EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part III in a 3-part series on Ohio high school football playoff expansion. Part I was published on Wednesday. Part II was published on Thursday.

I covered my first high school football playoff game in the fall of 1996. Back then there were six divisions divided into four geographic regions. The top four teams in each region qualified for the postseason, meaning there were a total of 96 playoff qualifiers statewide — or 16 per division.

Compared to that iteration of the playoffs, the current postseason landscape is almost unrecognizable.

Under the current format, introduced in 2021, the top 16 teams in each region qualify for the postseason. With seven enrollment divisions and four regions per division, 448 teams make the playoffs each fall.

There were 706 schools in Ohio playing 11-man football last year, according to data provided by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. That means 63% of teams statewide (448 of 706) qualified for the playoffs.

There are rumblings that the OHSAA will soon alter the playoff format. The governing body sent a survey to member schools in April asking what changes, if any, should be made to the postseason model.

Results of the survey haven’t been made public, but OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute said recently he expects an announcement in June. 

It remains to be seen when any playoff reorganization would take effect, but it’s fairly safe to assume change is coming sooner than later.

The biggest dilemma for the OHSAA, at least from where I’m sitting, is what to do with Division I. If Ute were to ask me, I would tell him Division I needs a rollback to the eight-team model employed from 1999 to 2019.

The largest 72 schools in the state in terms of male enrollment are divided evenly into the four Division I regions, meaning there are 18 teams in each region. Of those 18 teams, 16 make the playoffs.

Last year, more than 35% (23 of 64) of Division I playoff-qualifying teams had sub-.500 records entering Week 11. In the four seasons since the switch to the 16-team format, 32% of Division I playoff teams (83 of 256) have had losing records. 

No other division comes close to Division I in terms of sub-.500 playoff qualifiers. Division VII is next at 21%.

In 2021, the first year of the current format, Cincinnati Oak Hills was 0-10 and qualified for the Division I playoffs as the No. 16 seed in Region 4. Cincinnati Elder (4-5) was the No. 7 seed in Region 4 that year and hosted a first-round game. 

Not surprisingly, there haven’t been a lot of competitive first-round games in the big-school division. Last fall the playoff team with the better seed was 29-3 in the opening round of the Division I tournament. The average winning margin in those 29 games was 32.5 points.

In four years of the current format, the higher-seeded team has won 85% of the time. An eight-team regional format in Division I would not only make for more competitive games, it would solve for the wonky championship weekend schedule currently in use.

Ever since the OHSAA added a seventh division in 2013, one state championship game has been played on Thursday (except during the COVID season of 2020) with three finals on Friday and three more on Saturday.

Depending on the matchup, the Thursday game hasn’t been especially well-attended since the tournament’s return to Canton in 2017. The notable exceptions have been when nearby Massillon played in the Thursday night finale in 2018, 2019 and 2023. 

That the Thursday final doesn’t always draw a big crowd should come as no surprise. Fans traveling from the furthest reaches of the state (think Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus or Toledo) can’t leave work at 5 p.m. and make it to Canton for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

If Division I went back to an eight-team regional format and the other six divisions stayed at 16 (or shifted to a 12-team setup, as has previously been considered), then Division I would play its state championship game a week earlier than the other divisions.

The big-school final would coincide with state semifinal weekend in Divisions II-VII.

All playoff games, with the exception of the state finals, have been played on Friday nights since 2021. If the Division II-VII state semifinals were played on Friday, a stand-alone Division I final played on Saturday would have the spotlight all to itself.

The following week, the Thursday final would go away. Three championship games would be played on Friday and three more on Saturday. 

This longtime sports writer might be a little biased, but I don’t think there’s anything as good as Ohio’s high school football playoffs.

A new Division I format — or, in this case, a return to the previous format — would only make the postseason better.