Now that our pre-season work is nearly complete, and our 3 controlled scrimmages are under our belts, I wanted to cover a few rules of play / conduct that I thought you might want to know about leading into our regular season opener against the always strong, and well coached Back River Panthers.

Hopefully, this will help your awareness of what's going on and why. 

- Game Clock - at the Mighty Mites level we play four, 12-minute quarters. There's a running clock in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters (ie: time runs no matter what's going on, penalty, injury, coach tirade), except for the last 2-minutes of each half where the clock runs on game time (ie: stops for 1st downs, penalties, injuries, out-of-bounds, etc).

This means that the 4 quarters of the game move very fast. You may wonder why I constantly am on the boys about hustling from one drill to the next and being able to get lined up quickly ... well, the more we hustle, the more plays we'll get in.

But, if you were wondering, after 9-years of this I can tell you that in the average game we'll only run about 24 plays on offense, and 22 plays on defense. I try to use my timeouts not only in crucial late-half / late-game situations but also to extend a half (if I can remember to call them) to get more plays run when possible.

- Playing Time - hopefully everyone thoroughly read over the pre-season June / July emails when you signed up covering my goals on playing time. The regular season games will not be like the controlled scrimmages. Let me reiterate information from that email.

The PYFA is a competitive league, teams play hard. Teams put their most competitive line-up on the field. And teams play to win. If you have been involved in area youth sports (ie: t-ball, soccer, basketball) this will probably be your first experience, and your child’s first experience, with competitive athletics. What this means at the WYFCL, is that we have fun, we learn football, and try to put your child in a position where he’ll not only learn football, but be somewhat successful at his position when he goes on the field. This may be difficult to absorb, but we do take it more seriously than a recreational league program, records count and we play with an eye toward making the post season.

What that means is that there is NO guaranteed playing time other than the PYFA mandated 1 play per game rule. Nor is there any guarantee that your child will see in-game-time at a specific position that you may feel he was “born” to play.

I will tell you that internally, my goal is to make every effort to work all kids into games, no matter the situation, at least 2 plays a half, but even with that goal in mind, I can tell you that there will be occasions in tight games against tough opponents where your child will only get in for the PYFA minimum 1 play a game. It happened last year, and the year before, and the year before.

There are a batch of kids every year also that move up from a lower level to a higher level of football. Perhaps those kids were 2-way starters as the older kids on the lower level ... and this year, they might be back-ups getting in only a minimum numbers of plays. That is a situation that happens every year as well at every level of football.

If this is a philosophy you may struggle with, change usually takes place from within. The best course is to join a league, work to be elected to a board of directors position, attend all the league and PYFA meetings and lobby for change.

- Understanding The 18-Point Rule - now let me try to make clear the always difficult to understand 18-Point Playing Rules.

Before kick-off I will fill out a roster sheet and check off our starters (both 1-way and 2-way starters) ... we will have between 15- to 17-different starters to check off ... that means 5 to 7 who may start on both offense & defense, 4- to 6-offense only starters, and 4- to 6-defense only starters depending on who's shining where at any time. That means in all liklihood that at least 1/2 our kids will be starters on our 31-man roster each week.

Comparatively, we will play against teams with 30+ man rosters that start the same 11 best athletes on both offense and defense.

At halftime, each team submits the names & numbers of 11 "impact players" from the other team, that they do not want to see back in the game should the game reach an 18-point margin of difference and the 18-point rule come into play.

If at any time after the 2nd half kick-off one team gets ahead by 18-points or more, or if one team is ahead by 18-points at halftime, the leading team must remove those 11 named 'impact players' from the field and they are not allowed on the field as long as an 18-point or larger margin remains. In this situation, the trailing team may keep all of their players on the field throughout the 3rd period.

If the margin tightens back down to less than 18-points, all players again are eligible.

However, if the margin remains at 18-points or more entering the 4th period, BOTH the leading and trailing team must remove the chosen 11 "impact players" for the remainder of the game, or until the margin again becomes less than 18-points.

In theory, "impact players" chosen by the other team's coaches would be the 11 players who had a significant impact in "that" game ... which should be 11 of our 16- to 18-starters ... that's the theory.

But, it will happen that another team tell us to pull a player who has either not been in the game to that point, or has been in for a 2-plays. If a kid has not played the PYFA minimum 1-play prior to halftime, he CAN NOT be listed as an 'impact 11'.

We will make every effort, via our Blue Hat League Official, and coaches to fix any oversites on their part during the halftime break.

And we will ask the other team to double check our paperwork to make sure that we did not inadvertantly choose the wrong number of one of their kids, and we will immediately change what we've written.

However, should the other team insist that a number be pulled for a kid who's only been for 2-plays (and it happened 4 times last year to our 2nd QB who came in to take 2-snaps in the 1st half and then was singled out as an "impact player") ... then, by rule, they have that right.

Our recourse, by rule, is to file an ethics complaint against the other team for unsportsmanlike behaviour making them subject to league discipline.

This exact situation was covered at our PYFA Sideline Official meeting in July ... "if you know the other team's 2nd & 3rd QB even though they haven't been in the game ... it's unethical to pull them as an 'impact 11'.

Unfortunately, if a number is named, and we've tried to fix it on site, but are unsuccessful, we can not put the kid on the field to play, even though he should be in there, because then we would be subject to an unsportsmanlike complaint against us.

I hope this doesn't happen ... but it did last year, and it will again this year. Picking the first 5 or 6 impact players usually isn't that hard, but sometimes getting to 11 is tricky in the heat of the game, and we'll probably see it get goofed up again, just so you know.

It's all so simple, right?