All Football Teams To Make Wisconsin State Playoffs?

A WIAA ad hoc committee has developed a plan that would significantly change high school football in Wisconsin yet maintain some of the traditionally popular aspects of the sport.

At the heart of the plan is a seven-game regular season that would, for the first time, give every team access to the playoffs.

The proposal is a possible solution to the ongoing debate about the direction of prep football in the state, a conversation that started in the last couple of years.

From those discussions, it became clear that any new plan would have to meet certain requirements.

One was the continued elimination of three games in 10 days, a situation that existed in the last two games of the regular season and the playoff opener and that raised injury fears.

Other criteria were maintaining the traditional start date for the season, concluding the season before Thanksgiving, which would ensure the continued use of Camp Randall Stadium for the state finals as well as preventing a schedule conflict with deer hunting season, and maintaining the 14-day practice requirement before the first scheduled contest, a recommendation of the Medical Advisory Committee.

As it stands now, the 2011 season will start with practice Aug. 3, five days earlier than it has traditionally. In January, the Board of Control responded to the concerns of coaches by pushing the start of season back to its usual time for 2012 and trimming the regular season from nine to eight games.

If the ad hoc committee’s program gains support, it could be voted on by the Board of Control next January and implemented as soon as 2013.

Here is how the plan would work:

Teams play seven regular-season games against conference or non-conference opponents. After Week 7, teams would move to their predetermined brackets of eight or 16 based on school enrollment and location, and the coaches of those teams would meet to seed the bracket.

The pairings for Week 8 would be determined by the bracket, with the winners advancing in the playoffs and the losers moving to the other side of the bracket. If a team loses in Week 8, it would be guaranteed two more games; if it loses in Week 9, it would get one more game against an opponent that lost in the playoffs that week as well.

The teams that win in Weeks 7, 8 and 9 will continue in a single-elimination format with the Round of 16 scheduled for Week 10. Teams would play one game each week, with the state finals scheduled for Week 13.

Divisions 1-6 would be split into groups of 64 with the remaining teams placed in Division 7.

The next step in the process for the WIAA will be to survey its membership. According to the WIAA, the survey will ask whether a school favors the traditional start date to the season or the early start date. Those that favor the traditional start date will be asked whether they favor an eight-game schedule with the current playoff format or the seven-game “all-play” proposal developed by the ad hoc committee.

Some of the issues schools must weigh in making their decision will be the loss of revenue that comes from having fewer home games as well how the plan would affect scheduling. Most schools in the state play in eight-team leagues, which under the ad hoc plan would allow a regular-season schedule with only conference games or an unbalanced league schedule that would allow for non-conference play.