March 28, 2024

Column: Football playoffs need tweaked

I was willing to give the new football postseason qualifications a chance when the Iowa High School Athletic Association announced last offseason only two teams from each district advanced to the postseason.

For the most part, I think the system is fair. When I played in the late 1990s, our varsity team my sophomore year finished 6-3 and my junior year squad was 7-2.

Neither of those teams made the playoffs. So I have been there, done that as far as feeling like our team was good enough to move on.

My biggest issue with the latest format revolves around the wild card spots. Class 4A and 8-player do not have wild card teams but the other four classes do.

The top two teams in each district in all classes advanced to the postseason. That I can deal with.

It’s the wild card part of the system I think is flawed.

Grundy Center, a Class A program, went 6-3 this season with all three losses coming to current top-10 teams in the Associated Press poll. The Spartans were in one of the toughest districts in Class A, and that hurt them because they have less chances for wins of 17 points or more.

The 17-point margin of victory was the magic number to decide those wild cards.

The first criteria to decide the wild card is fair. If you finished in a three-way tie in your district, the third-place team is automatically in the playoffs. That happened in Class A with Lisbon.

The other wild card team was BGM, which finished 5-4 overall. There were six teams which finished 5-2 in district play but was not a top-two finisher. That list included BGM, Grundy Center, New London, Pekin, Woodbury Central and Southwest Valley.

New London had the best point differential of anyone but because it lost to Pekin earlier in the season, that eliminated it from the conversation. So after that, BGM got the nod because of its point differential.

To me, Grundy Center is one of the best 16 teams in the state. It lost to No. 2 Gladbrook-Reinbeck 7-6 in the season opener. G-R defeated BGM 42-14.So on paper the better team appears to be the Spartans, but non-district play doesn’t factor in at all in the conversation.

The same can be said for Waukon in 2A. It has been ranked in the top 10 all season and its only two losses in district play came against No. 1 North Fayette Valley and No. 3 Union.

Waukon was a 6-3 football team which lost out of a wild card spot to 5-4 Centerville because it played in a tougher district. Southeast Valley (6-3) got the other wild card spot.

It’d be hard for the state to sell its fans, coaches and players on the “eye test,” but I think there needs to be common sense with the wild card selections.

Waukon, in my opinion, would have no trouble with Centerville or Southeast Valley if they played head-to-head. The whole point of this process should be to find the best 16 teams. Waukon, to me, is without a doubt one of those teams.

The final numbers show seven teams with 7-2 or 8-1 records did not make the postseason. The two 8-1 teams which failed to advance were both in the 8-player division.

The number climbed to 31 for 6-3 teams.

I thought the 32-team playoff format needed tweaked. I figured 16 teams would be a great option, but now I really believe it needs to move to a 24-team bracket with the district winners all getting first-round byes.

That would still eliminate the teams with losing records yet make sure teams at 7-2 and 8-1 don’t come up a little short.

Contact Troy Hyde

at thyde@newtondailynews.com