Colorado not considering adopting replay for high school football
AURORA — The news Monday that the NFHS is allowing states to adopt the use of instant replay during football playoffs naturally led to a question: Will Colorado be one of those states?
The answer: No, at least not in the immediate future.
“This concept is so brand new to high school,” CHSAA commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green said on Tuesday. “There are many things that have to be discussed before there’s a statewide conversation about it.”
Added Tom Robinson, CHSAA’s associate commissioner who also oversees officials: “Until we get a clear indication from the membership that they want to, the CHSAA office isn’t advocating that we want to do it.”
Robinson is a former on-field college football official who has served as a replay official for the Big 12 and Mountain West over the past few seasons. He served as the replay official for college football’s national championship game in 2017.
In a press release on Tuesday, the NFHS announced an addition to Rule 1-3-7 allowing states “to create instant replay procedures for state postseason contests only.”
Among the factors that would need to be sorted out with replay:
- Would it be for all playoffs games? Or only the championship games?
- Would it be for all classes?
- Would there be a need to contract an outside company to set up the equipment? Could CHSAA use the equipment already available at certain championship sites? Would Hudl equipment, already prevalent at games, work?
- How much input, if any, would the on-field officials have during the replay process?
- Who would be the replay officials?
- Which plays would be reviewable? Would there be coaches challenges?
“The question,” Robinson said, “is how important is it to have?”
For now, that conversation hasn’t started.
“There just hasn’t been pressure from the membership to do this,” Robinson said.
