02/18/22- Football First 2 Rounds of Playoffs, Glove Reminder, Rules Changes

At its regular meeting this week, the Board of Control approved a recommended change in first and second-round playoff bracketing. This change will revise the originally planned start date for adjacent district pairings in those rounds from 2023 to 2022. The recommendation and approval were based on gathering data when 207 or the 222 football schools responded to a recent survey. In that survey, 2/3 of the Bylaw 1 Designated Representatives favored implementing the previously approved change in 2022 vs. waiting until 2023. Thanks to the coaches and administrators who responded to resolve this lingering issue. A summary of the Board meeting is online at https://khsaa.org/02-18-22-football-first-2-rounds-of-playoffs-glove-reminder-rules-changes/

Secondly, the NFHS recently announced its rule changes for 2022, including a couple of potentially significant ones. Following several years of debate, the NFHS Football Rules Committee approved allowing an additional exception to intentional grounding in certain conditions. This change will allow to team to “trade” a down for a potential loss of yardage. In addition, the committee revised the threshold point for chop blocking to be the waist vs. the knees after review of significant injury data on this play. The complete news release is listed on the KHSAA website at https://khsaa.org/02-17-22-revised-intentional-grounding-chop-block-rules-headline-2022-high-school-football-rules-changes/ with more detail at https://nfhs.org/sports-resource-content/football-rules-changes-2022/.

Lastly, we have received information from the NFHS regarding a plethora of gloves being sold to our schools that are not legal. This is not only a competitive balance issue but a rules issue where we all desire to prevent unnecessary issues once games resume. The information on this emphasis is below.

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The NFHS has been notified that there are football receiver gloves that are currently available in the market and are being sold online, that do not meet the current SFIA specification or NOCSAE standard as required by current NFHS Football Rules.  The following is the current NFHS Football Rule for gloves:

NFHS Football Rule 1-5-2b:
ART. 2 . . . The following auxiliary equipment may be worn if sanctioned by the umpire as being soft, nonabrasive, nonhardening material: …
b.  Gloves, which may be anchored with athletic tape, and even though modified, must meet the NOCSAE standard or the SFIA specification at the time of manufacture, unless made of unaltered plain cloth. Gloves, unless made of unaltered plain cloth, must have a permanent, exact replica of the NOCSAE glove seal (Meets NOCSAE Standard) or SFIA glove seal (Meets SFIA Specification), that must be visible and appear legibly on the exterior wrist opening of the glove.
NOTES:
1.  A glove is a covering for the hand having separate sections for each finger. Pads worn on the hand, but not having separate sections encircling at least part of any finger are not gloves. The thumb is not considered a finger.
2.  Non-athletic gloves, worn solely for warmth and made of unaltered plain cloth, and which do not enhance contact with the ball, do not require a label or stamp indicating compliance.

As you look to purchase football gloves (or have the players personally purchase) for the 2022 season, these gloves do need to meet either the SFIA specification or the NOCSAE standard in order to comply with the current NFHS Football glove rule.  The rule provides that these gloves must have a permanent, exact replica of the NOCSAE glove seal (Meets NOCSAE Standard) or SFIA glove seal (Meets SFIA Specification), that must be visible and appear legibly on the exterior wrist opening of the glove.

For additional information, please check the SFIA website for list of approved gloves by CLICKING TO SEE THAT LISTING