It is customary for halftime discussions to include the possibility of overtime among football officials on the Eastern Board. Officials often give each other reminders about the high school federation procedures, which differ from overtime rules in the NCAA and NFL.

Among them: Teams begin from the 10-yard line, as opposed to the 25 in college and via kickoff in the NFL.

Perhaps such discussions will be more frequent now among officials in the Fairfield County Football Officials Association.

Last Friday’s Danbury-Norwalk game went to overtime, where the officials mistakenly applied college rules. Both teams began their possessions at the 25, as reported by GameTimeCT.

“When we initially went out there, we questioned it,” Norwalk coach Mike Forget told GameTimeCT. “We said: ‘Hey, we thought the rule was the 10-yard line. ‘No, 25-yard line, coach, 25-yard line.’”

It turned out that while Danbury scored, Norwalk barely missed as one of its players was ruled out of bounds short of the end zone. Did the extra 15 yards make a difference?

“Obviously somebody made a mistake. They didn’t do it intentionally,” Gerry Costello, the commissioner of the Fairfield board, told GameTime.

Big one for Fitch, Killingly

It might be an overstatement (but not by much) to suggest that Fitch and Killingly meet Friday night with their postseason lives at stake.

Fitch (4-1) sits 10th in Class MM, behind eight other one-loss teams. A two-loss team could certainly qualify. But Killingly, at 3-2 in highly competitive Class L, faces must wins the rest of the season.

Killingly has won three straight since opening losses to Masuk and Notre Dame of West Haven. Fitch, meanwhile, rallied from 21-6 down at Norwich Free Academy last week, initially struggling with NFA’s power run game, which is also Killingly’s strength.

The Falcons did play smarter last week, however.

“The kids work hard, they're in great shape, and they want to do well. And they're tough kids,” Fitch coach Mike Ellis said. “The problem right now for us is that mentally, we’ve got to play 48 minutes. And we don't do that. If we can ever put that together and play for 48 minutes mentally, we're going to be okay. But listen, they had heart. They could have just let it go. They didn't. They fought. They won. We walk out of here and we try to go (Killingly).”

That’s where the Falcons will meet senior Soren Rief, the only running back in the ECC to have eclipsed 1,000 yards thus far. Rief (1,932 last year and 1,150 as a sophomore in a state championship season) had 162 yards last week in a 49-0 win over Thames River and went past 1,000 for the third straight season.

Elsewhere, there’s a very interesting game Thursday night at Ledyard. Griswold/Wheeler, which sits No. 8 (the top eight teams qualify) in Class S, will play the rejuvenated Colonels, who ran for more than 300 yards as a team last week in the new single wing. Coach Mike Serricchio reinvented the offense during the bye week and watched his team drop 37 points on Waterford.

There were several ejections last week throughout the ECC, leaving some teams shorthanded this week. Ejected players must sit out the following game. … GameDay will stream East Lyme at Norwich Free Academy on Friday night.

m.dimauro@theday.com

H.S. Football / Week 7 Local Schedule

Thursday’s Game

Griswold/Wheeler at Ledyard, 6 p.m.

Friday’s Games

East Lyme at NFA, 6:30 p.m.

Weaver at Stonington, 6:30 p.m.

Fitch at Killingly, 6:30 p.m.

Valley/Old Lyme at Coginchaug/Hale-Ray/East Hampton, 6:30 p.m.

Waterford at Windham, 7:00 p.m.

Saturday’s Games

Montville at Bacon Academy, noon

New London at Woodstock, noon