SAN DIEGO COUNTY FOOTBALL OFFICIALS ASSOCIATION
THE WEEKLY BULL - January 20, 2021
CA “Stay-At-Home Order – San Diego continues to be under the “Stay-At-Home order from the governor. As long as we’re under this order, we cannot hold any youth sporting events. Sacramento was recently pulled from the order as their data was clearly trending toward the 15% ICU availability in their region. San Diego is attached to the entire SoCal region so we are severely handicapped by being “lumped in” with those counties. San Diego County is currently at 12% ICU availability, so we’ll see if we can also receive some leniency?
Orange Tier for Football – I misstated previously that football moved to the Red Tier, Football is still an Orange Tier sport and thus we need to get from our current 60.6 to 3.9. We dropped 10 points yesterday, the curve seems to be bending downward, and vaccination rates are accelerating… but…a long way to go
Proposed Schedule – I predict we will have no CIF Football Championships this year to make way for more games if that happens. Final game must be by April 17th so a six (6) game league schedule would start on March 12th. That means we’d need to start practice the week of March 1. Schools and coaches would have to be notified by a drop-dead date, which the CIF is unwilling to commit to as they hold out hope for unexpected breakthroughs in the data and/or politics. I believe final decisions will have to be made the week of 2/22-2/26. That's five (5) weeks away, hopefully giving us time to beat this thing!
Covid Modifications – These are very modest yet will greatly enhance the safety of all participants including officials. We will review them if, and when, we are given the green light. There will be no added expenses to officials and there will be no testing requirements. Obviously, anyone experiencing Covid-like symptoms must not be present.
Penalty Enforcement – This week we review the Basics of Penalty Enforcement including: All-But-One Principle, Types of Plays, and Basic Spots. Master these concepts as we move into more involved penalty enforcement rules later this week.
Next Meeting for 2020? – To Be Determined. – Please be patient as we observe our Covid data trend and the resulting information from the state and county. I know our crews are fully ready to go on the field today! So, meetings during this time will be of your own choosing. I will keep sending you updates, video and rules study. Always good to have the book open each week!
Planning for the 2021 Season – The SDCFOA Board will begin their regularly schedule meetings in February as we prepare for the 2021 season starting in on July 7th with our 1st General Meeting. We are planning to be back at Mira Mesa High School meeting in person with hopes that the vaccination efforts are successful by then and the Covid restrictions have been lifted. Board meetings are being scheduled for 2/24, 3/24, 4/28, 5/26 (if necessary), and 9/1. If we do not have a 2020 season the plan is for everyone’s dues to be “rolled over” unless the official chooses to have it rebated now. We are also proposing we re-draft. Just an FYI. More on all of that when the Board meets February 24th.
Instructional Program Survey – As we build our instructional program for 2021, should we incorporate any of the Zoom conferencing or on-line testing approaches we used this year? If you want to voice your opinion on this please respond to the survey that will soon be sent to you via email. We need your suggestions on what works best for you!
“Through our performance we can control the perception of players, coaches and fans. This is sometimes called ‘OPTICS’”
Chris Coyte, PAC 12 Referee (referee for the 2019 National Championship game between Clemson and LSU)
