Last week’s GHSA games were the first played under a new rule passed by the association’s executive committee.

The so-called “mercy rule” allows teams to shorten lopsided games with the use of a running clock in the second half. While this may have been done unofficially in past games, it’s now official.

At the end of the first half of play, if a team is trailing by 30 or more points, the coach of the trailing team has the option to play the second half of play with a running clock.

If the coach does not exercise the option mentioned above, the third quarter is played under normal timing rules. If the point differential reaches 30 points or greater at the end of the third quarter, the fourth quarter would automatically be played under a “running clock”.

A “running clock” means that the clock will be stopped only after a score and until the ball is kicked off, during deliberations for penalty administration and during charged timeouts or officials’ timeouts.

No matter the status of the game, the length of the quarters remains 12 minutes.