IHSA begins survey on proposed expansion of football playoff system

After the most recent attempt to implement a district football playoff system did not get the required support in a state-wide vote of member schools, IHSA officials recognized that while that proposal didn’t have what its membership wanted some changes likely needed to made to meet the needs of more teams.

The first step in addressing at least some of those concerns was the formation of an ad-hoc committee of state wide football personnel. After the group met a few times, a consensus of the group formed a recommendation that the playoffs be expanded.

The expansion plan that has been suggested involves an increase in the playoff field to 384 teams, 128 more than the 256 qualifying team system that we currently use.

There would be 48 teams in each classification with the top 16 teams in 1-to-32 brackets (Classes 7A and 8A) receiving byes, and the top eight teams in the each the north and south sides of the 1-to-16 brackets (Class 1A through Class 6A).

Using last year’s results as a frame of reference all schools with 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 5-4, 4-5 and 3-6 records from playoff-eligible conferences and independent schools would qualify. In addition, 15 more teams with 2-7 records and the most playoff points would be needed to fill a field of 384 teams.

All teams with 9-0 and 8-1 records would have received first-round playoff byes. Several 7-2 teams would as well and even a few 6-3 squads would have made the field.

The thought process behind the suggestion is that if teams did not have the concern of reaching five wins to qualify for the postseason it would allay some concerns with regular season scheduling and reduce the want of teams to change conferences hoping to find a better situation for one’s program.

If this playoff proposal gained some support another thing would need to be resolved before anything could move forward.

The IHSA football season ends on Thanksgiving weekend and the association intends to keep it that way, so there were two options presented to member schools to consider.

The first was to start the regular season a week earlier and continue with a nine-week regular season before beginning what would then become a six-week playoff system instead of the current five-week postseason.

The second was to reduce the regular season by a week to eight games, with Week 9 then serving as the opening round of the playoffs.

Schools were asked to respond to which of those options they would prefer if the system was implemented as well as to express concerns or issues that they might have with the proposal as suggested.

IHSA Assistant Director Sam Knox confirmed that the survey had been sent out but also indicated that regardless of the response of the surveys, nothing would be implemented until this proposal or a variant of it passed through the legislative process required of all IHSA amendment proposals.