Popping my football stat-keeping cherry tomorrow...

Any advice? I'm bringing two stat sheets (everyone's got their own style) and a spiral notebook to keep some play-by-play. No hashmarks where I'm going, so I'll have to make some educated guesses.

For those out covering games, what's your style? What works, what doesn't?

 

Best advice I can give you - keep a running total on individual rushing, passing and receiving yards. I do this by splitting up my stat boxes, like so:

Rush 1 Rush 2 Rush 3 Rush 4
Player 5/5 10/15 12/27 4/31

It makes putting all your stats together at the end of the night SOOOO much easier.

 

Agreed. Took me two years to learn that.

 

Don't keep SOME play-by-play. Keep all of it. Do not choose the running rushing/passing/receiving totals over the PBP. You can always figure out the individual stats by going over the PBP. You cannot figure out the PBP by going over the individual stats. Well, I guess that's not true, I've seen some horrible HS football teams that had one running back who got every carry.

Regardless, you'd much rather spend time after the game figuring out the stats than time trying to recreate the PBP.

 

Oh, and sit in the press box rather than walk the sideline.

Those guys are homer douches. *ducking* Wait, no I'm not. Those guys suck.

 

Does anyone know where I can find a good stat sheet to use?

 

What are the two numbers? One is yards gained, the other is...?

 

First number is yards on the carry. Second number is a running total.

Seriously, and I can't believe I'm writing this publicly, BYH is rrrrrr...rrrrrr...rrrrrriiii...right. Fuck that hurt.

 

Try to see if you can get rosters before the game. If you CAN'T (which happens a LOT in my county), write down the number of the player who rushes, passes, etc. and their yardage.

After the game, if one guy is blowing up your stat sheet, make sure you get his info (name, position, etc.)

 

I should clarify, the hashmarks are only every five yards. No yardage markers between the five yards.

 

We do a really good job of getting rosters for the teams in our coverage area. The other schools, I guess we'll have to rely on who really tore things up. I'm sure the shit will hit the fan if and when I don't get a full roster from an opposing team, though.

 

Depends on the school. Some places do it right, some places don't want to spend money for two more cans of paint to put hashmarks on every yard. And some places that do don't have them lined up correctly all the way across.