Revived IHSA district proposal submitted for potential approval

District football has been put back in the conversation as a group of member schools have submitted a proposal to have an IHSA-engineered district playoff system take the place of the current playoff system.

Four conferences, the Apollo Conference, Big Twelve Conference, DuPage Valley Conference and Interstate 8 Conference, jointly submitted a proposal for IHSA football to switch to a district format, which would feature the IHSA grouping like-sized teams and scheduling the football season for schools based on those groupings.

That, along with 22 other proposals submitted to the IHSA on a variety of topics, will be discussed at various town meetings both in-person and virtually through November 21. The IHSA Legislative Commission will then reassemble on November 27 to decide which, if any, of the proposals will be put to a membership-wide vote that will be held from December 4 through December 18.

The proposal is fundamentally very similar to a proposal that passed in 2018, but then was rescinded when placed back on the ballot during the 2019 legislative process. One of the most notable differences about this proposal is that it would be implemented for the 2024 season and would not have time to go back through the legislative process.

“I don’t know if this is a perfect solution,” Sycamore athletic director Chauncey Carrick said. “But something needs to get done because schools played 50-plus games out of state this year. People are driving all over. And our conference, the Interstate Eight just went through another shakeup. And there are other conferences doing this as well. Something needs to get done. And this is a solution that seems to have worked in some other states. Is this a perfect solution? I’m not 100 percent sure, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”

The original 2018 proposal passed 324-307 (69 no opinions) and was set to be put into play for the 2020 season. In between the 2018 vote and the 2019 legislative proposal period, mock districts were released by the IHSA for consideration as to what the new system might look like. A proposal was made during the 2019 legislative period that asked that the proposal be overturned which it was by a vote of 374-241 (with 87 no opinions).

The basic principle of the policy would be that football districts would be formed by geography and classification. There would be eight districts in each class with eight schools in each district. District games would be played in weeks 3 through 9 of the regular seasons with the top four teams in district play advancing to the state playoffs.

Weeks 1 and 2 would be reserved for non-district games that would be scheduled by the individual schools. These games would not count toward playoff qualification, but would be factored in how teams are seeded in the bracket.

The seeding process would be similar to the way teams are currently seeded with teams that qualify for the playoffs being placed in the bracket first by number of wins and then separated by the number of wins accumulated by one’s opponents or “playoff points”. Teams from the same district could not be paired together in the first round. The IHSA would still reserve the right to break the bracket into two 16 team brackets or seed the bracket from 1-to-32.

Current systems involving the multiplier, “playing up” provisions and success formula would also be applied to the current system.

The structure of this proposal would require 512 playoff-eligible teams to work without some sort of modification. Last season there were 498 playoff-eligible teams to start the season, four of those schools did not finish or only partly completed the regular season. There were also 22 teams in the Chicago Public League that participated, four of which also did not fully complete seasons, that played but were not playoff eligible.

The proposal as written doesn’t quantify what happens to the districts if there are 1) not enough teams to fill all districts, 2) too many teams to place in the districts and how it would be decided that the shortfall or over-run teams would be accomodated if either of those situations should arise.

Since there’s a somewhat moving target in regards to how many participating teams there might be, especially with a number of teams leaving for the 8-man ranks, it is also difficult to zero in on where classification breaks might fall.

Using the enrollment numbers currently in play, the 64 football playing largest schools would theoretically reside on Class 8A.

Using only geography as a consideration this is a hypothetical of how the districts might look in Class 8A:

Obviously, there are geographical variants that could come into play that would alter these potential districts. But while the district proposal will likely help some schools alleviate scheduling difficulties in some cases it shifts different scheduling problems to others. This hypothetical districting situation requires several schools routinely schedule opponents four hours away where their current scheduling situation has them playing opponents in a much more reasonable traveling window.

“I‘m not saying we’re going to eliminate the travel issue because I think every class is going to have some type of travel issue in a district but I also know that there there’s travel problems with schools of all sizes right now,” Carrick said. “And I guess what it came down to as to why I jumped back on board with districts was that 1) something needs to be done and 2) I kind of liked the idea of people making the playoffs based on schools of their own size.

“We have a lot of schools that have been forced to play in leagues that were were there they were the tiny school in their league and when they get to play with schools that are closer to their size, they give themselves a shot.”

And yet for others, this system creates a stable environment for scheduling that they’ve lacked for several years.

One other drawback that the proposal does not address is there’s no condition for situations where a system based solely on geographics and enrollment creates district imbalances where one geographic area is highly congested with playoff powerhouses while a neighboring district with few to none of the same type of teams that isn’t all that far from the other district is right next door.

For example, the previous district proposal had one proposed division where a Catholic League powerhouse was placed in a district that had the seven closest geographic/enrollment partners linked with them, all were Chicago Public League teams that had combined to win four games the previous season.

The current proposal as designed is a rigid one and for all of the issues that the current conference system does have, it does have more flexibility and still gives schools the option of picking who they prefer to play.

Other football-related proposals

• Geneva’s Principal Tom Ryerson submitted a proposal that would allow for teams to conduct a pre-season scrimmage game with another school. The potential game would have a limit on the number of plays participants could be involved in, would eliminate special teams plays from the game and would use IHSA officials.

The rationale behind the proposal is specifically to help smaller programs that might not have enough program numbers to initiate full-on scrimmages on its own as well as providing for a better simulation of what teams need to adjust and improve on heading into the season.

• Williamsville’s Official Representative Adam Eucker, acting on the behalf of the Sangamo Conference, has proposed an amendment to the IHSA’s multiplier/multiplier waiver policy. The proposal suggests eliminating the multiplier process and replacing it with a different formula.

That formula would be taking the average enrollment of all public/boundaried high schools that have a larger school enrollment that are within a thirty-mile radius of the non-boundaried school in question.