Time flies

“Everybody is going to be on a learning curve,” said Mac Parfet, a longtime football official on the Peninsula as part of the Silicon Valley Sports Officials Association, which provides officials for games on the Peninsula and beyond. “When [the ball carrier] is down, the side official’s arm will go up, 40 seconds will start right then.”

Previously, once a play was called dead, the ball was spotted and the umpire cleared out of the way. At that point, the referee would “chop” his arm and blow his whistle — literally a chopping motion of his arm to signal the start of the play clock.

Many teams, when using the 25-second clock, had plenty of time to signal in the next play, huddle up and get to the line of scrimmage before the play clock started.

Ah, but the play clock won’t always be 40 seconds. There are six instances when the 25-second clock will still be employed — most notably during an extra-point attempt or following a timeout. While there is a certain internal clock that coaches and players are used to, that will certainly be disrupted for a bit before teams get into a rhythm with the new timing change.

The ones that will probably be the most affected would be the fans in the stands, who believe the high school games have the same rules as college or the pros.

Just so you know – they don’t.

“You’ll hear a lot less whistles from the ref,” Parfet said. “You won’t hear a whistle every chop because the clock has already started.”

Hillsdale football head coach Mike Parodi doesn’t believe it will have much of an effect on teams, considering it used to take about 15 seconds, give or take, for an officials crew to blow the play dead, respot the ball for the next play and clear the official out before the 25-second timer started, anyway.

“It’s pretty much the same (time),” Parodi said. “It’s just a different way to do the same thing.”

Besides, if the new timing procedures become a hassle, they’ll just change it back.

“If it becomes an issue, then it’s not a good rule,” Parodi said. “Rules like this are supposed to make the game better.”

There were updates all together at the February meeting of NFHS, one of the two governing bodies for high school football and the organization the state of California uses for its rules and regulations.

In addition to the new play clock, there was an update made to the horse-collar tackle rule. Previously, a defender had to reach into the back of the neck area of a player’s jersey and drag them down from behind to be considered a horse-collar tackle. The rule has been amended to say that even grabbing and tackling by the name plate on the back of the uniform will also result in an illegal-contact penalty.

The last significant change is the NFHS OK’ing the use of instant replay “during state postseason contests,” according to a press release from the NFHS from February. That leaves a lot to interpretation: would replay be used during section games, or just regional and state championship games?

It’s nothing CCS teams have to worry about next season as Parfet said the CIF has not yet ratified the use of instant replay in the state.

***

If Andrew Daschbach does nothing else in his baseball career — which I find highly unlikely — he can be satisfied in the knowledge that he set a pair of Stanford records during the Cardinal’s 7-1 win over Cal Poly Tuesday night at Sunken Diamond.

The junior cleanup hitter and 2016 Sacred Heart Prep graduate, Daschbach clubbed a school-record four home runs and his total-base sum of 16 was also a new school mark.

Daschbach has hit 15 home runs this season, 14 since March 23.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.