Friday Night Football
September 23, 2016
There continues to be among high school athletic administrators a great gnashing of teeth over encroachment of televised college football on the Friday night turf that long tradition reserves for high school football games. Little by little and year by year, college games drift to all times of the day and all days of the week, and Friday night is no longer hallowed ground for the high school game alone.
The Friday night intercollegiate fare remains mostly irrelevant games by second tier teams, but televised nonetheless because of the overabundance of production entities and networks seeking live sports events. But high school leadership is right to be on guard.
Known to very few people is a million dollar offer in the 1970s by then NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers to the National Federation of State High School Associations if it would not oppose televised college football games on Friday nights. Clifford Fagan, then executive director of the National Federation, declined the offer from his good friend; and the mutual respect these two men enjoyed brought an end to the negotiation.
Then, as now, the National Football League was prohibited by law (part of its anti-trust exception) from televising games on Friday nights and Saturdays from mid-September through mid-December where the broadcast would conflict with a live high school or college game. Under Byers, and until the NCAA lost control of intercollegiate football broadcasting as a result of a legal challenge by what was then called the College Football Association, college football leadership voluntarily gave high school football the same deference on Friday nights that the NFL did under federal law.
Today, major college football is such a ravenous revenue beast that it will schedule play at any time on any day in any location, televising every game – on college conference-controlled networks if the matchup is not attractive enough for national or even regional broadcasts. The Friday night high school football tradition can expect to be trampled as college football swarms and grunts around the feed trough like hungry hogs.
Moment: Fee Sets Stage with Record Kick
November 5, 2020
By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
In keeping with the theme of 50-yard field goals written in this space earlier this week by MHSAA historian Ron Pesch, let’s take this week’s "Moment" to remember the longest field goal ever in an MHSAA Playoff Championship.
No one has ever gone over 50 yards. Heck, no one has ever tired a field goal over 50 yards that I can remember. But Ben Fee came as close as you could in the 2016 Division 3 Final for Orchard Lake St. Mary’s against Muskegon with a 49-yard boot in the Eaglets’ 29-28 victory.
The call on FOX Sports Detroit was cute – Fee was wearing Number 50, and while his holder straddled the 40-yard line, giving the appearance of a 50-yard attempt – the kicking block was a good half-foot in front of the 40, and by rule making it a 49-yard attempt. The kick broke a record set in the previous game of 47 yards by Liam Putz of Grand Rapids West Catholic and tied a record for most field goals in the final game with three also set by Jake Townsley from Warren DeLaSalle in 2014. Fee also had field goals of 32 and 35 yards in the contest.
The kick gave St. Mary’s a 23-21 lead with 4:47 left in the fourth quarter, setting the stage for one of the most dramatic finishes in playoff history. Muskegon would return the ensuing kickoff to near midfield and then score six plays later, on a La’Darius Jefferson three-yard run, with the extra point making it a 28-23 game in favor of the Big Reds with 1:55 to play.
Starting on its own 20-yard line, St. Mary’s got three runs from Rashawn Allen for 37 yards and reeled off a total of nine plays in 1:51, culminating with Caden Prieskorn’s 18-yard pass to Ky'ren Cunningham for the game-winning score with four ticks left on the clock.