Review coming to Kansas, Iowa community college football

WICHITA – Junior college football will be elevating its game from the rulebook stance.

The Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference will be using sideline replay beginning in the 2022 fall season, for many starting Saturday, Aug. 27. The Iowa Community College Athletic Conference will also be using replay to review questionable and reviewable plays. 

The Kansas and Iowa conferences will be the first football conferences to use replay that are not NCAA Division I. This comes as both conferences brought back an alliance of scheduling games together after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We’re super excited about replay,” KJCCC officials supervisor Craig Helser said.

The cost of the replay and the system per school is $1,500 and will include a sideline and end zone view. The white hat will be have access to an iPad on a designated area on the sideline to review a play when the time comes.

Here are the plays that can be reviewed:

• Scoring plays including a potential touchdown or safety, field goal attempts that are above or below or inside or outside the crossbar and uprights,
• Passes that are incomplete or complete, a legal or illegal forward pass, 
• Dead ball or loose ball, which include fumbles, forward progress stopped or continued, 
• Kickoffs including the touching of a kick, 
• Targeting
• Stoppage of a game (timeouts)

The full and complete rules for replay can be found in the NCAA rulebook for instant replay. 

Helser spoke at the Jayhawk conference media day about the rule change and installation of replay. He said the officials will need a plan of where the replay will be located on the field for officials crews to know when they are calling games. 

One of the examples Helser used to Jayhawk and Iowa community college coaches was a penalty during the Hutchinson and Independence regular season game at Hutchinson. Helser recalled a personal foul, late hit penalty being called incorrectly on the receiving team during a kickoff return, which moved the team backwards. 

Independence went on to win on a last-second play. 

Another example used include Butler Community College submitting 12 targeting plays to the KJCCC office, which was concluded the officials were incorrect on all 12 calls.