Does the regular season end too soon?

David Wooderson

David Wooderson

Active member
Looking at the calendar and the spectacular Friday night weather ahead, I wonder if the regular season ends too soon. I know the weather isn't always like this in late Oct. But it seems kind of sad that many teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs are done already. I suppose that with 16 teams making the playoffs in each region that the teams that didn't make it probably were excited to have the painful season end. But it just seems to me that the lights should still be on for every school on the last weekend of October.
 
 
You can't have it both ways.

More teams in the playoffs means the regular season has to end 1 week earlier.
Less teams in the playoffs means the regular season could end this weekend instead.

Which do you want?
 
David Wooderson said:
Looking at the calendar and the spectacular Friday night weather ahead, I wonder if the regular season ends too soon. I know the weather isn't always like this in late Oct. But it seems kind of sad that many teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs are done already. I suppose that with 16 teams making the playoffs in each region that the teams that didn't make it probably were excited to have the painful season end. But it just seems to me that the lights should still be on for every school on the last weekend of October.
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No. It starts to soon. Don't start the season till after Labor day but I understand with the stupid playoff system we have that's not possible.
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
You can't have it both ways.

More teams in the playoffs means the regular season has to end 1 week earlier.
Less teams in the playoffs means the regular season could end this weekend instead.

Which do you want?
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Tough one. Maybe a compromise and go to an 11 game max regular season and have only 8 teams make the playoffs.

Ohio does end a little sooner than Pennsylvania does. PA's championship game is a week later than Ohio's. That is a tough one too, especially for the small schools as it conflicts with the start of the winter sports schedule.
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
You can't have it both ways.

More teams in the playoffs means the regular season has to end 1 week earlier.
Less teams in the playoffs means the regular season could end this weekend instead.

Which do you want?
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Well they extended the baseball and softball calendar back into the middle of June....

Football only gets 2 weeks of mandatory practice before their season starts.... I think that is wrong and bad for kids

everyone else gets more than 2 weeks before their first official competition. Now you can argue football gets 15 days in the summer, but, its not mandatory and you are competing with summer baseball, basketball, lacrosse, wrestling, etc; not to mention family vacations and summer jobs. Honestly, adults are part of the problem by believing they have to have their kids playing all these sports year round from an early age to make them competitive in HS sports. Which is dumb because sports participation numbers by the time kids get to HS have dropped dramatically in all sports.
 
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Season starts too early and too many teams make the Playoffs. Answer to getting more teams in the playoffs (the idea behind 16) is to have 8 divisions. 6 public and 2 private divisions with 8 State championship games. Currently 448 teams play this week. if you cut to 8 teams a division, that number cuts to 224. 8 divisons with puts 256 in the playoffs and the playoffs are a week shorter. Play D1 Private on Sunday afternoon, D1 Public on Saturday night, and spread the other 6 between Thursday night and Friday/Saturday all day.

Shoot from the hip thought, just think it's stupid to play on August 18th in 90 degree weather and end in 30 degree weather 3-1/2 months later.
 
Push the playoffs to end the third week in December. No reason why you can't do that. And it only impacts a very few schools.

Well, that was easy! :cool:

(Send those checks of appreciation to: Zunardo, c/o The Wilds of Upper Strombolia. All major credit cards and cash accepted)
 
akron1 said:
Season starts too early and too many teams make the Playoffs. Answer to getting more teams in the playoffs (the idea behind 16) is to have 8 divisions. 6 public and 2 private divisions with 8 State championship games. Currently 448 teams play this week. if you cut to 8 teams a division, that number cuts to 224. 8 divisons with puts 256 in the playoffs and the playoffs are a week shorter. Play D1 Private on Sunday afternoon, D1 Public on Saturday night, and spread the other 6 between Thursday night and Friday/Saturday all day.

Shoot from the hip thought, just think it's stupid to play on August 18th in 90 degree weather and end in 30 degree weather 3-1/2 months later.
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I don't think the Private schools would go for that. What would happen is they leave the OHSAA and form their own playoff. With no rules about recruiting and transfers, they would pluck kids left and right from the public schools that have to follow the OHSAA rules. You would see some Private schools in Ohio actually beat those national powers that freely recruit.
 
Caleb said:
No. It starts to soon. Don't start the season till after Labor day but I understand with the stupid playoff system we have that's not possible.
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I agree. The playoffs should be earned.Teams getting in with losing records is a joke money maker. Take the top 4 teams in each region and play it out in 4 weeks.This way you can start September 1 or so and wrap it up late November or early December.
 
doubtme said:
Well they extended the baseball and softball calendar back into the middle of June....

