District football proposal fails in IHSA membership vote

Proposal 18, a submission that would have instituted an IHSA district football scheduling and playoff system that would replace the current conference-based system was voted down after an IHSA-membership vote of 379-272 (with 76 abstentions).

The current conference based regular season system and playoff qualification system will remain in place.

The proposal, which was submitted from the members of the Apollo, Big Twelve, DuPage Valley and Interstate 8 Conference, proposed that the IHSA would be given the responsibility of forming districts based on geography and classification status. District games would have been played in Weeks 3-9 of the regular season with the first two weeks of the season being reserved for non-district games that wouldn’t have counted toward playoff qualification but would factor into seeding. The top four teams in each district would have qualified for the IHSA playoffs.

There was support for the proposal, particularly with schools that continue to find difficulties assembling full schedules of teams with like enrollments and success ratios.

“There’s a fundamental problem of chasing five wins to get into the playoffs,” St. Bede coach Jim Eustice said. “And everyone’s trying to get games that you have a legitimate chance to win. And its a fundamental problem. We left the TRAC (Three Rivers Athletic Conference) because the schools that were leaving were our size, and the schools that were staying were two and three times our size, so we left and went to the Chicagoland Prairie Conference and now have to schedule three or four nonconference games where you can still be competitive more times than not.”

But concerns about the proposal, including the fact that there was no official demonstration of how the system could work along with the fact that the IHSA membership doesn’t currently have the necessary number of 11-man playoff eligible schools to make the proposal as written work without substantial, but also unknown, modifications proved too strong to gain majority support among membership schools.

There also were substantial concerns about potential extensive travel created for multiple teams that are well above and beyond the current conference system as well as concerns about there being no way to help ensure competitive balance with the district alignments being set by just two factors: enrollment and geography.

“I’m coming from a perspective of trying to protect our game and our growth of the game. And that’s where I think I’m a little different than, so I’m not just worrying about West Aurora and you can say whatever you want, but it just would not have been good for the whole,” West Aurora coach Nate Eimer said. “We’re never going to all agree 100%. But hopefully we can find something that is or at least is closer to that than this would have been.”

In the case of some schools there were actually pluses and minuses to the proposal on both sides of the fence. St. Viator, as one of the smallest members of the powerhouse CCL/ESCC, would likely see a significant decrease in strength of schedule in a district model and greatly increase its chances of a yearly playoff berth but would lose the benefits of being tested by elite competition on a weekly basis.

“There’s obviously a lot of people hungry for steps to be taken,” St. Viator coach Dave Archibald said. “But I’d love to see those steps taken without breaking up the Catholic League. I have an appreciation for our league, and I know a lot of people do. It’s a fun football league with over 100 years of history, and I don’t want to see that broken up.”

The issue, while off the table for the 2024 season, isn’t likely to go away any time soon. The consistent efforts by some to tailor the current playoff system for some or all of the reasons outlined here continue to be submitted to the IHSA for approval, a fact that isn’t lost on the IHSA.

“The IHSA Board of Directors has already had discussions about the potential of forming a Football Ad Hoc Committee in 2024 in the event that this district proposal failed to pass,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a release. “They want to be proactive in trying to address the issues that are at the root of different football proposals seemingly being brought forth each year. They recognize the myriad issues in IHSA football are unique and can be based on geography, school size, conference affiliation and the traditional success of a program, which is why no recent proposals have garnered enough support to pass. There is likely no singular answer to these issues, but the Board wants to explore the idea that a large and diverse group from around the state might be able to find some solutions that the high school football community in the state would support.”

The proposal at hand also likely spurned some of the highest voting participation of its membership group in more than a decade as 89.2% of the IHSA’s participating schools participated in the voting process. 727 of the 815 IHSA member schools cast an opinion on at least one of the 14 proposed bylaw changes.

Other football related proposals

• Proposal 17, which will create the opportunity for teams to conduct a preseason scrimmage with another school passed by a margin of 410-232 (with 85 abstentions).

Scrimmages would be held the weekend before the regular season with a limit to number of plays a player could participate, no special teams play and the use of IHSA officials. Participation in this process would not be voluntary.

• Proposal 11, which was submitted for all sports, proposed that summer contact days be reduced from 25 days to 18 days, that proposal failed by a 407-302 margin with 18 abstentions.

• Proposal 23, which was approved by a vote of 464-82 (with 181 abstentions) placed girls flag football into the grouping of sanctioned IHSA sports and activities, requiring a pre-season practice requirement of nine practices before a contest and a regular season contest limitation of 25 games exclusive of the IHSA State Series.