High School Football Playoff- Week 11

What a great night for football it was.

I arrived at the host school at 5p. The officials on my college crew had informed me that the White Hat I was officiating with in this game had been reffing for 40 years and this was his last game.

Once I arrived at the school the five of us talked about it with him before our pregame. Speaking of pregame, it was a good. We thoroughly went over our keys, mechanics, responsibilities and communication with one another. We want to be on our toes every game, but we also appreciate the opportunity, the assignment, and the votes to be doing a playoff game.

We head out to the field and the stands are already full. Check the field, talk to the coaches, coin toss, and then back up to the locker room. Now it's time to bring the teams out. I round up the home team and we hit the field. Places. It's game time.

What an electric atmosphere. Weather is absolutely perfect. The stadium is packed with home and visitor fans and it's loud. Adrenaline flowing. Ala Dick Vitale, 'It's Awesome baby with a capital A.


From the opening kickoff there was some serious hitting going on. Pads popping! It's somewhat of a defensive battle for the whole game. The home team is leading at the half 3-0 and add to the lead in the second half making it 10-0. But just like that the visitors tie it up 10-10.





Next thing you know there is about 5 minutes to go in the game and the visitors have the ball and are driving. They complete a pass and the receiver advances to the 12 yard line, gets hit, and then the defense is running a fumble back the other way for the game deciding touchdown. We get together and speak about the play to see if anyone had the runner down. No one did and there were no whistles on the play. Tough call and we all had the same thing. That ended up being the final score with the home team up 17-10.

What an absolute fun game to officiate and be a part of. We all congratulated our White Hat and talked a little bit after the game in the locker room. All the guys I had the pleasure in working with for this game were very cool and fun to officiate with. Bobby congratulations once again on a long successful career in officiating. You're ready for 'Jet' magazine now.

On a side note, my full time high school crew regulars, White Hat 'Woody' and Umpire 'Chris' had a doozy of a playoff game as well. In their game the home school was winning 19-0 and ended up losing 28-19.

High school playoff football at it's best. Just think this was only Round 1.