MERCY

By
August 31, 2008

MERCY!!!!!!!!! Six-Man Football has a mercy rule that stops a game when one team is up by 45 points at the half or later. A really good team can beat up on a really bad team unmercifully even by the half. I once witnessed a Six-Man game where one team won 98-0 at the half. OUCH!!!!!!!!

Six-Man is a wild and crazy game that sometimes sees the so called "mercy rule" applied even when there are two very good teams playing each other. That happened last year in the Division 1 state championship game. It happened this weekend as well.

The fine folks in Hico, TX hosted their 5th Annual Six-Man Super Saturday. They always get together some great match ups. They had the #11 and #12 teams in the state playing each other. They had the #3 and #6 teams going at each other and the #7 and #8 ranked teams playing each other along with a couple of other games matching quality opponents.
Here is the point to this story. The games between the #3 and #6 teams and the #7 and #8 teams were both ended early by the mercy rule. Go figure. I don't think for a minute that any of the teams were bad but that is the nature of the beast sometimes in Six-Man. You learn to live with it.

The last blog I published here had me wondering about a few things and I have some better ideas now about those particular questions I had. I wondered why Ira and Throckmorton were not Top Ten teams. They played each other in Hico and Throckmorton won 42 to 24. They (Throckmorton) made some mistakes but not as many as Ira. Both teams may well wind up in the Top 10 later on but they both have some things to work on.

I also questioned how strong Follett and Gordon really are. Follett ranked #6 lost to Strawn ranked # 3 by the score of 46-0. Follett IS NOT a bad team. The fact is they are a good team BUT Strawn was DOMINATING. Period. Gordon, while not a top 10 team beat Valley who came in as the #2 team in the state pretty convincingly, 60-38. The Gordon Longhorns appear to be a team to be reckoned with. Did I mention they are in the same district with Strawn? Yikes!

I was also wondering if the # 1 team in Division 2 could stay with the #19 team in Division 1. Woodson indeed did hang with May even though they lost to May by the score of 50-42. Last season when a Division 2 team played a Division 1 team it was pretty ugly.

The last thing I was wondering about was Richland Springs and Rule. They played each other in the state game each of the last two seasons in Division 1. Richland Springs lost several all world players to graduation as did Rule. Rule also dropped to Division 2 and had a coaching change as well. Richland Springs played the # 17 team in Division 2 and won 82-36. I think the Coyotes are doing just fine with the guys they have left. Word is that Walnut Springs is going to fare well themselves. Rule got their first taste of Division 2 since they are now competing at that level. The Bobcats won 51-8. The tradition continues.

Week ZERO is in the books. What will I have to wonder about in Week ONE? Stay tuned.

GoFridayNight Team Pages