Reactions mixed to IHSAA’s new football playoff format
The Iowa High School Athletic Association unveiled its long awaited new football playoff format last week and to say reviews have been mixed is an understatement.
In a press release last Wednesday, the IHSAA, in addition to announcing a new playoff qualifying system, revealed plans for new classifications, new two-year district alignments and to allow teams to play out-of-state schools. All changes are scheduled to go into effect this season.
Among the biggest surprises, however, wasn’t a change at all.
The IHSAA has opted to stay with 16 playoff qualifiers in each of Iowa’s six classes. The Iowa High School Football Coaches Association, the Playoff Football Advisory Committee and the Iowa High School Athletic Directors Association all had recommended a return to the 32-team playoff qualifying field used from 2008 to 2015.
However, the IHSAA Board of Control unanimously opted to maintain the current schedule with nine regular season games and 16 postseason qualifiers per class. Teams will continue to have nine home games and nine away games over the two-year district cycle.
“Player safety is the number one priority,” IHSAA executive director Alan Beste said in the press release. “And we are also committed to playing early round postseason games on Friday nights. Keeping 16 qualifiers per class allows for maximum recovery time between games and maintains high school’s Friday night tradition.”
Within hours of the IHSSA’s announcement, coaches and some athletic directors were already offering criticisms of the plan on social media.
On Twitter Wednesday evening, Glenwood head coach Cory Faust voiced his frustration, saying “We’re going to make the best of it, but this is the worst playoff qualifying system I’ve seen in my 20+ years paying attention to IA HS FB. I feel bad for kids.”
Faust, in an interview with The Opinion-Tribune Thursday, didn’t walk back his Tweet. The coach did say he liked a lot of what the IHSAA announced but he’s no fan of the decision to remain at 16 state qualifiers.
Faust said his issue with 16 versus 32 playoff qualifiers isn’t personal to his team or even in Class 3A, where Glenwood is among the top half of enrollments and has made three straight state playoff appearances.
“I feel like by only having 16 qualifiers, the struggling programs, who have a hard time getting participation, don’t get the benefit, in my opinion, of giving more kids a chance to play meaningful games and tournament football,” Faust said. “That was the goal of mine and the football coaches association and I still don’t understand why a bunch of grown men can’t make that happen. How could that not be what’s best for kids?”
Glenwood Athletic Director Jeff Bissen shared Faust’s objection to the ISHAA announcement. Bissen said he was “disappointed” in the IHSAA’s decision to remain at 32 teams. He, like many athletic directors around the state, felt the parity he sees favors a 32 team format but he understands the reasoning of the current model.
“In 2016, when Glenwood made the playoffs as a wild card and advanced to the state semifinals at the UNI Dome, that was in a 32 qualifier system, so in a current 16 team system those possibilities are eliminated,” Bissen said. “At the 3A level in the last five years you have seen multiple three seeds beat a two seed as well as a four seed beat a one seed so in a class with so much parity I think all 32 teams are capable of winning playoff games.”
The IHSAA sticking with the 16-team format came as no surprise to Fremont-Mills head football coach Jeremy Christensen.
“We kind of caught wind that if we stuck to nine regular season games, we were sticking with 16 (state qualifiers),” he said. “I think from my standpoint, I’m a 32 team fan. For out level, with 32 teams, it makes those week seven, eight, nine games a little more meaning when you’re battling for fourth instead of three teams battling for first and second.”
Christensen did admit that while most coaches he spoke to did favor the 32-team format, it was far from a consensus, even on his own staff.
“Some of our coaches like 32 and other prefer 16 so I can see why it’s an argument across the state,” Christensen said. “My issue is that if you’re going to ask coaches for input and have all these meanings, then maybe it (the input) should be considered. And I don’t think that happened. Maybe it will the next time.”
The post-season qualifying plan the IHSAA did come up with has only district champions, or teams tying for a district championship, receiving automatic qualification. But for the first time, all nine regular season games will count toward post-season qualification.
The new rules also do away with the 17-point district tie-break and adds a Ratings Percentage Index formula (RPI) to determine the remaining “at-large” qualifiers.
The RPI will use three criteria to determine qualifiers: a team’s overall win-loss percentage (accounting for 37.5 percent), a team’s opponents’ win-loss percentage (37.5 percent) and a team’s opponents’ opponents’ win-loss percentage (25 percent). The RPI will not be affected by classification difference for non-district games.
“Our goal is to have the best 16 teams in each class qualify for the playoffs,” Beste said. “We believe we get closer to that goal by having only district champions as automatic qualifiers, and the remainder of qualifiers determined by their success and the success of their opponents and other successful teams.”
In the IHSAA’s new classifications plan, Class 4A will consist of 42 teams in seven districts of six teams each. Teams will then play four non-district games per season.
Classes 3A, 2A and 1A will consist of 54 teams in nine districts of six teams per district. Each team will then play four non-district games.
Glenwood will play the 2018-2019 season in Class 3A, District 9 along with Harlan, Council Bluffs Lewis Central, A-D-M, Creston and Winterset.
In Class A, where 62 teams are slated to compete, there will be eight districts of six teams per district and two districts with seven teams each. In the six team districts, teams will play four non-district games and in the seven-team districts, three non-district games.
In 8-Player, which consists of 65 teams, there will be seven districts consisting of eight teams and one district with nine teams. The eight team districts will play two non-district games and the nine-team district will play one non-district game.
Mills county 8-Player teams at Fremont-Mills and East Mills will both play the next two season in District 7 with Clarinda Academy, Bedford, Essex, Griswold, Sidney and Stanton.
The fact all nine games now count in district standings and the RPI appears to encourage “scheduling up,” the resulting impact could be negligible for both Faust’s and Christensen’s programs but for different reasons.
Faust, and coaches in all of Iowa’s classes except for 8-Person, have until Feb. 7 to submit their “wish lists” of preferred non-district opponents. However, the ISHSAA is responsible for final schedules.
“It (new rules) play into it,” Faust said of scheduling. “But from the mockups I’ve seen, winning still just matters more than anything else. We’re definitely going to look at those things and who’s willing to play us and put us on their list. We’ll try to do what’s best for us but ultimately a lot of non-district games are out of our control a little bit just because of where we’re at and what we have for close road trips.”
Eight-Person teams do not submit “wish lists” for non-conference games as all scheduling in the class are handled by the IHSAA.
“We get who we get,” Christensen said. “I think for teams in the classes above us, they’ll have more control over that because they can submit a ‘wish list’ and have a good idea on scheduling so it effects them more. We aren’t going to be able effect our RPI other than it coming down to us winning our games.”
In what the IHSAA must consider to be a boon for non-district scheduling, varsity football teams will now be allowed to play games against opponents in border states: Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Kansas.
“We will protect Iowa teams first, ensuring they have games each week,” Beste said. “However, we do have schools on our borders and other Iowa schools expressing interest in traveling for out-of-state competition. Accommodating those requests for competitive and geographical purposes is a reasonable thing to do.”
Iowa varsity squads were last allowed to play out-of-state opponents in non-district games in 2011.