Football only gets 2 weeks of mandatory practice before their season starts.... I think that is wrong and bad for kids

everyone else gets more than 2 weeks before their first official competition. Now you can argue football gets 15 days in the summer, but, its not mandatory and you are competing with summer baseball, basketball, lacrosse, wrestling, etc; not to mention family vacations and summer jobs. Honestly, adults are part of the problem by believing they have to have their kids playing all these sports year round from an early age to make them competitive in HS sports. Which is dumb because sports participation numbers by the time kids get to HS have dropped dramatically in all sports.
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Those other sports could argue the same. Maybe like you said we should stop playing year round everything.
We are still assigning fall baseball games through this week. Had a program ask for officials next week and we (and every other local assignor) said no. When the program asked why I told them and they didn’t like my answer.
 
umpire16 said:
Those other sports could argue the same. Maybe like you said we should stop playing year round everything.
We are still assigning fall baseball games through this week. Had a program ask for officials next week and we (and every other local assignor) said no. When the program asked why I told them and they didn’t like my answer.
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Had someone tell me their kid played 4 baseball games on Saturday alone. Who would think that's good for 5th-6th grade kids
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
I don't think the Private schools would go for that. What would happen is they leave the OHSAA and form their own playoff. With no rules about recruiting and transfers, they would pluck kids left and right from the public schools that have to follow the OHSAA rules. You would see some Private schools in Ohio actually beat those national powers that freely recruit.
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You clearly aren't in NEO if you don't see that going on already. They aren't hiding it up here. Process is simple, start an independent youth travel team, scout 5-7th grade teams, recruit them to travel team, pipeline them to private school.
 
Obviously we need to start football practice the first Monday of June, games start the first Friday of July, 10 week season, and 6 weeks of playoffs gets the state finals over in October. Now the kids are free to start cutting weight for wrestling or working on conditioning for other sports.

Please note, this entire post is sarcasm
 
Yes the season definitely ends to early, and IMO starts to soon. I assuming the early start is to accommodate the extra playoff game.?. Would like it to go back to 8 teams per, we won state(2019) as a 7th seed so 8 teams is a sweet spot for us.
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
I don't think the Private schools would go for that. What would happen is they leave the OHSAA and form their own playoff. With no rules about recruiting and transfers, they would pluck kids left and right from the public schools that have to follow the OHSAA rules. You would see some Private schools in Ohio actually beat those national powers that freely recruit.
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Public schools could quit the OHSAA if they wanted.
 
akron1 said:
Season starts too early and too many teams make the Playoffs. Answer to getting more teams in the playoffs (the idea behind 16) is to have 8 divisions. 6 public and 2 private divisions with 8 State championship games. Currently 448 teams play this week. if you cut to 8 teams a division, that number cuts to 224. 8 divisons with puts 256 in the playoffs and the playoffs are a week shorter. Play D1 Private on Sunday afternoon, D1 Public on Saturday night, and spread the other 6 between Thursday night and Friday/Saturday all day.

Shoot from the hip thought, just think it's stupid to play on August 18th in 90 degree weather and end in 30 degree weather 3-1/2 months later.
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Two private divisions? How many private schools in Ohio play football? What is the range of enrollment? Will you have a division with schools with 1,000+ boys playing schools with 300 boys?
ElderHSfan02 said:
I don't think the Private schools would go for that. What would happen is they leave the OHSAA and form their own playoff. With no rules about recruiting and transfers, they would pluck kids left and right from the public schools that have to follow the OHSAA rules. You would see some Private schools in Ohio actually beat those national powers that freely recruit.
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The VAST majority of private schools are way more concerned about funding to keep the doors open and not recruiting kids left and right for sports teams.
 
David Wooderson said:
Looking at the calendar and the spectacular Friday night weather ahead, I wonder if the regular season ends too soon. I know the weather isn't always like this in late Oct. But it seems kind of sad that many teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs are done already. I suppose that with 16 teams making the playoffs in each region that the teams that didn't make it probably were excited to have the painful season end. But it just seems to me that the lights should still be on for every school on the last weekend of October.
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NO!
 
David Wooderson said:
Tough one. Maybe a compromise and go to an 11 game max regular season and have only 8 teams make the playoffs.

Ohio does end a little sooner than Pennsylvania does. PA's championship game is a week later than Ohio's. That is a tough one too, especially for the small schools as it conflicts with the start of the winter sports schedule.
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liking the 8 team fornat .....12c ....ok .......... but now ......... its a money grab ......... TOO many mismatches
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
I would prefer to see Ohio go back to 6 divisions. 16 teams per region making the playoffs would actually mean something to some schools then.
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I think D VI and D VII could probably be combined. Or D I separated out and re-Division the remaining 6 Divisions into 5. Use a Bell Curve or something. Seems like the middle most schools could be in a larger Division than the outliers. Maybe you could get down to 5 11-man divisions. Plus add an 8-man Division for the tiniest of the tiny. Or for schools that can barely field a team like at least 3 or 4 in the Senate this year.
 
ElderHSfan02 said:
I don't think the Private schools would go for that. What would happen is they leave the OHSAA and form their own playoff. With no rules about recruiting and transfers, they would pluck kids left and right from the public schools that have to follow the OHSAA rules. You would see some Private schools in Ohio actually beat those national powers that freely recruit.
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The EdChoice expansion would exacerbate your scenario big time.
 
since they want to end the season on the same date, the week after Thanksgiving, the only way to expand the playoffs was to push the opening week of the season up a week.
 
zebrastripes said:
Has as much to do with the start of basketball practice (and encouraging kids to play both sports) as it does with the number of teams in the postseason.
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I don't believe OHSAA changed the start of basketball practice date or the first week of games when they went to the 16 team playoffs (moving from 8 teams).

You have to have a football team make it to regional semi- finals to affect the start of basketball season schedule.
 
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