Time to go back to 8 team playoff???

[mattash]

Keep the same. First week though split the gate between the schools instead of the OHSAA getting it. 75% home team 25% for gas for the bus driver and burgers for the visiting team

[Jeaux Burreaux]

12 is the sweet spot, saying 4 is just stupid and just outside of region there would be plenty of good programs to miss the playoffs bc of 4.

[GoBucks1047]

I was thinking about this earlier this week, but didn't want to create a new thread during rivalry week, but since this was started, might as well make a post here.

I think 16 teams is too many. I really like 12, but I don't think we'll go back down to 12. Top 4 lose money from a game they should win by being on a bye because they have to host 2 games now. We also have most, if not all playoff games playing on Fridays now until the State championships, excluding teams with no night lights, which might make finding refs to assign for games more difficult for the 1st round so I want to propose this as a counter.

Proposal:
- 14 teams per region (7 teams if 8 regions)
- Top 2 teams get a bye (region winner if 8 regions)
- Neutral site games don't start until the 4th round of the playoffs as the region championship (or state quarterfinals if 8 regions)
- Potentially expand D1 from 72 to 80-84 teams with D2-D7 split evenly with ~104 teams per. division

Playoff breaks down like this:
- Top 2 seeds get a bye and 1 game, up to 2 games (region winner with 8 regions)
- Seeds 3-4 host 2 games, potentially 3 with upsets (2nd seed with 8 regions)
- Seeds 5-8 host 1 game, potentially 2 with upsets (Seeds 3-4 with 8 regions)
- Seeds 9-12 make the playoffs, potentially hosts 1 with upsets (Seeds 5-6 with 8 regions)
- Seeds 13-14 make the playoffs, can not host games (7th seed with 8 regions)

I think we've seen enough upsets with 13th and 14th seeds over 3rd and 4th seeds to at least keep them in the playoffs even if they don't go much further. This is a reduction in playoff teams and games, but maybe not too much of a reduction for teams to consider making the change as teams (outside 15th and 16th seeds) won't be negatively impacted unlike OHSAA, who loses 28 1st round games they can make money off of when comparing 16 teams vs. 14 teams. Adjusting divisional format may also help ease the reduction for D2-D7 teams (D1 may not like it, but they go from 16 of 18 to 14 of 20-21 so they can live with it).

I also wouldn't be opposed of the 4 regions being split in 2 geographically for 8 regions, but only the top 6 from the 2 regions qualify and then the best 2 at-large within the 4 region setup are the 7th seeds to try ensure the top 14 teams still qualify while minimizing travel, but keeping it at 4 regions is probably better compared to this alternate to keep things simple.

[E High]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Yeah. Let’s beat many of these kids up and beat them down for another week ! That’s Not what HS sports is All about !

[E High]

Go to a 9 game schedule and let almost everyone in. If you want a trophy for making the playoffs, this is a great way to do it. Some teams are about done and beat up by week 6-7 !

[EasternDspy]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Yeah. Let’s beat many of these kids up and beat them down for another week ! That’s Not what HS sports is All about !

This is such a weak comment. I bet you if you ask the kids they’d rather play in the playoffs than not. Kids could get hurt in every sport. Just let the kids play. 1 more week to practice and get better. Also with 30 point clock these games are fast and painless. Like I said if you think the game will get out of hand don’t go. Plenty of teams had injuries early on and improved as the season went on. Lots of non top 8 seeds will advance. This gives coaches the ability to schedule good games out of league. Do you really want teams to play it safe and play soft schedules?

[SmallTown]

12

[ValleyStrong]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Yeah. Let’s beat many of these kids up and beat them down for another week ! That’s Not what HS sports is All about !

This is such a weak comment. I bet you if you ask the kids they’d rather play in the playoffs than not. Kids could get hurt in every sport. Just let the kids play. 1 more week to practice and get better. Also with 30 point clock these games are fast and painless. Like I said if you think the game will get out of hand don’t go. Plenty of teams had injuries early on and improved as the season went on. Lots of non top 8 seeds will advance. This gives coaches the ability to schedule good games out of league. Do you really want teams to play it safe and play soft schedules?

Not quite sure I would trust the decision making of a hormonal teenager 100% current set up is dangerous for the bottom teams. If it stays week 11 top 4 should get a bye, balance the bottom 12 a little better, a 5vs16 is a lot more balanced than a 1 vs16.

[Dundas]

Most regions,16 is too many. I like the 12 with first 4 getting bye weeks. Although, D4 Region 15 has 15 of 16 teams with winning records and only 1 5-5 team in. VC is 10th at 9-1 and would host a playoff game (top 8) in every division 2 region in the state with their playoff point total. I think 16 is too many but 12 would allow teams to schedule up OR teams that maybe have a schedule that doesn’t get them many points could still win all of their games and make it i as well. I look at the 1991 VC team, they missed out because they played 8 TVC games against teams that weren’t that great. They went 10-0 and only had 13 playoff points. That was a team that could’ve made a deep run given the chance.

