7-ON-7! | Kilgore, Sabine find out pools; state tourney this week in College Station

The complete field of 128 teams and the pools in which they’ll play in this week’s Texas 7-on-7 State Tournament were revealed on Sunday afternoon.

Both Kilgore and Sabine qualified for the event, both for the first time, to be played at Veterans Memorial Stadium at College Station this week in a few different sites.

There are three different divisions: Division I is the field that features teams that would normally be in the Class 6A and 5A classifications; Division II has teams, including KHS and Sabine, that are in 4A and 3A; and Division III are the teams from smaller schools.

Each division is divided into pools of four, although every team goes into the championship field – pool play is simply for seeding. No team is eliminated following pool play.

The good folks at Dave Campbell’s Texas Football announced the field for all three divisions on Texanlive.com, and there will also be a postgame show live Thursday evening at 6 p.m. on that site, for those interested in a wrap-up of the day.

So Division II – the 4A / 3A division, that has both Kilgore and Sabine, looks like this.

Sabine is in Pool A, along with two-time defending Division II state champion Hitchcock, as well as Lake Dallas, and Lubbock Christian. Pool B is Alvarado, Austin LBJ, Brookshire Royal, and La Grange. Pool C is Academy, Celina, Somerset, and West Columbia, and Pool D is Lumbert, Ponder, Robinson and Sinton.

Kilgore is in the other tier of pools – Pool H. Pool E is Beeville, Lorena, Mineral Wells and Needville. Pool F is Dumas, Glen Rose, Panther Creek and West Orange-Stark. Pool G is Bay City, Decatur, Whitney and Yoakum, and Pool H is Kilgore, Graham, Hamshire-Fannett and Kimball.

Kilgore and Sabine are the only two programs from the ETBlitz.com coverage area that qualified for the 7-on-7 state tournament, which is basically a football passing clinic; there are no real running plays called. More on that in a minute.

Anyone preparing to go to watch the tournament won’t have to pay admission; it’s free. But there is no seating around the field for pool play, so lawn chairs or field chairs are encouraged.

Pool play begins at 1 p.m. and every team will have three games on Thursday. Division III, with the smaller schools, will start. Division II, with Kilgore and Sabine, will begin their pool games at 1:45, then also play at 3:15 and 4:45.

All teams will advance to the championship bracket on Friday and will play at least one game on Friday.

The first round of the Division III title bracket starts at 8 a.m. on Friday, and the Division II title bracket begins Friday at 8:45.

Veterans Park and Athletic Complex is located at 3101 Harvey Road in College Station.

Here’s a quick tutorial on 7-on-7 football.

Halves are 15 minutes long, with a 10-minute break between.

All plays must be passes. Offenses move in the same direction, and plays with more than one pass aren’t allowed, although laterals are.

Quarterbacks are allowed four seconds – 4 – to throw the ball. If the ball comes out on time, the play continues, obviously. If the ball doesn’t get out before four seconds expires, then the timekeeper waits until the play is complete, then brings the ball back to the line of scrimmage.

Players typically wear soft helmets, not hard-shell, and the eligible playing field is reduced to 45 yards in length, and 160 feet in width (60 feet to has mark and 40 feet between), and the end zone is 10 yards deep.

Like normal football, there is a play clock (40 seconds between plays). There’s no tackling: a receiver, or the player with the ball, is ruled down when touched with one or both hands of a defender. Excessive force is penalized.

Fumbles are ruled dead balls at the spot of the fumble, but interceptions can be returned. Defensive pass interference is the standard 15-yard penalty.

All teams must have a center, but the center isn’t an eligible receiver. The ball does have to be snapped from the ground.

There are no punts, obviously. The team on offense must gain at least 15 yards in the first three plays or less, or the defense takes over. The only time there’s a fourth-down situation is when an offense gets inside the 15-yard-line cone.

Teams get six points for a touchdown, like regular football. But there are no extra point kicks, and no field goals. You get one point for a successful conversion from the 3-yard-line, and two points if you’re successful from the 10-yard-line.

In the event of a tie after regulation, there’s a coin flip to determine who has first possession in overtime, and teams alternate four-down series from the 15-yard-line. The first team that scores and then stops the other from scoring in its series is the winning team.

If the game goes to a second overtime or more, teams must go for two-point conversions after touchdowns.