Scheduling relief or false hope? IHSA playoff expansion divides local schools

IHSA schools split on Proposal 19: Sycamore backs expanded playoffs, Genoa-Kingston resists, DeKalb sees new hope. Scheduling relief or more lopsided games? Local ADs weigh the trade-offs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Scheduling relief or false hope. IHSA playoff expansion divides local schools.
This article is being read by an automated voice brought
to you by Everlet. Chauncey Krrick said he wasn't sure
if Proposal nineteen is going to fix all of the
issues with IHSA football scheduling. Put it on there five minutes,

(00:27):
flip it over the other five minutes. You're done. Then
the key the key to this. You tent it, bring
it inside, tent it. Put a couple of pieces of
foil over it. Tanted for about five to ten minutes.
That keeps it so juicy. And I gotta tell you,
I've won my wife over on this. My son, who
did not really eat meat, absolutely loves it. Asks for

(00:48):
stake every week, So that is my stake advice. I'm
not one hundred percent sure that scheduling issues will be corrected.
I'm not one hundred percent conference jumping will be corrected,
kerk said, but I was one hundred percent sure if
nothing changed, all that stuff would continue. Sycamore was willing
to vote yes to see if that would help solve
those other issues. The IHSA announced the passage of the

(01:11):
proposal on Tuesday by a statewide vote of three hundred
and seventy two fifty two with ninety six abstentions. The
proposal will keep the eight classes, but create forty eighteen fields,
with the highest sixteen seeds in each bracket one through
sixteen in Class seven A, Class eight A, and the
top eight seeds in the North and South brackets, and
Class ONEA through Class six A A lie receiving buys

(01:33):
into the second round. The playoffs in regular season will
each start one week earlier, the scrimmage week will be eliminated,
and there will be only twenty dates to allow nine
preseason practices. This change, according to Genoa Kingston athletic director
Phil Jerby, was a big part of his district's no vote.

(01:55):
Jerby said there are a lot of school events based
around the current schedule that are going to have to change,
such as fundraisers, photo days, and scrimmages for more than
just football. He also said the dead week moving into
July may caused some problems this year as well. We
did not feel this is going to rectify that a
lot of people believe it's going to. Jereby said, on

(02:16):
a personal level, I'm not a big fan of having
three and four win teams making the playoffs. There's already
a large discrepancy of skill level with teams in the
playoffs already. The theory of the expanded playoffs is to
mix scheduling easier and hopefully cut down on the dramatic
shift in conference reshuffling. Instead of chasing five wins, all
three win and most two win teams should make the

(02:36):
postseason on a yearly basis. Both Dcalb and Sycamore have
gone through dramatic scheduling and conference shifts since the Northern
Illinois Big Twelve broke up to Calb joined the due
Page Valley Conference, in which the closest school is thirty
five miles away and the other schools have enrollments around
one thousand students larger than d Calb. For the past

(02:57):
two years, the DVC in the Southwest suburbsur have tried
a couple different alignments of a football only arrangement. Before that,
the DVC teams would have to play each other twice
in the year and make trips to the Belleville area
to schedule enough games. The worst thing ever is keeping
the things the way they are because we've always done
it this way, Goff said, we put through a proposal

(03:19):
where scheduling stays with the schools. Now, you don't have
to do that chase for five. We play a very
tough schedule, one of the toughest in football, and we
would have been one of the last teams in Sycamore
joined a new look Interstate eight with Plano and Sandwich,
but after a brief football only arrangement with the Kishwaukee
River Conference, Plano and Sandwich left the IE eight for

(03:39):
the KRC, leaving six teams all refugees from the NIB
twelve in the I eight for the Spartans that necessitated
trips to mohammet Seymour and Kahokia in the last two
years alone, while the other I eight teams have had
to go even farther, including out of state, to fill
out their schedules. The Barbs at T TWOY seven last

(04:00):
year likely would have qualified for the postseason. Goff pointed
to the success of Nazareth, a four or five team
that won a state championship in the past, of what
a battle tested team can do in the postseason. They
played a tough schedule and then the long run it
worked out. Goff said, they got in, they had enough
playoff points, and they were competitive in one. This should

(04:21):
loosen up that drive for five and get everyone playing
those tougher teams. DUCALB has only qualified for two postseasons
since the NIB twelve broke up, after making the last
five in the old league. Genowa Kingston missed the postseason
last year with a four or five record, with three
of those losses by a touchdown or less. Jerby said,
while more games is great for players, the chance for

(04:44):
lopsided games puts a damper on that, and in the end,
it's just a trade off between upsides and downsides. I
think if there was a perfect format, someone in the
state probably would have found it already. Jerby said, I
don't know if there is a perfect format, but as always,
we will adjust accordingly and make the necessary changes internally
to adapt to the new process.