NCAA Committee Proposes Lacrosse Rule Changes

[laxfan25]

After changing the procedure last year to spread out the players facing off, the committee decided to eliminate the requirement that the referee audibly say "set" prior to blowing the whistle. There were numerous violations this season in the faceoff procedure and a large number were attributed to players anticipating the whistle.

"We believe we were putting our officials in a tough spot in some ways," said Willie Scroggs, chair of the committee and senior associate athletics director at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "The committee hopes this will improve the consistency and fairness of the faceoff."

I think overlooked in this 30-second debate, which is only experimental, is this actual change in the faceoff.
I've had this discussion with other veteran officials, and I think it will make faceoffs even harder to police. Without a "SET" command, how do you know when the players should stop moving? Now as soon as they go down they're going to champing at the bit and jumping early. Currently, once you say SET you have a moment to examine their respective positions before the whistle. Now we're going to be in for even more griping - "come on! blow the whistle already!", without even really having a chance to check for legal body and stick positioning.
Given how poorly the exisiting faceoff mechanics were enforced, I think we're in for even bigger problems. Just my opinion, of course!

[LaxRef]

After changing the procedure last year to spread out the players facing off, the committee decided to eliminate the requirement that the referee audibly say "set" prior to blowing the whistle. There were numerous violations this season in the faceoff procedure and a large number were attributed to players anticipating the whistle.

"We believe we were putting our officials in a tough spot in some ways," said Willie Scroggs, chair of the committee and senior associate athletics director at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "The committee hopes this will improve the consistency and fairness of the faceoff."

I think overlooked in this 30-second debate, which is only experimental, is this actual change in the faceoff.
I've had this discussion with other veteran officials, and I think it will make faceoffs even harder to police. Without a "SET" command, how do you know when the players should stop moving? Now as soon as they go down they're going to champing at the bit and jumping early. Currently, once you say SET you have a moment to examine their respective positions before the whistle. Now we're going to be in for even more griping - "come on! blow the whistle already!", without even really having a chance to check for legal body and stick positioning.
Given how poorly the exisiting faceoff mechanics were enforced, I think we're in for even bigger problems. Just my opinion, of course!

From a mechanics point of view, I expect that we'll be told to step back and then blow the whistle immediately. This will serve essentially the same function as saying "Set." But I could be wrong. Like I've said before, if we could just get everyone to enforce the faceoff procedure correctly, we wouldn't have to change it every year!

[Rob Graff]

LR25 - you are right - cheating will now be REQUIRED on F/O's. If you don't your opponent will, and you'll lose if you don't.

Rob

[Rob Graff]

And don't get me started on the "asks that the restraining box be moved back 5 yards" stuff. There are alot of teams that use artificial surface fields where that's going to be a problem.

That's why it's "asks" and not "requires." If they go this route, I'd expect a 3-year window for allowing teams to change their permanent fields.

The game at fields with and fields without this expansion is significantly different - so much so in my opinion, that it calls into question the legitimacy of the game.

Further, this is a massive change from what was done in the past. How does it get "enforced" in HS/Youth ball?

It doesn't; HS uses NFHS rules unless the state in questions chooses to use NCAA rules. And the NCAA doesn't give a rat's butt about that (in fact, I'd expect many states using NCAA rules for HS to ignore this rule change).

Again - the change in the game that this rule suggests will require a significant change in player's mind set when the go from HS to college as to how to play settled offense. This is another flaw to me in this rule.

2. Offensive player A 1 shoots the ball, ball hits post and rebounds Out of Bounds on the SIDE (i.e. ball has had to leave the box, although not in any player's possession) - Player A 2 was closest - who gets the ball?

Clearly A2, just like in a "keep it in" situation now.

My response - I expect the commission will interpret it that way - but aren't our rules about who gets the ball on an OOB situation confusing enough already for fans new to the sport?

3. Horn substitutions are crucial - because it will become more difficult to sub, I have to take advantage of every horn. And will I only be allowed to Horn Substitution on defense? Presume the offensive team has entered the box. Presume that defense has "knocked/deflected" the ball out of bounds (not a shot). Presume that the fact that the ball HAS left the box doesn't trump the fact that defensive player has caused the ball to go out of bounds. So, it's the offensive team's ball - they've entered the box before I knocked it out - the "spirit of the rule" suggests to me that they CANNOT SUB - they've put the ball in the box, and the defense has never gained possession such that the offense is "restarting" out of the box after the other team's possession. But the defense should be able to sub - right?