[E High]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Yeah. Let’s beat many of these kids up and beat them down for another week ! That’s Not what HS sports is All about !

This is such a weak comment. I bet you if you ask the kids they’d rather play in the playoffs than not. Kids could get hurt in every sport. Just let the kids play. 1 more week to practice and get better. Also with 30 point clock these games are fast and painless. Like I said if you think the game will get out of hand don’t go. Plenty of teams had injuries early on and improved as the season went on. Lots of non top 8 seeds will advance. This gives coaches the ability to schedule good games out of league. Do you really want teams to play it safe and play soft schedules?

. HS football is trying to follow the path of college football. It’s a joke. Has nothing to do with going to a game or not. Wonder why soooo many schools don’t have numbers? Parents and kids have wised up to the crazy off season stuff that never ends and sending kids out to get beat up one last time ? You wonder why soccer and travel baseball has become somewhat popular for the kids in the fall. This ain’t the 80’s n 90’s. Running clocks for half a season, then going on the road to get annihilated one last time is almost criminal !

[Hoopster98]

Most regions,16 is too many. I like the 12 with first 4 getting bye weeks. Although, D4 Region 15 has 15 of 16 teams with winning records and only 1 5-5 team in. VC is 10th at 9-1 and would host a playoff game (top 8) in every division 2 region in the state with their playoff point total. I think 16 is too many but 12 would allow teams to schedule up OR teams that maybe have a schedule that doesn’t get them many points could still win all of their games and make it i as well. I look at the 1991 VC team, they missed out because they played 8 TVC games against teams that weren’t that great. They went 10-0 and only had 13 playoff points. That was a team that could’ve made a deep run given the chance.

I agree 16 is too many. You have teams in D7 that only have 2 wins making the playoffs. In the bigger divisions 16 teams per region is I think works but in the smaller divisions it's bad mismatches. I've said it once before, I don't consider the playoffs until after the 1st week of the playoffs. Week 1 is the play-in game. Sometimes it helps a program create momentum when they end the season on a good note such as Valley but you look at a team like Minford who seems like they would rather just have season over instead of being a 16 seed playing #1.

[RBH23]

Yeah. Let’s beat many of these kids up and beat them down for another week ! That’s Not what HS sports is All about !

This is such a weak comment. I bet you if you ask the kids they’d rather play in the playoffs than not. Kids could get hurt in every sport. Just let the kids play. 1 more week to practice and get better. Also with 30 point clock these games are fast and painless. Like I said if you think the game will get out of hand don’t go. Plenty of teams had injuries early on and improved as the season went on. Lots of non top 8 seeds will advance. This gives coaches the ability to schedule good games out of league. Do you really want teams to play it safe and play soft schedules?

. HS football is trying to follow the path of college football. It’s a joke. Has nothing to do with going to a game or not. Wonder why soooo many schools don’t have numbers? Parents and kids have wised up to the crazy off season stuff that never ends and sending kids out to get beat up one last time ? You wonder why soccer and travel baseball has become somewhat popular for the kids in the fall. This ain’t the 80’s n 90’s. Running clocks for half a season, then going on the road to get annihilated one last time is almost criminal !

Completely agree!

Plus, for the really good teams with athletes that are going top division 1, this is needless game that is just more west and tear on them physically. These games add up.

[jose]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Nothing to do with being old--just some people don't believe in the generation of participation trophies.

[EasternDspy]

Why are we complaining about an extra week of football smh. You old heads never stop.

Nothing to do with being old--just some people don't believe in the generation of participation trophies.

Decide the games on the field not with computers.

[mackdog]

What is the split for ticket sales? What percentage goes to OHSAA, home team, away team? Also, same question for the neutral site Games?

[Sportsfan01]

Honest question here though. If schools, coaches, and players didn’t want to play in the playoffs as a 13-16 seed and big underdog wouldn’t we see a lot of schools opt out? I only know of one school that opted out, and I don’t know what their reason was. But I image if the schools, coaches, players, and communities didn’t want this then teams would opt out.

[icanpickem]

What is the split for ticket sales? What percentage goes to OHSAA, home team, away team? Also, same question for the neutral site Games?

100% to OHSAA . Home and neutral sites get a "fee" for hosting.

[icanpickem]

It's crazy that a 2-8 team that got outscored 123-12 in their last 4 games is playing in week 11. (The combined record of those last 4 are 22-18)

[mackdog]

What is the split for ticket sales? What percentage goes to OHSAA, home team, away team? Also, same question for the neutral site Games?

100% to OHSAA . Home and neutral sites get a "fee" for hosting.

Yep, all about $$$ !!! From a football standpoint anything beyond 8 per region is absurd. There will always be exceptions but 99.9% of teams outside top 8 have no business playing in the post season!

[greygoose]

That time has come and gone, once the genie is let out of the bottle, they're not going to put it back.