Very Questionable Call in LC / MC Finish

[snrmike]

Just my opinion agan:

I would like to see all varsity level football games to have licensed officials as the clock operators. I am not saying the clock operators for this game did a poor job at all. I am just making an observation that, as a whole, the school provided oprators run their clocks inconsistently across the Region - some might even argue across the state.

Off the top of my head, I know of at least two states - Tennessee and Georgia - have licensed officals running the play and game clock in varsity contests. This could make that part of the game more consistently managed and provide great experience to older officials who can;t work on the field any longer, or for newer officials who can gain knowledge and experience before working these games on a regular crew.

Quick questions:
Defense commits a foul - what is the play clock supposed to be set to? 25 or 40?
Same question for offensive penalties. 25 or 40?

My son operates clock for a local team and I can tell you that they are so often at the mercy of the officials. It's not the job of the clock operator to stop the clock when a first down occurs -- they are to stop the clock at the referee's signal to stop the clock. Timing shouldn't be synced with how fast a clock operator decides to stop the clock -- it needs to be in sync with an official. Particularly on plays that are close to a first down, the clock operator should not be deciding whether or not a first down was earned. Rather, they should be responding to a signal.

In essence, a good clock operator is just an extension of a set of officials giving proper signals of time stoppage. In the LC/Michigan City game, I think the LC clock operator did his job. Seems like the clock was not ordered to be stopped prior to 00's on the board.

You are correct! The clock operator should only stop the game clock when any referee on the crew signals for the clock to stop. That's completely on the officating crew. It does frequently happen that an official has an angle on the play that affords him/her a clear view of the game clock. It does happen somtetimes, that a ref sees the time on the clock but cannot react fast enough. That's where they can step in and have the game clock operator make an adjustment.

As for this game, unless you were at the game, you couldn't tell what happened with the clock. Everyone commenting had some very good points.

Also, no insult to your son's ability to run a game clock. All I am saying is: if we want to reduce problems with clock operator errors, in general, we should have trained officials running them. It's not for everyone. Good, consistent clock operators have to pay close attention to what is being signalled by 5 refs spread out over more thatn 50 yards (or more) in extereme cases..

[the dog]

Understand that trained timekeepers would be ideal but we are in an era where we are having trouble getting trained officials period. The job doesn’t pay and there are certainly fans that go way out of line. I just don’t think it’s realistic to think we are going to see trained timers at every event.

In any event, a trained timer still can’t stop the clock until they are signaled to do so.