There's a loaded sentence for you. When you hear that, you know that officials are just about to get criticized, and usually for a good long while, and in colorful terms that call their parentage into question.
The problem is, they're deserving of said criticism at an alarming level. South Carolina high school football officials remind me a lot of that little girl in the old nursery rhyme. When they're bad, they're horrid. That's not a scathing indictment of officiating as a whole. It's just a comment that a lot of these guys could get together and do a lot better a lot of the time. Let's take the game I went to last week, just for a fun example. There were several holds and motions and other things that were questionable but could be chalked up as just some Week Zero rustiness. Heck, I had to check on stats a half-dozen different times, and miscalculated a few in addition. It was Week Zero for everybody. There was one, however, that was particularly egregious. Team A uncorks a snap deep over the punter's head. Punter valiantly tracks it down, unwisely decides to punt anyway, and somehow gets it off. The ball files 10 or so yards about six feet off the ground. Now, remember the errant snap. The kick is nowhere NEAR the line of scrimmage. I mean, it's not in the same ZIP code. It's got maybe 20 more yards to go to make the line. So Team B knocks it around a few times, Team A gets a hand or two on it, and Team A eventually ends up covering the ball deep in their own territory. Bad news for them, right? Nope. After a brief huddle, the officials award Team A the ball. For what reason, I'm still not certain. I guess it was treated as a muffed punt, which is all fine and good, but THE BALL DIDN'T GET BACK TO THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE. What it did was change the game. Team B was deprived a possession on which it most certainly would have scored. I say that because unless they turned it over (which they did with alarming regularity), they scored. They were never stopped. So all that momentum went away with the extra possession, and they lost by 5. The collective blogging panel has a couple of “official friends”. That's what we call them, anyway. Listeners/readers who are football officials and keep us in the know. I knew it was trouble when I got a text early this week. “I saw that call you were talking about on Saturday,” it said. “They blew it.” They most certainly did. And it happens too often. I'm far from perfect. These things will frequently be rife with typos. But if James or Travis tells me to change something, I change it. I've got the good sense to listen to somebody else who might've had a better look at it than I had. That's at least part of the problem. The VAST majority of those guys (and maybe gals, I think there were a couple female football officials last time I checked) are very good at what they do. But everybody makes mistakes. There's a fine line between confidence, which is needed to be a good official, and arrogance, which is decidedly not. Some folks can't quite find that line, and the inability to be wrong, or even to be questioned in some cases, leads to situations like the one I saw last Friday. In the words of a whole bunch of coaches on a whole bunch of sidelines, Mr. Official, can you please ask for some help?
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Not just because all the Week Zero nonsense is officially over, but let's talk about that for a minute. Time was, Week Zero was an added week in which teams who couldn't get other off-dates to match up and get a game could play each other.
Now, it's an excuse to stop playing in jamborees and scrimmages and hit somebody with a different colored jersey on for real. About 70 percent – SEVENTY! - of South Carolina teams played last week. That ain't Week Zero, hoss. That's week one, and everybody who didn't play took their bye on the first week. Let's call it what it is and move on. But I digress. The fact that most everybody is finally on the field isn't what makes it football season. Nor is the first real Friday night when every single score rolls in at all hours of the evening. What makes it football season to me is good ol' number 387. Yes, I'm aware that football numbers don't go that high. He'd make a great nose guard, though, 387 would. In reality, 387 is my parking pass at Dorman. It's been mine for a couple of years, since the Spartanburg Sports Report was formed. My first game as a newspaper/website owner was there, and I parked in that spot. Dorman is one of the few places I need a reserved parking spot, and the only place that has that spot numbered. Sometimes Dorman passes come in the mail, some years I pick them up. But the first day I lay eyes on 387 and know it's going to be used, it just feels like football. Every school in the county has something like that that triggers “hey it's football season” to me. The Woodruff Jamboree is probably first. Chesnee's photo day. Byrnes' pre-season guide. 