{"id":110664,"date":"2018-12-17T05:20:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T10:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=110664"},"modified":"2018-12-17T05:20:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T10:20:30","slug":"monday-mailbag-december-17-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/12\/17\/monday-mailbag-december-17-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Mailbag: December 17, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Monday Mailbag features questions about officiating, scores, defense and the college football playoff.<\/p>\n

Q: Does officiating seem worse this year? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Here\u2019s the thing about officiating \u2013 someone is always going to be upset no matter how good or bad the crew is. Regardless of the sport, it\u2019s a tough job and fewer people seem willing to do it these days.<\/em><\/p>\n

I always tell people if they feel they can do a better job, take the necessary steps to become an official, because there\u2019s a real need for more of them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Why don\u2019t you have a list of basketball scores like you did during football season? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: That\u2019s something that\u2019s easily fixed. Starting this weekend, we\u2019ll post area boys\u2019 basketball scores, and we\u2019ll do something similar for girls\u2019 hoops as well.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: When\u2019s the last time a basketball team was shut out in a quarter?\u00a0 Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: It\u2019s not a common occurrence, but it does happen from time to time and often times it\u2019s a mix of things \u2013 good defense and shots that just won\u2019t fall.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: You said a couple of weeks ago that you had strong feelings on expanding the college football playoff. Care to share? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Sure, I\u2019ll share.<\/em><\/p>\n

For now I\u2019m against expansion to eight teams but I\u2019m guessing it\u2019ll happen at some point, simply because conferences are tired of seeing preferential treatment being given to the SEC.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the same time, I\u2019m not completely against expanding to six teams, because I think in many years each of those teams would have a legitimate shot at winning the national title. Of course, that would mean the No. 1 and 2 seeds would get a bye, something that may not sit well with a lot of people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eight teams seems like nothing but a cash grab to me. Yes, I think it\u2019s odd that there are four playoff spots for the Power 5 conferences, but it truly does make each game count.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you have a question for next week\u2019s Monday Mailbag, simply email it to sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Monday Mailbag features questions about officiating, scores, defense and the college football playoff. Q: Does officiating seem worse this year? Name withheld upon request A: Here\u2019s the thing about officiating \u2013 someone is always going to be upset no matter how good or bad the crew is. Regardless of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 13:26:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}