After this past weekend’s worth of games in high school, I’m wondering if we aim for the “Mercy”-rule to easily?

Sacramento defeated McClathy 85-0, Laguna Creek defeated Johnson 46-0 (with it 40-0 at halftime), or Folsom defeating Woodcreek 71-7 (with it 64-0 at halftime).

Odds are, as I noticed in the Laguna Creek game that I was covering, the starters probably stayed in into the second, third quarter.  Why?

One philosophy I have is trying to impress the bracket setters at the CIF-San Joaquin Section because of “point differential”.  Makes sense because you want at least a home game for the school.

Another philosophy, it’s a rivalry game like with Sacramento and McClathy and you want to prove your dominance in the series.  Makes perfect sense.

But the questions I have is this:  Why run up the score?  What point are your proving by leaving some if not all your starters in when it’s 28-0?  What are you hiding that your trying to cover by running up the score by 46, by 64, by 85?

What I can pose is that a team is desperate to prove their dominance, why?  Insecurities within the team?  Insecurities with yourself as a coach?  Desperate to get your “star” players a Division-1 scholarship instead of a Division-1AA, Division-II scholarship.

I understand if your up 27 after one like I saw with Laguna Creek, that your having your way with Johnson.  But I noticed, when the score became 34-0, 40-0; that the coach is still coaching hard and keeping his starters in.

OK, we get it.  Your team’s better.  Pull your starters and give Johnson a chance to score something, especially since it’s the last game of the season and it’s their senior night!

This is where I suggest a consideration in the rules.  Keep the 45-point rule obviously, keep it fair to that, but make it more even.

Make it even more even by making a rule that you have to start subbing your back-ups (and not subbing them out with the starter unless a catastrophic injury that requires the starter to come back in) when your up 28; and it can’t be just one sub cause I’ve seen coaches doing that and said “I was subbing my back-ups in, they just can’t stop us”.  Like three or four at a time.

If your up by 35-45, you must sit your starters; and if your starters come in (barring an catastrophic injury), you get flagged five yards every time a starter is in there and have a loss of downs.

The biggest question that can arise from this is “how can we implement it?  Team’s switch players in and out all the time”.

If your a ref, you start noticing particular players that are in the game a lot more than others, i.e. running backs, quarterbacks, defensive backs and linebackers.

With something like this, yeah it’ll be more difficult to identify linemen and receivers with how often they’re in and out, but you’ll notice some trends.

Is this way perfect?  No, not by a long shot.  But it’s a step in the right direction to ensure further equality in football amongst teams.

Jeremy McDonald received a B.S. in Journalism from Southern Oregon University in 2011 and currently is finishing up his B.S. in Health and Physical Education from Southern Oregon University . He is currently a Sports Correspondent/Freelancer for Gold Country Media.