Things learned, observed in Pacific high school football Week 10.0
Published: October 29, 2012
Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer gazes at all the tiebreak mumbo-jumbo and says to himself, there has to be a better way to settle who plays whom for Far East football titles:
First things first, here are the latest point-tiebreak standings should they be needed in the case of the chase for Far East Division I title-game berth space between Yokota, Kubasaki and Kadena, all of this straight from the DODDS Pacific area office:
Yokota sets the pace with plus 20, having beaten Kubasaki 31-6 on Saturday and carrying away the maximum 20 points per game for point-differential purposes.
Kadena is at minus-9, having lost twice to Kubasaki with Saturday’s game at Yokota remaining.
Kubasaki is at minus-11, having beaten Kadena twice by an average margin of plus-nine, and losing to Yokota and the maximum 20 points.
Possibilities for the championship game:
-- Under no scenario can Kubasaki host the championship game.
-- Yokota beats Kadena regardless of score … Kubasaki plays at Yokota on Nov. 17. Yokota with no D-1 losses, Kubasaki with one and Kadena with two.
-- Kadena beats Yokota by 14 points or less … Kadena plays at Yokota on Nov. 17. If Kadena wins by one point, Yokota holds a 19-point differential, Kadena minus-8 and Kubasaki minus-11. Those numbers would escalate if Kadena wins by more than a point; if it wins by 14, the point differentials would read Yokota 6, Kadena 5, Kubasaki minus-11.
-- Kadena beats Yokota by 15 points or more … Yokota plays at Kadena on Nov. 17. Each team would have one loss. Kadena would have a six-point differential, Yokota 5 and Kubasaki minus-11.
Now, time to clear up some confusion.
Disregard anything I’ve written about half-wins in intra-district games.
Repeat: Disregard anything I’ve written about half-wins in intra-district play.
Again, the following is direct from the DODDS Pacific area office and Far East athletics coordinator Don Hobbs:
Yokota and Kinnick played each other twice during the season, as did Kadena and Kubasaki and Zama American and Robert D. Edgren. The two games count as one for tiebreak purposes. If each team had split their games, they would have gone to a point differential to decide the winner of one game.
Stated another way, Kubasaki beat Kadena 14-7 on Sept. 28, and again 32-21 on Oct. 19. The two games count as one, and Kubasaki won the one game by an average point differential of nine.
Had Kadena won the second game 32-21, the point differential would have favored Kadena by plus four.
All this need for two games to count as one goes back to the fact that Kinnick, Yokota, Kadena and Kubasaki each play five actual games on field within division, but Seoul American has only four D-I opponents; thus, the decision to count the two each intra-district games as one, giving every Division I team the same number of games in the standings.
“This may not be perfect,” Hobbs said, but this way DODDS Pacific got this new regular-season format off the ground that many had been clamoring for, for a long time. Hobbs said he’s open to suggestions to simplify ties or any other better way to do things.
As for my suggestion in this space last week that Guam High be added to the mix to give Seoul American a fifth Division I game, Hobbs indicated the problem is funding, that the game would add to the cost of the new format while DODDS is being asked to decrease the costs.
***
There were a few bumps and bruises along the way, but AFN’s and DODDS Pacific’s partnership in simulcasting Saturday’s Yokota at Kubasaki game was an historic event that marked the beginning of a new era in technology.
From 10 a.m. Thursday to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, DODDS’ and AFN Okinawa’s best and brightest worked in conjunction with students and educational technologists from Kubasaki High School and the aforementioned DODDS Pacific area office to get it off the ground.
The game aired for thousands on Okinawa listening to AFN Wave 89.1 FM, millions more across the Tokyo-Kawasaki-Yokohama metroplex on AFN Tokyo Eagle 810-AM and was viewed by millions around the world over DODDS Pacific’s Far East Streamcasting Network. Bill Riggs, Kubasaki’s educational technologist, and yours truly called the plays with sideline coverage provided by Marie Lewis, formerly of San Diego’s Fox News affiliate now a Marine dependent spouse working with the DODDS area office.
Special thanks to DODDS Pacific’s chief spokesman Charly Hoff, AFN Okinawa station manager Master Sgt. Ed Prince and his operations chief, Gunnery Sgt. Brian Griffin and radio types Scott Johnson, Malcolm Payne and Alisa Helin, among others. And to AFN Tokyo’s Master Sgt. Greg Bluethman, Staff Sgt. Michael Lahrman and others for relaying the broadcast up north.
And to Defense Media Activity Pacific’s commanding officer Lt. Col. David Westover and longtime AFN voice Rusty Barfield for their vision. Expect more of this in the coming days and weeks; AFN Tokyo plans to simulcast the Far East D-II championship game Nov. 10 at Zama, and both AFN Okinawa and Tokyo are prepared to air the D-I game, either at Kadena or Yokota on Nov. 17.
***
Despite winning its sixth straight game with a running clock, Yokota ran into some rough patches in the second quarter of its 31-6 rout Saturday at Kubasaki. Several untimely penalties and two turnovers could have derailed Yokota’s unbeaten express, were it not for a couple of key plays that bookended halftime:
-- A bad punt snap sailed over Kubasaki’s Aaron Stravers’ head and set up the Panthers nice and neat at the Dragons’ 19-yard line 46 seconds before halftime. Three plays later, Morgan Breazell was in the end zone and Yokota led 16-0.
-- One play into the second half, the Dragons coughed up the pumpkin and Yokota’s Ke’Ondre Davis fell on it. One play later, Breazell scored his third touchdown of the day.
Kubasaki’s Jarrett Mitchell maintained his Pacific-leading rushing and touchdown totals of 1,279 and 13, but his 80-yard fourth-quarter TD run came well too late to half Yokota’s momentum.
Something tells me Kubasaki will have its hands full Saturday with a Singapore Falcons team that has rolled to a 3-0 record over DODDS Pacific opponents this month and has outscored them 69-20. That’s a lengthy road trip and Singapore heat and humidity make Okinawa’s feel positively chilly.
That said, Daegu High and Xavian Washburn really gave the Falcons some problems in Saturday’s seven -point loss to Singapore in the driving rain at Seoul American.
Too bad that Quinton and Marcel Holden didn’t arrive at American School In Japan’s Mustang Valley any earlier than they did on Friday. Quinton had 52 rushing yards on five carries in the fourth quarter and scored Nile C. Kinnick’s only touchdown, after the Holdens had literally driven to ASIJ straight from Narita International Airport after a few weeks in the States on emergency leave.
Congratulations to Jim Davis and Seoul American for its second straight table run of its DODDS Korea opposition. Let’s see if they’re able to hold onto Ronald Dogan next season.
