Looking at the 0-3 records currently owned by traditional football powers Carmel and Lake Zurich and realizing they have to go 5-1 the rest of the way to make this year’s playoffs reminds me there is an easy and sensible fix for the current IHSA football playoff structure so that the current format is preserved and, at the same time, more schools get a chance to participate in the postseason.
As things currently stand, all teams that finish 9-0, 8-1, 7-2 or 6-3 during the regular season make the playoffs, along with some 5-4 teams, which are needed to fill out the 256-team field (eight 32-team brackets).
This plan will let an additional 128 teams participate in playoff football, and it will be done without messing with the current system.
Call it the Hockey Plan, because it’s patterned after what the Amateur Hockey Association of Illinois does with its high school tournament.
In hockey, the top teams compete in a tourney to crown a state champ. But the weaker teams have their own tournament and crown their own champion.
Now, let’s borrow that idea for football.
After the 256 playoff teams are set, the next 128 teams in terms of won-loss record will be grouped into eight 16-team brackets and will have their own playoffs.
Right now, the playoffs take five weekends and end on Thanksgiving weekend. The Hockey Plan will take four weekends and will end the weekend before Thanksgiving so as to not steal the spotlight from the football state finals or the start of boys basketball season.
What you’d get with second playoff structure is some 5-4 teams, all the 4-5 teams and some 3-6 teams getting to experience playoff football.
And that will do something very important. As things stand now, when a team loses its fifth game of the year, its season is effectively over. Or, for some teams, it’s effectively over with a fourth loss if an opponent during Week 9 of the season is a superpower such as, let’s say, Stevenson.
And when playoff football is no longer a goal, one would guess that energy levels at practice drop dramatically.
With the second playoff group, there’s a reason to keep on keeping on. A team can make the second playoff group at 4-5 and then catch fire and win the playoffs. Maybe it’s not the state title, but it’s still important.
A few years back, Deerfield’s hockey team won the postseason tournament for teams not good enough to play for the state title. And if you’d seen the Deerfield kids after they won … well, they acted like they’d just won the state title.
Same with Carmel’s hockey team, which also won a postseason tournament in recent years, and the school was proud of the team’s accomplishment.
For the finals of the Hockey Plan Tournament, the IHSA could hold the Class 1A-4A finals at a school downstate, and the Class 5A-8A finals at a school up north.
Now, as for Carmel and Lake Zurich …
Those schools scheduled games for Weeks 1 and 2 of the season against opponents that are awesome in football.
And since both schools lost those games, they’re now in a fight for their lives to finish 5-4 and make the postseason.
With the Hockey Plan in place, those teams still would be fighting for their lives to finish 5-4, but if they didn’t, they’d still be playing football in Week 10.
Same with a program such as Zion-Benton, which has the look and feel right now of a 4-5 football team. The school hasn’t had a playoff game since 2003, but could have one this season in a second tournament.
And Zion-Benton’s not alone in being an area school that could benefit from a second playoff group.
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Perhaps someone will bring it up to the IHSA for debate. The idea’s not a new one, and it works perfectly for hockey.
Twitter: @JeffBonato