EAST HARTFORD, Conn. -- East Hartford High School's football coach is suspended for a week after breaking the state's 50-point mercy rule.

Dan Lawrence will endure a one-week suspension after East Hartford beat Fermi High School of Enfield 60-0.

The new mercy rule suspends any coach of a team that beats its opponent by more than 50 points.

Lawrence said that he put his youngest players in the game as soon as the score got high.

"I think a lot of coaches are frustrated with it," Lawrence said of the new rule.

Weaver High School coach Rob Fleeting proved Lawrence's point. Players on his team had to knee the ball for the last seven minutes of their Saturday game.

"It's like teaching kids to do the right things by executing and then you're hoping that they don't execute so you don't get punished for it," Fleeting said.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference said the new mercy rule is working well and that football games need to be more careful with scheduling to avoid mismatches.

The CIAC also said that only 3 percent of the games are blowouts where there is a 50-point margin of victory. Late last month, the league overturned the season's first 50-point rule suspension after hearing sufficient evidence.

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