The Illinois High School Association finally gave in.
Wednesday, after resisting the seemingly annual calls for football playoff expansion, the IHSA’s Board of Directors voted 4-2 to increase the number of playoff classes from six to eight starting in 2001. That will boost the number of qualifying teams from 192 to 256.
This is a case of more equaling less. It will be dilution into irrelevance, with one state title for every 65 or so football programs.
The board’s action seems largely an attempt to ease scheduling problems and encourage stability in conference affiliations. Under the current system, conference champions and most non-champs with records as low as 6-3 make the playoffs. Many teams now are reluctant to play tough opponents or belong to tough conferences because that makes it harder for them to reach 6-3.
Some teams also avoid playing larger opponents because qualifiers are assigned to classes according to the larger of their own enrollments or a number reflecting in part their opponents’ enrollments. Play enough teams with larger enrollments than your own and you may wind up in, say, Class 3A instead of 2A if you make the playoffs.
Calls for format changes have been routine since the playoffs began in 1974. The event started with 16 teams in each of five classes before adding a sixth class in 1980 and doubling from 96 teams to 192 in 1985.
Calls for further expansion intensified in the ’90s. During the 1996-97 school year, the association took a hard look at doubling the field to 384, still in six classes, or going with 256 teams in eight classes, but the status quo prevailed.
But about two months ago, an IHSA ad hoc committee recommended a switch to the 384-team, six-class system and proposed that the resulting extra round of games be played the Tuesday after the end of the regular season. That format would have put most 3-6 teams in the playoffs.
The IHSA tested sentiment regarding the proposal at town meetings and through a questionnaire sent to each school. Interestingly, the 11-question survey asked about the 384-team proposal but not about an eight-class format, so it was surprising when the board approved the latter this week.
It rejected another proposal that would have changed the enrollment formula for assigning teams to classes.
Board President Dennis Garber, the principal at Hoffman Estates, said Thursday the board considered sending out another survey, but decided the earlier one gave it enough guidance to proceed.
Yet, an IHSA survey last fall asked school officials if, assuming there was a format change, they liked the idea of an eight-class system. Of 220 respondents to that question, 131 disagreed with the idea. By a 125-99 margin on another question, respondents said the IHSA should change the playoff structure.
The IHSA board apparently believes the scheduling and conference realignment problems are serious enough that some medicine is required, but it found the 384-team format too big a pill to swallow.
Its sports medicine advisory committee opposed having a Tuesday game, arguing it would force teams to play three games in eight or nine days, similar to an earlier format eliminated in 1993 partly because of concerns it contributed to injuries. Another option–starting regular-season games a week earlier–also was unpalatable.
The result is two more classes, which last season would have meant all 5-4 teams and a few with 4-5 records would have reached the playoffs. Terry Roche, Robinson’s athletic director and football coach, criticized that Thursday as a Band-Aid approach.
“It might help a little bit, but I don’t think it will fix anything,” said Roche, a member of both the IHSA’s football advisory and ad hoc committees and a longtime proponent of a 384-team format. “Before, everyone scheduled for [at least] 6-3; all this will do is move it to 5-4.
“You’re still going to schedule thinking, `I’ve got to be 5-4 to get to the playoffs. Can I beat you? How large are you?'”
Roche believes the eight-class system will water down the playoffs, but Garber disagrees.
“My philosophy is, the more kids can be state champions or get state recognition the better,” Garber said. “To me, if eight, 10, 12 teams are state champions and runners-up and it’s good for kids, it’s not a major problem.
“And if schools had difficulty scheduling and thought this would help, I was for it too.”
The football playoff format will never work as well as the postseason systems in other sports because football is the only IHSA sport that doesn’t welcome all schools into state tournament competition.
That’s why the status quo, warts and all, is better than the blur of games we’ll face in 2001: four contests Nov. 23 and four more the next day.
It’s also better than going to 384 teams, which not only would have watered down the playoffs but also given us 9-0 or 8-1 teams meeting 3-6 squads in first-round games, a seeming waste of time and effort.
It will be nice to avoid the disappointment of the handful of 6-3 teams that just miss the playoffs every year and nice to see the good 5-4 teams from strong conferences reach the postseason, but when it comes to expansion, the negatives still outweigh the positives. More and more, it seems, we’re lowering standards.
Yes, more kids will play in the playoffs and more will ride those fire trucks in championship celebrations, and it’s hard to knock that.
But the IHSA has a responsibility to the sport as well as to the kids, and this hand of Crazy 8s will be bad for football in the long run.
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Send e-mail to Barry Temkin at BarTem@aol.com
