By Staff
Athletic Management, 18.5, August/September 2006, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1805/wublowouts.htm
High school football coaches in Connecticut who pile it on too much this fall could find themselves sitting one out. A new Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) rule says that if a team wins by more than 50 points, its coach is guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct and will be suspended for the next game.
CIAC Assistant Executive Director Tony Mosa told the Hartford Courant that 12 games across the state last season were decided by more than 55 points. “Our football committee has been discussing this topic for two or three years,” Mosa told the paper. “We had gotten a lot of criticism regarding what appeared to be a high number of high scores.”
Coaches suspended under the rule will be allowed to appeal. “I believe that in 90 percent of the instances where teams were outscored by more than 50, a significant effort was made to keep it under control,” Steve Filippone, Head Football Coach at Hand High School in Madison, Conn., and Football Chair of the Connecticut High School Coaches Association, told the Courant. “The good news is that when there is a clear abuse … there will be a vehicle to deal with it.”
Across the country, 30 states have a mercy rule that either ends the game or implements a running clock when the score differential is between 35 and 50 points. Coaches in Connecticut turned down a proposal to implement a similar rule, concerned that it could cut into playing time for backup players.