I'm fairly sure they mean "live ball subs only in the first 30 seconds or until the ball is in the box." They'll let people sub as normal during dead balls, I think.

I raise the point to illustrate the illogic of the rule. If you are right - which I expect you are - then we'll still have the "long breaks" on horn subs. Isn't the better way of streamlining the game to eliminate the horn?

6. Making it harder to substitute means less players see the field.

Well, to some extent. I mean, if A1 only has 20 good minutes in him, he's only got 20 good minutes in him. You're going to get someone else in for him, just maybe not when you normally would.

But if all my players have 40 good minutes in them, some will see less time because it will be difficult to get them in and out of the game. Conditioning, not depth, becomes important.

A good discussion - I'd love to see the rules committee's notes/memos to see their thoughts!

[LaxRef]

A good discussion - I'd love to see the rules committee's notes/memos to see their thoughts!

I think the heart of what many people are saying is "Fine, we want to cut down on wasted time--live ball and dead ball--for subbing. Can we please try to do this with subtler changes rather than radical changes?" And I think this is a reasonable perspective.

Okay, then: the assignment is to come up with ideas for doing this that they can use for 2007 other than this experimental rule.

BTW, they said they re-wrote the stalling rule (which, if you read the current wording, makes no sense). I'm eager to see if they adopted the wording I suggested to the committee.

[LaxRef]

Okay, then: the assignment is to come up with ideas for doing this that they can use for 2007 other than this experimental rule.

Okay, here are a few thoughts.

The most extreme sub-limiting rule would be no subs at all between goals. (Well, the MOST extreme would be no subs during the game, but that's a little ridiculous.) This is certainly feasible, and other sports use rules similar to this, but I don't think anyone wants anything that extreme.

Another option would be no live-ball subs. This would likely give a larger number of horn subs, but horn subs can only occur on a sideline out of bounds (plus free subs on goals and penalties, although if you read the rules carefully it sounds like you need to call for a horn at these times as well).

What about this: whenever there's a whistle to stop play, the trail clicks his beeper on the restart and you can have 20 seconds of live ball subs after that (these could, of course, begin during the dead ball period). After that, no subs for either team until the next whistle. While you're at it, you could eliminate horn subs after a sideline out of bounds--or limit them to, say, 2 per quarter--and just allow free subs after a goal or a penalty.

What does this accomplish? Well, special subs are now restircted to 20 seconds, so teams can't waste a minute or so just subbing on each possession. In addition, everyone will have to be able to play some offense and defense, since if there's a live-ball turnover you need to be able to play the other side of the ball. However, it eliminates some of the confusion possible with the proposed "30 seconds to get it in the box and then no subs." Plus it's much easier to officiate, since the trail only has to worry about subs for the first 20 seconds on each restart and then he's free to join the play.

What else? Well, there certainly is the potential for people being stuck on the field for a while, but conditioning is part of the game, and once a shot goes out of bounds or there's a loose-ball technical there will be that 20-second sub window.

At first, I thought it would kill the FOGO position, but now that I think about it as long as possession is gained fairly quickly you still have time to get off the field as part of that 20-second window. Maybe there should be no 20-second window after there is free substitution (i.e., after a goal or a penalty).

What do you think?

[cgarrigues]

At first, I thought it would kill the FOGO position,

FOGO? Definition please. Its been a long day.

Carter

[Tarzan]

Face off get off A.K.A. face off specialist

[TexOle]

One problem with many of these rule committees is that they fail recognize the problem. Unfortunately the rules committee is struggling to recognize the real problem with college lacrosse. There are no major problems with the college game. It is a great game. If you have a good product like I think we do then it is important to not try to fix the game. The good news is that these are experimental rules. If these rules do not help the game then we will see them eliminated. If they do help the game then we might see them added. Also the USL-MDIA might choose not to accept these rule changes.

[slider]

I am still trying to figure out why 48,000 fans showed up in Philly to watch a game that is so obviously flawed. I agree with TexOle that the rules committee should wake up and realize how great the college game is. It ain't broke, people.

Also, people have been pointing to specialization as one of the major problems with today's game. I completely disagree. We should appreciate the fact that we now have more roles for great athletes to fill on a team. We should enjoy watching players excel in certain key areas of the game. I think the most exciting player in college lacrosse last year (besides his all-everything teammate) was a D-Middie. Benson Erwin made so many big plays for Hopkins throughout the year, and proved how important role players can be to a championship team.

