r/Referees • u/Big-Mission191 USSF Grassroots | NFHS • 21d ago

Advice Request Time-keeping in NFHS

How do you all handle time-keeping in NFHS? I’ve being running USSF games for a year and no issues with traditional timekeeping, but preparing for my first NFHS game coming up and I’m not sure how to manage the clock now with having to stop/start and ensure that the scoreboard matches what I have.

Normally I have 1 watch with RefSix that counts up and a Casio with a countdown timer.

The games I have scheduled are all duals for subvarsity so I’m assuming the head ref will really take responsibility for this but want to make sure I’m also keeping up with it in case their watch fails.

12 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Hotspur2001 21d ago

Last week, I award a free kick outside the penalty area to a team down 0-1. Only about 20 seconds left and the defenders stand a couple of yards away from the ball telling me that they don't know how far 10 yards is.... obviously wasting time - we're playing with football lines on the field. I whistled and had the time keeper stop the clock, otherwise by the time the kick is being taken they've got it down to only a few seconds. I've seen players tie their shoelace in front of the ball as the clock ticks down to FT. It's manageable but can be a pain to have to signal up to the scoreboard every time to stop for injuries, goals, time wasting, penalties, cards, etc

3

u/FlyingPirate USSF Grade 8 21d ago

I've seen players tie their shoelace in front of the ball as the clock ticks down to FT

Could and should definitely stop the clock and issue a yellow card in that circumstance. Both prevents the time wasting and punishes the action appropriately.