387. They all mean “let's go”. So let's go. I'm going to try to be a better blogger this year, or at least more conscientious about it. You'll probably hear from me around Tuesday or Wednesday, more often if my thoughts dictate, but it's usually about then when the previous week's activities all shake out and we turn our attention to what's to come. So this blog will be a little of everything. I'll try to span all classes (except 1A, because Travis has it handled) and many corners of the state. So without further delay, some observations: • There's no such thing as a good loss. But dang if Dillon didn't have one. Trailing 7-3 to the number 10 team IN THE COUNTRY, the Wildcats fumbled on fourth down inside the 5-yard line and saw their 37-game winning streak snapped. I'm not saying the engraver should go ahead and start on the 3A trophy, I'm just saying it's spelled like the lawman from Gunsmoke, not the dbag from Beverly Hills 90210. • Speaking of engraving trophies, let's talk about 4A for a minute. South Pointe. Seriously, South Pointe. One of the very best parts of my job is talking to people who know far more about the statewide football scene than I do. I've had two of them – one a 5A coach and another the second-ranked football official in the state, who will be the white hat at the 4A title game- tell me that based on what they've seen on tape and in person, 4A is over. Right now. The coach's most telling quote? “I'm glad I don't have to play them.” • Not to beat a dead horse but the matchup between D'Marco Jackson and Isaiah Ellis last Friday night was beyond anything that stadium could've expected in a Week Zero game. Ellis had more than 400 yards of total offense and accounted for six touchdowns and his team needed every bit of it. Why? Because Jackson, as fellow blogger James McBee has detailed this week, probably shops for wallets at the same store as Jules Winfield. • Region III-3A is gonna be a war. And while that war might start in the backfield (see the aforementioned Mr. Jackson), it might just be decided at quarterback. Woodruff's Keegan Halloran and Chapman's Colton Bailey are both capable of putting up video-game numbers through the air. Broome's Jake Mathis is a nifty sleight-of-hand operator who is dangerous with his feet. The contrast in styles will make for some fun QB battles in the region. • Boiling Springs is the only Region III-5A team not to take the field for an actual game last Friday night, and the Bulldogs might look even better because of it. A beat-up Dorman fell on the road at Bob Jones in Madison, Ala., a turnover-prone Byrnes lost at Myrtle Beach, and while Spartanburg and Gaffney both notched wins, neither looked like world beaters in doing so. Many (me included) thought that Boiling Springs had a chance at a special run through the region this year, and Week Zero did nothing to change that thinking. • Pre-season polls are meaningless. So are Week One polls. Want an example? One writer wisely dropped Dillon from the top spot in 3A – can't have the top team losing by four on the road to a 4A North Carolina and national power, can we – and replaced them with Seneca. I'm sure that vote was based on last year's stellar season from the Bobcats. Trouble is, 19 of the 22 children who helped compile that season no longer attend Seneca High School, having graduated. Hey, good vote. • The 2A classification's reward for being rid of Bishop England is the addition of virtually every other private or charter school which plays interscholastic sports in our state. That seems fair. However, Chesnee has a legitimate shot at a playoff run, in my opinion. I raved above about D'Marco Jackson, and Chesnee could NOT stop him, but what Isaiah Ellis, Isaiah Morris and company were able to do offensively against a good 3A team was pretty special. If the Eagles can replicate that kind of production and play any semblance of defense, they'll be good. Yes, I know they had six takeaways. I also know that they needed every one of them. • People can interpret stats any way they wish, and that's been underscored this week. Upon learning of Jackson's 19-248-5 line, I actually heard somebody say “well, he didn't get the ball enough.” Huh? See, when you have it at their 46 and he has one for 5 and one for 41, then you have to kick it back and he can't carry it anymore. With apologies to A League of Their Own, the way it works is the train moves, not the station... • Pretty cool goings-on at Gaffney, as the Indians' new field turf isn't ready at the Reservation. That's prompted an early season move to the REAL Reservation, W.K. Brumbach Stadium downtown, ghosts and all. The Indians beat T.L. Hanna, everybody's darkhorse darling in 5A, convincingly at the Old Lady on Franklin Street last week. They return home against West Charlotte in Week Three, then host Northwestern in Week Five. Anybody want to bet me if they're 2-0 at home they might find a “problem” before the Trojans come to town? The best thing to come out of the game, other than the Indians' win serving notice that the 5A race might include them after all, was Coach Dan Jones' postgame speech. “Y'all are part of the tradition on this field now,” he told his team. “Not a bad little atmosphere to play in, is it?” Chills, man. • Finally and certainly not least, huge congratulations to Newberry head coach Phil Strickland, who notched his 300th career win with the Bulldogs' victory. That puts Strickland in an ultra-elite class of coaches. The list now reads John McKissick, W.L. Varner, Dave Gutshall, J.W. Babb, Bill Tate, Bob Rankin and Strickland. Strickland's reached 300 quicker than anybody on the list, in just 29 years, and has at least 40 fewer losses than the coaches - Rankin and Tate – closest to him in wins. His 288-93 record gives him a .755 winning percentage. His five state titles tie him for 5th all time. |
JedAward-winning journalist. Frustrated pitmaster. Whiskey enthusiast. Lover of all things cheeseburger-related. Unapologetically proud Sandlapper. Archives
July 2017
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