sorry, ‘behavioral specialist’) if anyone needs me:
I covered HS football for one season, 2009, and saw a good amount of blowouts. A running clock would be the best way to alleviate this issue. If a team gets blown out 60-0 or whatever, who cares? That’s life. Isn’t that one of the advantages of HS sports, to learn life lessons in a controlled environment? Let them get blown out, they’ll learn from it. You imagine Geno Auriemma getting suspended for one game b/c of UConn’s blowout wins? Craziness. A running clock would also be good from a journos perspective b/c watching a team get pounded like that is booooooriiiiiiiiing. Alright, I’m heading back to #ctbb land lol.
Running clock sounds like a viable option.
I’d go one step further; run the clock after a 40 point lead, end the game after a 50 pt spread. Who wants to see the rest of a game like that?
My other option would be to keep the rule, but suspend the losing coach.
No suspending coaches! No ending games!
Let’s play the game the way it was meant to be played, may the best team win ! No way to make everyone happy in this world. Some teams are just going to beat up on other teams. Feelings will be hurt in life, but the game must go on !
At least when it comes to the SCC eliminate the damn crossover games and things will be more competitive and eliminate the 50pt rule.These games are usually blowouts anyway in favor of the larger schools
The stupidest rule in the history of stupid rules. When did HS football become rec league or Pop Warner? When are we going to stop insulating kids from the best from failure when it is proven time and again that from failure comes learning? No one like getting blown out in any sport (I am a basketball coach who has taken his share of lumps) stinks but it is not up to the CIAC to alter the sport. The sport will find a way to police itself and so will the kids. HS is supposed to be about preparing kids for their lives as adults. The more adults get in the way, the less prepared they will be.
According to what I’ve been reading, coaches HATE the running clock. Why be lemmings? For example:
“Every play in the football season is sacred,” Ollikainen went on to say. ”I don’t like any rule that limits the number of plays our athletes’ get to play. In fact, I’d even like to see high school go to fifteen minute quarters… Hurrying the game up does not do anything to save our self esteem. The kids know when they are losing. At some point we need to forget the scoreboard and just focus on getting better.”
“It doesn’t let coaches manage the game and get playing time for players that otherwise wouldn’t get varsity experience,” said Hyde.
Dave Miller agrees that losing playing time is very detrimental to both younger players and to the starters who won’t be able to sit in the post season. “My feeling is that kids only get to play high school football once and when you run the clock you take away valuable time they can never get back,” he said.
http://gshlfootball.com/wiaa-votes-to-lower-running-clock-threshold-from-45-to-40-point-second-half-lead
Heck, even teams with the running clock want to *add* a 49 point mercy rule: http://www.hollandsentinel.com/sports/x1272967829/COLUMN-Mercy-rule-needs-to-be-changed-in-high-school-football
Yet other coaches lamented how scoring on their 2nd and 3rd stringers affected them in the polls, making them reluctant to play them, especially on defense.
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The solution is simple: Once the scoring difference gets to at least 50 points, or at the mutual consent of the coaches, the official scoring ends but the game continues in every other respect exactly as it would have otherwise.
Let me be clear that this solution has nothing to do with “feelings”. Whether the scoreboard itself is turned off or not is immaterial. It has to do with allowing coaches to play guilt-free football. You can’t run up a score when those points are unofficial. Nor can you screw up your first team’s offensive and defensive statistics and have to constantly explain “yes, but they did that to us in garbage time”.
Lastly, if you want to still give credit to kids who score, then by all means keep such stats separately. If the CT Post wants to print the final score as 52-0 (59-28), then go for it. Bottom line is that this solution requires zero adjustment by any coach or official, and, more importantly, it doesn’t deprive any kids of valuable playing time.
We also need to better align schools by big versus small. Why is an L or LL powerhouse program even playing an S school that has like 19 kids on the varsity team. Makes no sense to me.
The coaches who get beat by 50 should be suspended for the following game. It’s a good lesson for those few coaches who still don’t have “recommended” offseason workout regiments in place and have fallen far behind the other teams. Why punish coaches for having their players better prepared than their opponents?
Who keeps the rule in place, and why? Is there not a voting body to either repeal or continue?
The 50 pt rule is ridiculous!!
There is no 12th place ribbon!!
The losing coaches should be fired for losing like that!!
The players need to learn life lessons and that things are not easy in life and that sometimes things just don’t go your way.
Suck it up and move on.
And Nancy if your feelings get hurt then maybe you shouldn’t be playing any sport.
You are trying to make MEN out of the boys not babies.
The game should be played without any constraint, save a self-determined sense of fair play. Those who don’t play fair will become known for it and will suffer for it. In any case, both good and bad examples will help the kids learn valuable lessons about life, football having served as a useful metaphor for it.
No suspensions, no clocks, no prematurely called games. Let the kids play and learn.
Here’s a perfect chance for the CIAC and the state of CT to be a leader and not a follower, while doing the “right thing” in the process. Let’s be egotistical here in tiny CT and call the spot at which games are deemed statistically over (but continue without a hitch on the field) the “CIAC Line”. Let’s also be brutally honest: the biggest reason coaches don’t put their reserves in earlier is because they don’t want it to mess up their stats. Who can blame them? They spend until the wee hours of the morning devising game plans. Pride is a huge part of football. This solution solves that problem and might even make MaxPreps somewhat reliable in the future. It unburdens coaches. It even unburdens state athletic commissions from having to create NFHS rule addendums. As such, it could be instituted instantaneously upon approval with no re-training necessary. What’s not to like?
There was never a problem before Cochran. Get rid of the rule and keep Cochran out of coaching high school in CT.
Seriously you guys and your obsession with Jack C is ridiculous. His teams were better. You might not like him, but you cannot argue with the results. He won games, kids stayed out of trouble, and went to College after High School.