RMFL MANAGING BOARD BEGINS EARLY MAPPING OF 2008 SEASON; PLAY BEGINS ON APRIL 12, 2008

BOARD ALSO SETS TENTATIVE BUDGET, ISSUES COMMISSIONER GRADE AND SELECTS TOP PLAYERS/COACHES

IDAHO FALLS – The Rocky Mountain Football League Managing Board met once again for its annual pre-All-Star Game meeting with a number of key items on the agenda; from assessing the 2007 season, to early mapping of the 2008 season.

In a general review of the “Lesson’s Learned” in the 2007 season, managing board members had a number of observations that were voiced. RMFL Commissioner, Jared Neumeier, categorized the brainstorming session into 3 categories: The Good, The Bad… and the Ugly.  Comments were made as follows:

The Good:

-                     Crackdown on Uniform Violations

-                     Live Scoreboard

-                     No Forfeits

-                     Parity in AAA

The Bad:

-                     Lack of NCAA Knowledge by Officials

-                     Lacked “one set of rules”

-                     Kick-off meeting too late to coordinate fields properly

-                     Some Schools had too tight restrictions for scheduling

-                     Message Board Pop-ups

The Ugly:

-                     Visitor Locker Rooms getting “trashed”; Visitors not “leaving facilities as they found them”

-                     Treatment of Officials by Players

-                     Treatment of Players by Officials

-                     Not “One Set of Rules”

As could be clearly deduced by the list, a big part of the discussion centered on game officiating, the rules and how players reacted to and treated officials.  Commissioner Neumeier reiterated the need to not “Drive off’ our best officials… and in some cases, potentially risk not having enough officials at all to do games.  RMFL Head of Officials, Dave Sire, spelled out specific examples of how finding officials has been particularly difficult in Boise, Salt Lake and Ogden.  Both Neumeier and Sire suggested that player (and coach) behavior will need to become similar to High School behavior… otherwise, we risk losing officials; and consequently, a league.

Several Managing Board members spelled out examples of how certain officials may have incited poor player behavior.  Sire suggested that some officials have lower tolerance levels for some of what goes on in RMFL games and their attitude is reflected accordingly.  An agreement was reached, however, that “Fixing the problem” will become the biggest off-season issue between 2007 and 2008.  A general concurrence was reached that a single set of rules needs to be adopted; and within those rules will need to be stricter player and coach behavior rules and penalties. 


RMFL Managing Board discusses officiating concerns and potential solutions going into the 2008 Season.

Overall, the RMFL Managing Board was pleased with the 2007 season and expressed satisfaction on the general execution of the administrative program of the RMFL. Specifically, the Managing Board had their annual opportunity to “Grade the RMFL Commissioner”, Jared Neumeier, on many of the job assignments he was under contract to perform.

With 17 teams in representation at the time of the discussion, Neumeier scored the strongest marks for Stat Keeping (10 Excellent’s, 6 Good’s) and the RMFL Web Site (9 Excellent, 7 Good, 1 Fair) with his worst category being in Decision-Making with 0 Excellent, 7 Good, 9 Fair and 1 Poor.  Comments raised were: “Tries to be fair.” “Not black and white”.  “Over justifies.”

Neumeier scored solid grades in Sports Writing (16 Good) and Leadership (1 Excellent, 13 Good, 1 Fair).  In other categories: Organization (7 Excellent, 9 Good); Communications (5 Excellent, 10 Good, 1 Fair).

When asked to comment on the Performance Evaluation delivered by the representative Managing Board, Neumeier said simply, “well, at least they didn’t fire me… that’s a good thing, right?”

Neumeier went on to suggest that having future commissioner’s Ed Cerise and Dave Sire in for the evaluation was another positive from the meeting; allowing them to get an understanding of the comments and criticisms that Board members typically have for an RMFL Commissioner. “It is a meeting and discussion that I have never heard,” Neumeier explained as he has always left the room and promoted a private managing board discussion on the job of the commissioner since he was handed the job back in January of 2001.

In the next order of business, a tentative budget for the 2008 season was reviewed and approved by acclamation.  The budget operated under the assumption that there would not be a significant insurance increase as occurred between 2007 and 2008 and that there would be 24 teams playing an 8-game schedule.  The same number of playoff teams as from ’06 was assumed would be represented in ’07. The approved tentative budget can be viewed at: Tentative 2008 RMFL Budget.

Further, the tentative budget was the first look of the RMFL League Office which will expand to include two division level commissioners in 2008 and will also include a position for an RMFL Web Master, a position that has been served thus far by Neumeier.

The Managing Board then launched into discussions for Coach of the Year, which was voted on… then the meeting separated into a AAA and a AA group.  AA and AAA League MVP’s and the All-RMFL Teams were discussed and voted upon.  The results of those discussions and votes can be found on the announcement articles for those awards.


AA Commissioner, Ed Cerise, leads the discussion for the AA All-RMFL Team with the Team Reps from the AA; all 11 were in attendence.

Finally, the Managing Board settled in on discussions as the a skeleton schedule to lay-out the 2008 season.

Another two-day RMFL Kick-Off meeting was agreed to be held January 25th  - 26th , 2008 at a location to be announced by Jared Neumeier sometime in December.  The final schedule will be finalized for both divisions between the two sessions.

A discussion and vote was taken on the tentative opening weekend for the 2008 season.  Many GM’s felt that the adverse late spring weather continues to be a concern for school districts and more and more restrictions on early games are forthcoming.  By a vote of 10-7, however, April 12th was selected as the tentative opening  Saturday for 2007 over April 19th (one GM voted for April 26th).

Commissioner Neumeier, however, suggested that there were a number of teams that felt there was a need to try to finish the RMFL season before the 4th of July weekend.  Neumeier suggested in an after-meeting discussion that the league could look into a full slate of games for the Thursday night before the Memorial Day weekend (based upon how many teams would be able to host).  This option would require a local schedule (teams playing teams in the nearby vicinity) to be an option.

The only managing board member not in attendance was the Salt Lake Seminoles, Boise Speed and Utah Heat.  Teams missing mandatory League meetings are assessed a $200 fine.  The Salt Lake Seminoles ended 2007 forfeiting the last of the 2007 “New Team Deposit” and will be required, as a minimum, to pay another deposit in 2008… if they are to remain in the league.  For the Speed, the $200 fine is added to an outstanding late stat fine of $150 and they will go into 2008 with a $350 debt if they are to remain in the league.

After many of the player representatives were dismissed to go to the all-star game at 2:40 p.m., a discussion arose over roster rules and player movement rules.  The Eastern Idaho Lionz will be presenting an off-season proposal to the RMFL board that will allow a “Free Agent” window for a short time immediately after the conclusion of a season, with heavier penalties accruing for player movement that is announced beyond the window.

The meeting finally adjourned at 2:55 p.m.