I really hope that these rules don't make it past the fall.

[LaxRef]

I am still trying to figure out why 48,000 fans showed up in Philly to watch a game that is so obviously flawed.

I was one of them. But it's a logical fallacy to claim that because people tolerate something means that it could not stand to be improved.

Also, people have been pointing to specialization as one of the major problems with today's game. I completely disagree. We should appreciate the fact that we now have more roles for great athletes to fill on a team. We should enjoy watching players excel in certain key areas of the game. I think the most exciting player in college lacrosse last year (besides his all-everything teammate) was a D-Middie. Benson Erwin made so many big plays for Hopkins throughout the year, and proved how important role players can be to a championship team.

I really hope that these rules don't make it past the fall.

It's not the specialization per se that I object to. It's the killing 1:00 on each possession to bring the specialists into the game that bothers me.

They do situational subs in basketball, too, but they have to wait for a dead ball to do it. Can you imagine how fed up people would get if they took out the shot clock and did on-the-fly subs in basketball, and then all of the sudden teams started to kill 40 seconds every time down the court to sub out offense for defense? People would accuse David Stern of being on crack, and rightly so.

(BTW, the "the game is fine as it is" argument could have been used to argue against allowing on-the-fly subs in the first place back in, what, the early 80's.)

[slider]

I don't think the fans were "tolerating" two of the best tourney games of all-time in UVA-JHU and JHU-Duke.

Imagine this, we eliminate on the fly subs in favor of horn/ dead ball subs. My d-middies cross the mid-line and we don't have any transition opportunities. In order to get my offensive mids on the field, I instruct my d-mids to dodge down the alley and shoot wide enough to have the ball go out on the sideline (and close enough to be a shot). I get my horn, the fans get cheated. If that's an option, coaches will use it (and rightfully so). The same argument can be made for what will happen if a shot clock is in place. Teams will take "possession shots" to get more time and keep the ball. I don't think either of these situations are good for the game, but if that's the corner that the rules committee wants to paint coaches in, so be it. I honestly appreciate what the powers that be are trying to do for the game, but I just don't think we can take it too much further in the direction we're heading without compromising the game.

[LaxRef]

I don't think the fans were "tolerating" two of the best tourney games of all-time in UVA-JHU and JHU-Duke.

Imagine how much better it would have been to have another 12 minutes or so of lacrosse instead of "pass the ball around and sub."

Imagine this, we eliminate on the fly subs in favor of horn/ dead ball subs. My d-middies cross the mid-line and we don't have any transition opportunities. In order to get my offensive mids on the field, I instruct my d-mids to dodge down the alley and shoot wide enough to have the ball go out on the sideline (and close enough to be a shot). I get my horn, the fans get cheated. If that's an option, coaches will use it (and rightfully so). The same argument can be made for what will happen if a shot clock is in place. Teams will take "possession shots" to get more time and keep the ball. I don't think either of these situations are good for the game, but if that's the corner that the rules committee wants to paint coaches in, so be it. I honestly appreciate what the powers that be are trying to do for the game, but I just don't think we can take it too much further in the direction we're heading without compromising the game.

Who do you think the rules committee is made up of? It's the coaches. Not all of them, of course, but the coaches effectively decide on the rules.

As to the "possession shots," it is a potential problem. However, if the officials rule it to be a deliberate throw out, the ball goes to the defense, so it isn't risk free. There may be ways to address this problem that haven't been brought up yet; that's what discussion is all about.

What if they stopped allowing horns on a sideline shot out of bounds? That way, a team in possession would no longer have the ability to cause a dead ball and be able to sub. That's just one idea; I'm sure there are others that might work as well.

[slider]

I do know that the head of the Rules Committee is Willie Scroggs who has been out of coaching for some time, and I do know that many D-1 coaches have already expressed their less than favorable opinions of the new rules to the committee.

I agree that this discussion is good for the sport, and that the committee should continue to evaluate ways to improve the game. I just don't see this round of tinkering as having a good effect on the way the game is played. I think the faster pace the committee is pushing will actually make the game a lot less interesting to the fans and a lot more sloppy.

[LaxRef]

Well, this might just be a case of us having to agree to disagree.