... this is a little ridiculous. http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2457707&name=FPT-2457707-052513&srvc=sz HARTFORD, Conn. -- High school football coaches in Connecticut will have to be good sports this fall -- or risk a suspension. The football committee of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which governs high school sports, is adopting a "score management" policy that will suspend coaches whose teams win by more than 50 points. A rout is considered an unsportsmanlike infraction and the coach of the offending team will be disqualified from coaching the next game, said Tony Mosa, assistant executive director of the Cheshire, Conn.-based conference. "We were concerned with any coach running up the game. There's no need for it," Mosa said. "This is something that we really have been discussing for the last couple of years. There were a number of games that were played where the difference of scores were 60 points or more. It's not focused on any one particular person." Some have dubbed it the "Jack Cochran rule," after the New London High football coach, who logged four wins of more than 50 points last year. In New London's 60-0 rout of Tourtelotte/Ellis Tech, Cochran enraged the Tourtelotte bench by calling a timeout just before halftime. Tourtelotte's coach was arrested on breach of peace charges after police say he struck a security guard and an assistant New London coach. Leo Facchini, New London's athletic director, called it unfair to single out his coach. Facchini said he and Cochran tried to pull in the reins during New London's 90-0 drubbing of Griswold last season by trying to get both sides and the timekeeper to agree to run a continuous clock. Some states, including Iowa, continuously run the game clock in the second half if a team has a 35-point lead. The Connecticut committee rejected a similar proposal because members thought it would unfairly cut into backups' playing time. ___________________________________________________________ The problems I see with it are this: 1) You open it up for a team who is getting beat pretty bad to "throw" the game bad enough to get beat by 50+ just so the other coach gets a suspension. 2) I have coached games where we have been beaten by more than 50 and where we have won by more than 50. in both cases the winning teams had their 3rd-4th string players in the game and the loser still couldn't stop them. In the game we won, we had a 3rd string senior D-Lineman, who had played all of 5 varsity downs in his entire career. He intercepted a pass on the opponents 4 yardline and stumbled into the endzone to put us up by 54. What should the coaches have done? Told him not to score because it would have been more than 50? The only alternative is to either let the other team score on you (something coached hate to do) or start kneeling the ball when you get close to 50. As a coach I'd be more embarassed by these than by losing by 100. In the words of Steve Spurrier "If you don't want us to run up the score, then stop us"
Yeah, there's got to be some leeway for situations where you have your third string guys in and they keep scoring. If this is a zero-tolerance thing, then it's stupid.
Imagine you're the third string guy. Coach finally taps you on the shoulder to go in. But one last thing, he says, whatever you do...don't score!
The report doesn't say anything about this type of situation but surely they have some sort of provision for it. If they don't I agree with you, that it is stupid.
I couldn't agree more. In my Church softball league, we were up by 10 or 12 runs or something to a team that was basically filled with orfans and delinquents (and about 4 older guys who worked with them). Anyways, a guy on our team made it to first on a hit that would have been a triple. He stayed at first, and then, he could have easily scored off the next hit, but sort of walked to second, and so on. The whole time, I'm just thinking to myself, "There's a fine line between good sportsmanship and rubbing it in, and at some point, we've got to start running."
Steve Young. Anyway...just institute a mercy rule - if you're up 50 in the second half, game over - and be done with it, rather than having to judge individual coaches.
Our High School basketball coach got cussed out at State because we were killing this other team so bad, this guy who was apparently late arriving started yelling at him because "He should be playing the scrubs instead of running up the score so bad" They didn't come any scrubbier than me on that team and I had been in the game since before the half and we were still killing them, dude felt like an ass, and probably embarassed his school and team by acting like that.
I saw the Katy and the Katy Taylor coach/wife get into it last year after the Mustangs whupped Katy by about 35. He had most of his starters in the game, pressing and calling timeouts in the fourth quarter. The Katy coach started yelling at the guy before the game was even over and the p***y Mustang coach took off after the horn sounded without shaking the Katy coach's hand. Yeah, that didn't sit well with the Katy coach who went running after him. That's when the wife got into it and started screaming at the Katy coach. It was amusing.
I heard the guy on ESPN 790 talk about this, this morning. As long as they try to pull this crap in Texas, I could care less. I played football and remember many times of getting whooped and I didn't carry it with me.
I've got family in Connecticut, and that article is absolutely right about it being a rule created specifically for one coach. That guy is well-known for being extremely aggressive and has effectively produced nearly all the best D-1 Connecticut players recently. For example, Dwight Freeney played for him. He doesn't believe in letting up and would try and beat you 200-0 if he could. Whether it warrants this new rule, I'd say probably not.
I coach girls softball, and the past two years our team has gone 23 and 2. There are some teams that were clearly outmatched, it is so hard to tell them, "Ok girls, don't play hard, ease up." You can do it on the bases somewhat, but on the field you have them do what they are taught.
So its not ok to take away their playing time but is ok to tell them that when they're in the game they can't actually try to make any plays because it would lead to their coach being suspended?
Well, look at your schedule. If the next game is a gimme too, than run up the score and take the next game off.
If the other team can't keep the game with 50 points, then they shouldn't be playing you. That is more than a 7 touchdown advantage. They need to move into a different division where they play easier teams.
I coach youth basketball. Once, my 10-11 yr old boys team was beating another team by 40 in the 3rd quarter against a team with a first year coach who had no clue what he was doing. I told my boys to shoot only three pointers to try and slow the game down. The other coach yelled at me 'What are doing?!?" I told him I was trying to slow the game down and not score. He got mad at me. He said "That's not how you play the game, and my kids won't learn anything if you keep doing that! Stop it and play right." So we did. We won by 55.
If my team was down 45, I'd tell them to run the ball back to our end zone, drop it, and wait until the other team picked it up so we'd be down 52. Just to spite the other coach. Is that good sportsmanship?
Not only should we encourage relentless domination of opponents, we should require winning coaches to rip out losing coaches hearts a la Kano of Mortal Kombat fame.
