[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by IMDWalrus

Wednesday morning and - apparently - no word from FIRST yet.

What are the chances of the regionals that start tomorrow using these interpretations as their own?

Another, perhaps better question: Are we overthinking this?

As Dean has said before, he doesn't want to get to a point where you need to be a lawyer to understand the rules. I think this is a negative aspect of that goal. The rule is simple and has worked well for years, but it seems that no one thought of ensuring that the letter of the rule matched its implementation.

The easiest solution is to get rid of the lawyer mindset. If I were handling the situation, I'd modify the rule to reflect the alliance selection process that was used in the past few seasons and, perhaps, apologize for what happened at VCU and Peachtree.

I, too was hoping that FIRST would conspicuously address this whole thing on their web site, apologize for the mistakes at Peachtree and VCU, and re-clarify the alliance picking rules which, until last weekend, had been properly implemented for the last few years. Maybe they will bring it up at the upcoming regionals. I just hope it is addressed and clarified before we go into the selection process at UCF and the other regionals this Saturday.