An early look at PIAA football guidelines?
The PIAA will, at last, release guidelines for fall sports for teams, coaches and officials in the coming days.
Fall sports steering committees have been reviewing “return to play” specifics for each sport. The PIAA’s strategic planning committee will meet Tuesday to make recommendations provided by the steering committees. The full PIAA board meets Wednesday to finalize the guidelines.
Just what will those guidelines be for football? That’s been a popular question over the past month.
To get an idea what a high school football game in Pennsylvania might look like, if the season begins as planned, one can check the recommendations from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association. Both organizations have posted their football-specific guidelines and they are likely to heavily influence PIAA standards.
What they show are some major changes. For example, the NFSHSA recommends the following:
- Each team’s bench area, which in recent years covered 50 yards – from one 25-yard line to the 25-yard line at the other end of the field – will now extend 80 yards, from 10 to 10. This is for players only. This is so that reserve players can follow social distancing guidelines while on the sidelines.
- Officials will have limited contact with the football. The players on the offensive team will handle the ball and take it with them to the huddle. The umpire will place a bean bag at the spot where the ball will be snapped.
- A timeout can be extended to a maximum of two minutes in length. Radio broadcasters will love this one. Newspaper reporters on a tight deadline will loathe the change.
- Halftime can be shortened to the NFHS minimum of 10 minutes and teams should social distance outside of the locker rooms. Ohio will be using 12-minute halftimes.
Also in Ohio:
- Players should have 4 T-shirts – plastic bags should be provided for the player to put shirts in when changed – one for pregame, first half, second half and postgame.
- Every six minutes of game action there will be a two-minute break. The rationale for the six-minute break is to eliminate continuous contact for 15 minutes.
- Players will sanitize their hands during timeouts.
- Locker rooms are not to be used during halftime, if possible.
- Only one player per seat on the team bus.
- Standing along fence lines is prohibited.
Expect many of these to be adopted by the PIAA, though it is not anticipated to impose any rules for when an athlete tests positive or shows symptoms of COVID-19. When to quarantine and when to play will be decided by each school and its health and safety plan.
Edwards to FC
Fort Cherry has hired Clarence Edwards as its girls basketball coach. Edwards is a longtime AAU coach who spent the last eight years coaching boys basketball at Chartiers-Houston. Edwards was C-H’s top varsity assistant last season under head coach Eugene Briggs, who recently became Fort Cherry’s boys varsity coach.