We won’t be seeing football on Friday nights for a couple more months, but the sport made headlines this week because of a change to the state’s postseason tournament. On Monday, the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s (IHSAA) Board of Control voted in unanimous favor of paring the current 32-team playoff field down to a 16-team bracket by the 2016 season.
Washington head football coach Garrison Carter says he initially was surprised by the decision, “This has been in the air all offseason that something was going to happen to lengthen out the time between playoff games, which I agree needed to happen,” Carter said, “We are asking a lot of high school kids to start playing the most competitive games of the season and doing it on three or four days rest.”
He adds he isn’t in favor of playoff format change because football is the only high school sport which doesn’t allow every team to get into the playoffs. The move eliminates postseason game for 96 football teams across the state, and drops a round of the playoffs which Carter states generated over a million dollars in revenue for the IHSAA.
The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks, the Sigourney Keota Cobras, and the Winfield-Mount Union Wolves each made the playoffs as four seeds last year. Under the new format, the three teams wouldn’t of even been in the playoffs, and Washington would of traveled during the first round of the playoffs as a two seed, rather than hosting playoff games during the first two rounds.
Sigourney-Keota head coach Jared Jensen says he has mixed emotions about the decision, “I thought it was a good thing when they opened it up to 32 teams, but I see both sides,” Jensen said, “The quality of the playoff games are definitely going to increase when they bring it back down to 16 teams.”
Jensen echoed the fact of the 32 team field gave more teams a chance to be in the postseason.
After several back-to-back losing seasons, the Winfield-Mount Union Wolves broke through for five wins in 2014, capturing a fourth seed in the Class A playoffs. Wolves head coach Scotty McCarty isn’t bothered by the move, stating its a huge positive for player safety. Cutting 16 playoff spots isn’t going to change how coach McCarty attacks the season, “It isn’t going to change the way you prepare, it isn’t going to change the way you coach or anything like that.” McCarty said, “You still play and coach to win the game.”
McCarty admits being apart the playoffs last season has been a big stepping stone for the future of his program, “Once we made the playoffs and the kids got a taste of the success a taste of the postseason after it had been so long for our program it was a real program builder,” McCarty said, “We have 10 more kids we expect to be out, we have had great offseason workouts, and its one of those you start getting success, it will help build your program. In that respect, I do think it is a negative.”
Other options up for discussion to address the rest and recovery issues of the high school football playoffs included eliminating a week during the regular season, or to move the season up one week, allowing for the full seven days in between games during the postseason. Listen to interviews with Carter, Jensen, and McCarty about the playoff format on this week’s PM Sports Page, located On Demand at KCIIRadio.com.