• We participated in a short film demonstration each week, shown Saturday mornings on WAGA as part of their in-season high school football coverage. We used five different MCFOA members to record these segments. The theme for this year's messages was to explain to the casual fan some of the more frequently seen fouls and/or some of the more "interesting" use of the rules in pivotal or game-changing situations. We filmed in pre-season at Dacula High School and used Dacula players as demonstrators of the various rules or situations we were illustrating.

• We decreased the number of pre-season and regular season meetings from 14 to 13 by eliminating one late-season meeting. This allowed us to keep the extra training-oriented meeting we added in 2006 but returned some time to the members for use in their personal business later in the season.

• We continued to observe the crew concept that we committed to heavily in 2006. The result was a further improvement in our on-field performance across the board in our regular season games as crews from 2006 remained largely intact in 2007. We noted that our 1st round playoff performances were especially strong this year since many crews went to the playoffs almost entirely intact from the regular season.

• At our specific request, GHSA granted us several more "road games" in 2007. This followed a highly popular and successful debut of this program in 2006. Again for 2007 this was also part of GHSA's "schedule balancing" effort which is becoming ever more important with the regular addition of several new schools to the ranks of football-playing schools operating under GHSA sanction each year. We saw several games in the the course of this "traveling" program that had direct playoff implications for the teams and regions where they were played. This is a real opportunity for many schools around the state to see us work and to add to their comfort level when they encounter MCFOA crews in the end-of-season playoffs.

• Varsity: We did 89 regular season GHSA games over the course of an 11-week-long period; all used 6-man on-field crews plus an ECO. This was one less regular season game than we worked in 2006. In DeKalb County, we also provided chain crews for each Varsity game; however, we only had one DeKalb school's contract (Lithonia). For the 11 weeks of the regular season, we averaged doing 8.09 GHSA games per week. We had only four games in week 4 and only 6 in week 6, but no less than eight games in any other week. We had eight games in each of weeks 2, 3 and 11; nine games in weeks 1, 5, 7, 9 and 10; and ten games in week 8. All this included 1 Thursday game and 5 Saturday contests; these totaled 6.7% of our Varsity assignments. This was down from 12% non-Friday games in 2006. This was a pleasant surprise as we'd expected to have to work more of these non-Friday games as a general proposition. We still feel that more non-Friday games are in our long-term future, but we're doing what we can to avoid these games because of their disruptive impact on the other officiating commitments of our members on Saturdays, especially.

• Sub-Varsity: We worked a total of 130 games (one more than in 2006), almost all of which we successfully covered with 4-man crews.. This was done over the course of a 9-week-long season. We had a strong season here with very few problems due to weather and the rescheduling that flows from major weather problems. We had good cooperation from other associations in the area in sharing games in ways that were mutually satisfactory from a geographical point of view; we really appreciate this cooperation from those associations. We had especially strong commitment from our members in covering our sub-varsity games. Thanks to all who helped out covering this most difficult of our association's responsibilities to our contracted schools.

• First Round - 5 games: AAAAA Grayson (8-2) vs Chattahoochee (6-3) - Reed; AAAA East Paulding (5-1) vs Ridgeland (7-4) - Rice; AAA Flowery Branch (7-2) vs Chamblee (5-3) - Garner; AA Morgan County (8-2) vs GAC (6-3) - Camp; A Fellowship Christian (5-1) vs Wilkinson County (7-4) -  Tarquinio
• This compared to 6 games in the first round in 2006 and 5 games in each of the previous 4 years: 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005.

• Second Round - 3 games: AAA Carver, Atlanta vs Apalachee - Reed; AAA North Hall vs Sandy Creek - Garner; AA Pepperell vs Holy Innocents' - Rice
• This compared to 3 games in 2006 and 2 games in the second round in each of the previous 4 years: 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005.

• Third Round - 1 game: AAAA Tucker vs Bainbridge - Reed
• This compared to 1 game in the third round in 2006 as well as the years 2002 & 2003 and no games in the years 2004 & 2005.

• Fourth Round - 1 game: A Athens Academy vs Wilcox County - Garner
• This was the first ever semi-final game in the memory of any current members of MCFOA. It is a high water mark that was hard-earned by the association as a whole. And, importantly, it is a perch that we'll have to work hard to maintain and advance beyond. Thanks to everyone for the hard work that helped us reach the penultimate game of the season.

• We handled 3 more total playoff games in 2007 compared to 2005 and the same number as we handled in 2006. We had one less first round game compared to 2006, but we added a semi-final game which more than offsets that small imbalance. Our trend remains in the right direction. We have a good challenge before ourselves to keep up the momentum we've been building over the past several years.

• Follow this link to view a gallery of playoff crew pictures: 2007 Playoff Pictures

• We had a total membership of 87 officials as of 10/12/07. This is almost exactly average size for the 21 GHSA-sanctioned local officiating associations but represents a slight decrease (10.4%) in membership compared to 2006. Most of the decrease was attributed to retirements or family relocations due to changing work requirements in our members' day jobs. The balance of the decrease was due to folks moving on to other organizations.

• President: Frank Reed (newly elected - Frank's former slot as First Vice President has not yet been filled as of this writing)
  Secretary / Treasurer: John Register (newly elected)
  Recording Secretary: Rick Crowe (re-elected)
   

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