football – Carl Banks' Blog

1994 Riverview Raiders

July 10, 2011

The 1994 Riverview Raiders

Back Row: Chris Draxinger (cut off), Jeff Cappa, Jeremy Dudczak, Andy Flaherty, Justin Graham, Charles Bellisario, Jason Cappa, Bob Meyers, Sam Geppert, Rick Golem, Carl Banks

Third Row: Daryl Derringer, Justin Pappa, Steve Dapra, Matt Fromm, Chip Mitchell, Zak Zrimzek, Fran Scuillo, Mark Bonaroti, Orlando Bellisario, D. J. Stinelli, Mike Harrity

Second Row: T. J. Skillen, Ron Zanello, Jim Wilson, Ryan Dugan, Ben Erdeljac, Randy Gilbert, Rich Walsh, Jason Anderson, Theo Facaros Front Row: Dan Morgan, Justin Dudczak, Mike Davis, Jason Orbin, Randy Pleasant, Fritz Tamburro, Mike Catullo, Calio Ciora

Eastern A Champions

Undefeated Regular Season

WPIAL Finalists

This is my page dedicated to the 1994 Riverview Raider Football Team. I played on this team my senior year, although my position was “kickoff-team specialist”. We had a great year, winning the Eastern A Conference, finishing the season undefeated, and making it to the WPIAL Championship Game in Three Rivers Stadium. And we did it against a hellish schedule.

Schedule and Results

Riverview	13	at	Monaca	6
Riverview	31		Rochester	6
Riverview	24	at	Carmichael	0
Riverview	24		Duquesne	14
Riverview	22	at	Springdale	0
Riverview	42		Serra Catholic	0	Homecoming
Riverview	55		Wilkinsburg	0
Riverview	35	at	Clairton	13
Riverview	19		Greensburg CC	15
Riverview	43	at	Leechburg	14
Riverview	34		Jefferson Morgan	28	WPIAL Quarterfinal
Riverview	27		Rochester	18	WPIAL Semifinal (at North Allegheny)
Riverview	0		Western Beaver	42	WPIAL Final (at Three Rivers Stadium)

Team Signatures

I collected signatures from the team as a birthday present for my sister, Alexis. Here they are. (Click for a larger version.)

Larger Version

The Following Years

The Raiders went on to have great seasons the next four years. In 1995, we finished the regular season undefeated again, and made it to the WPIAL semifinals. In 1996, we returned to the WPIAL championship, losing to Farrell by one point. In 1997, we finally won the WPIAL championship with a victory over Fort Cherry.

Medium risk fourth down play

Carl Banks

September 11, 2010

Comments

One of the things about football that I always thought could be improved upon was the limited options for fourth down.

If it’s fourth down, and you are too far away to kick a field goal, there are only two options:

Low risk: punt
High risk: attempt to convert

Problem is, there’s a big gap between the options. Roughly speaking, a punt will give your opponent the ball around 40 yards downfield but you give up the possibility of a conversion (not counting turnovers). Going for it on (say) a 4th and 3 is going to be converted about 50% of the time, but if you fail to convert the opponent gets the ball right there.

Right now, head coaches go for the low-risk option (punt) probably 95% of the time on fourth down. That’s pretty boring. Having a medium-risk option might encourage coaches to take more risks on fourth down, leading to much more excitement. For instance, say it’s 4th and 5 on the 50. Most coaches will punt in this situation. But what if there was an medium risk option? You have a 25% chance of converting, but if you don’t the opponent gets the ball maybe 20 yards downfield, on their 30. I think some coaches might try that in that situation.

But what would such a medium-risk play look like?

When I asked this question in rec.sport.football.college, I got an interesting suggestion in this thread: the person who receives the snap could roll out and bat the ball downfield with something like a volleyball serve, and it would be played more or a less like a fumble. I think there would have to be some limits on when a team could recover a batted ball (the ball should not peak higher than ten feet above the field, and would it have to hit the ground first).

The following table summarizes the risk tradeoff for these three options.

Option	Risk Level	Typical Conversion Rate	Where opponent gets the ball if conversion fails
Punt	Low	0%	40 yards downfield
Go for it	High	50%	Right there
Bat	Medium	25%	20 yards downfield

Anyway, I’m not sure there wouldn’t be drawbacks to this sort of volleyball bat play (like maybe too much risk of opponent returning the bat, or too much injury risk), but a play that could add a medium-risk option to fourth down I think would really add to the excitement of the game.