Most of these are inconsequential as usual, but one of last year's biggest changes to USSF (kickoff in any direction) made it to high school this year so I figured I'd put together this short post. In order:
*Basically, anything that extends from outside the jersey needs to be a single color that matches the predominant clothing color. Arm sleeves, leg sleeves, sliders, whatever. Whether anyone will enforce this? Can't say.
*Soft padded headgear is now allowed. Arkansas had taken the stance that if it was safe, it was OK, but now it is legal nationally.
*Referees are allowed to use comms devices if the state permits it. Last I checked, the state does not permit this outside of state championship games. Not that there are a lot of radios floating around among Arkansas referees, anyway.
*Kickoffs don't have to go forward. Last year in club world this rule was changed but it was not ok in high school yet. I'm curious how many backward kickoffs were allowed.
*Can't score on yourself directly from a kickoff. All other kicks don't allow for scoring on yourself, now that you can kickoff back toward your own goal this needed to be added.
*Clarification on where free kicks for offside should be taken. It's at the point where the player interfered with play/an opponent or gained an advantage.
*Clarification that stutter stepping is allowed on penalty kicks. This has been confusing people for a lot of years.