The high school football season is about to begin.
The season starts on August 30 in most places and the night before in a few locations in Ohio. The Ohio High School Athletic Association will debut its new playoff system, which includes another division. The new structure isolates the big division schools, both public and private, and pits them against each other.
It’s a good move because those large schools, Mentor, Cleveland St. Ignatius and Cincinnati Moeller for example, are so much bigger than other Division I schools that it made competition unfair in that division. However, it really doesn’t have that much effect in North Central Ohio.
Ashland and Mansfield Senior remain in division two, which will be a combination of the smaller division one schools from last year’s mix and the biggest Division II. Traditional powers like Massillon and Toledo St. John’s are there too. A school like Madison is in division three. They were in division two last year, but so is Toledo Central Catholic, who beat the Rams and went on to win the division two state title last year. Trotwood Madison, who won the title in 2011 and fell to Central Catholic last year. Rounding out the division is perennial power Tiffin Columbian out of the Northern Ohio League.
So, you are going to have to be very good if you are going to win a playoff football game. That is the way it should be. All one must do is review the history of the NBA and the NHL to realize that the expansion of the playoffs almost always means teams that are barely mediocre make the post season.
I like the fact that schools must earn their way into the football playoffs. There is a movement to expand the playoffs further in Ohio and allow all teams, even ones that finish the regular season at 0-10, into the post season. California, for one, is a state that does it that way. However, I think that making the playoffs should be an award in itself. When you look back through the history of a school’s football program, it should be that only the best make it to game 11.
I am a member of the Clear Fork Valley Athletic Hall of Fame board, which is charged with selecting the players and teams that are to be enshrined in the hall. Not all of the Colts numerous playoff teams have risen to that level because they simply don’t compare to the other outstanding teams that came from Bellville or Butler High Schools. Making the playoffs is only the first step to greatness, but it is a way to separate good from just average.
I realize there are some schools in this area that have never made the post season, Plymouth comes to mind. The Big Red has shown considerable improvement in recent years and if they continue to do that they will qualify for the playoffs. Wouldn’t that be better than just letting them in?
I support the football changes made by the OHSAA, but what I don’t like is their unwillingness to be more aggressive in the prosecution of schools that are cheating by the recruitment of players from other schools. Some schools are so clandestine that they produce recruiting manuals and are quoted in the press as “going after” certain kids. There have been three attempts in the last three years to change rules that govern competitive balance. All have failed, the last in May by 19 votes. In my opinion if the state would do a better job of enforcing its current rules competitive balance would not be such an issue.
What about having separate playoffs for public and private schools? More on that next week.
