I was thinking it's an illegal touching penalty, but the receiving team gets the ball where it was touched. I saw the flag from the official closest to the play come out immediately when the PBC kid touched it. Did someone throw the beanbag? It's possible, because there was a big scramble for the football and maybe I didn't see it. They correctly gave the football to FPC at the PBC 47 where the player clearly touched it first. The offense and defense came on the field, the chains were set, and ready to go, but then PBC called a timeout, and everything went bizarro world from there. After the long discussion, they gave PBC the football, but not at their 47 (or even midfield, where it was actually recovered), but at their 35. I saw no other penalty flag, and didn't see the official signal a penalty that would have brought the ball back there. They couldn't have possibly handled this any worse than they did. I thought the FPC coach was going to have a stroke. Otherwise, I thought they called a nice game and did a good job of maintaining control in a game that was fairly chippy. No idea why that last sequence went down like it did. The only thing I can compare it to was a Virginia state semifinal game maybe 10 years ago. A team was punting from their own 8 with a little under a minute to go in the first half. It was 4th and 4. The punt return team was going for a block, and had two guys jump offsides. The HL threw the flag immediately. They gave the offsides signal, and walked the penalty off, which resulted in a first down. The offense and defense came on, and the offense was preparing to take a couple of knees to end the half. Then...there is a big discussion among the crew. It's a discussion that lasts maybe 5 minutes, and from where we were standing at the end zone fence, you could tell it was fairly heated. They reversed the call, saying that the punt team was in an illegal formation...even though the LJ or Head referee never threw a flag for it. They moved the ball back to the 4, and they partially blocked the punt, taking possession at the 9, and getting a TD with about 10 seconds to go. Did it affect the outcome? The team that had the punt blocked lost 24-21. 

Hey, that's how FHSAA likes it.  

It was interesting to watch the last FHSAA Board of Directors’ meeting and hear the Executive Director say that he would like to adopt some type of competitive equity model, if only the coaches would agree.  He specifically referenced the California model (which I think has some merit), where playoff brackets are based solely on end-of-regular season rankings.  For example, the highest ranked 16 teams in the rankings are placed in the Open Division.  The next 64 highest ranked teams (#17-80) are placed in Class 1, then the next 64 (#81-144) are placed in Class 2, and so on.  School enrollment doesn’t matter, records in previous years don’t matter, the number of transfers doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is how teams performed in that particular year so that teams are grouped with comparable teams for the playoffs. Again, many possible ways to get there, and no system is perfect.  But my question is why wouldn’t the majority of coaches be in favor of a competitive equity model of some kind?  My suspicion is either the coaches don’t see the big picture, or the FHSAA Football Advisory Committee is not representing the interests of the coaches, or the FHSAA Board of Directors has no interest in changing the status quo, regardless of input.    

In other words reward teams who can raid local schools for talent while punishing teams in good parts of the state. What could possibly go wrong 

#1.  Classic Kansas City shoot-out to break the 3 way tie.  #2. Team with best record gets a bye. In the event of a tie, head-to-head, or computer ranking. #3.  Yep! This is how it was when I was in school.  It sucks, but life isn't fair. Ask Desoto about their 1988 team.  No more wildcards, 8 team playoffs or small districts.  Get rid of a class or two and you start having 8 and 9 team districts like when I was in school.  District runner-ups get a bowl game.