Comments on New Rule Changes

Alright, if you haven't heard yet there are a few new rules coming into this season. There's really 3 of them that I'm going to talk about.
First, and frankly most important, is the increased penalties for checks to the head. Going off of the nation's new found awareness of concussions the NCAA has included the ability to asses 2 or 3 minute penalties for blows to the head, like cross-checks. The idea behind this change is to protect players from wild checks that can cause injury. Overall a great idea.....but there was an incident over the weekend that made me raise my eyebrows a bit.

Not sure if every watched the Duke v. Notre Dame game on Sunday, but on one of the face off D-man Chris Hipps (#27 on Duke) received a down right nasty cross-check to the back of the head which knocked him out of the game. I haven't heard anything about him since so I can only assume he is alright now. Anyway, the checker only received a 1-minute penalty. This play was a picture perfect example of why this new rule was made, but wasn't enforced. To be honest lacrosse is a fast sport and I will give the ref the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't see what exactly happened. Then there needs to be additions to the rule that allow officials to look at the hits later after the game to see how bad they were. Bad enough, and additional penalties should be enforced. You knocked a guy out of a game on an illegal check, well you should be taken out for a game too....only fair.

Second, is the change from the "down, whistle" procedure on faceoffs it is now "down, set, whistle". This is supposed to cut down on FOGOs "rolling" or getting early starts on faceoffs. It will also cut down on procedure calls for FOGOs lining up wrong. During the Hopkins v. Towson game they mentioned that the Hopkins coach looked back and said that 60% of the faceoffs his team lost was because of this rolling. He didn't happen to mention what percentage he won because of it, but that's another story. The outcome of this will be more false start procedure calls from FOGOs trying to anticipate the whistle, a more even faceoff, and more and longer epic camera closeups on the ball. All around good things.

Lastly, the new clearing time rules. The old rule was once the ball changes possession the offensive team had 20 seconds to get it over the mid-field stripe and then another 10 seconds to the box. New rule is the offensive team now has 30 seconds to get into the box. No break down. It's a great idea because it will keep the game going by cutting down on turnovers caused by balls getting hung up between mid-field and the box. Anything that keeps the game going makes me a happy lax fan. Maybe they can make the box smaller so it's easier to step out....just kidding.

That wraps up my comments on the new rules. Next post will be E and my picks for the weekend.

Later

C.