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Mr NCAA wrote:

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Unless the MHSAA or a school district such as Cheboygan, Gaylord, Grayling, or Petoskey is willing to cough up the money for field turf or another suitable surface, then the YooperDome or CMU is the next best thing. The MHSAA has waived the 200 mile rule for the 2 district games. St. Iggy vs. CFFP wasn't that far over the 200 mile limit. I would have allowed a waiver for that game provided that the other 4 games were played at the Yooperdome on the same day. I just assumed that all 3 Yooperdome games were on Saturday, but they aren't. So no excuse for not having 4 games there with another one at Gaylord.

People will complain that Hudsonville, Lowell, and Muskegon were all placed in one region as well based on geography. So the playoff system is what it is. What we need is to seed the teams regionally instead of by district and to reseed after every round. Teams don't exchange games films until that week anyways so it makes sense to reseed after every week.

I think waived is the wrong word here, because it suggests that it is employed sometimes and then not employed other times, as the situation demands. The rule hasn't been waived in the Districts; it's been eliminated. Its operation was different there, too, so they aren't entirely comparable. The 200-mile rule in the Districts provided for a swap from seeded (1/4, 2/3) to geographic pairings in the Pre-Districts if the seeded pairings would produce a trip of 200+ miles. One team or the other still hosted the Pre-District and District Final games. No assigned locations came up until the Regional Final then and now.

Regional seeding is not going to happen. It would make the insane northern travel even worse. I said in another thread a while back: add 2 weeks to the playoffs (have the Finals be one weekend after the current weekend, and slash one week from the regular season) and collapse to 5 Divisions. Each Division would consist of two Sectionals; each Sectional would be divided into 4 Regions; each Region would be divided into 4 Districts. Districts would have 3 or 4 teams, depending on geography. Seed the Districts 1-4, as now; Districts with an odd number of teams would have the top seed get a bye. Re-seed the teams every other round (effectively, rounds 3 and 5; if you like to have the higher-seeded team wear the home jerseys at the State Finals and call that "re-seeding," whatever floats your boat). Higher-seeded team hosts all games through the Regional Finals (rounds 1-4), irrespective of distance (no 200-mile rule). MHSAA assigned sites for the Sectionals (rounds 5 and 6), and then Ford Field for the Finals.

EDIT: Lest anyone be confused or think that I am employing some of MHSFCA's Orwellian newspeak from their most recent proposal to the Representative Council (Regional seeds 1, 4, 5 and 8 form a "District," with trophy to "District Champion"! doubleplus ungood!), my suggestion above is predicated on geographic selection of the Sectionals, Regions and Districts. Trophy and medals to the winning team in Rounds 2, 4, and 6, with the usual trophies to both teams in round 7.

Mr NCAA wrote:

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According to how they did the Kirk Herbstreit games though when I attended one year, the MHSAA would have to go back to double sessions for your scenario to work. The fire marshall wouldn't allow it going over capacity without the stadium being emptied at one point in time. It doesn't matter if fans come and go to the fire marshall. So if you want to go back to double sessions for fans to pay more, then fine one of the MAC schools could hold it outdoors provided that the area still has more than enough hotel space.

Trophy and medals to the winning team in Rounds 2, 4, and 6, with the usual trophies to both teams in round

There is no round six in the playoffs only 5 since 2 to the 5th power equal 32 teams per division unless the MHFCA is asking for more teams to join the playoffs which I haven't heard about unlike my 5 division proposal, which would have a 6th round. I'm working on a new 5 division proposal in which the MHSAA puts teams in districts on a two year basis. I have my 5A division done already.

1. pre - district
2. district final
3. regional
4. semifinal
5. final

MrNCAA, if you read my whole post carefully, I said that my proposal was to add 2 rounds to the playoffs (that is to say, a 6th and 7th round), collapse to 5 Divisions, etc. I did not purport to be speaking for or representing MHSFCA's position; however, I made a later edit where I clarified that my proposal intended geographic sectionals, regions, and districts, as opposed to MHSFCA's most recent proposal, which didn't involve playoff expansion but did propose dividing each Region into two "Districts," which had (respectively) the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 8th-seeded teams in the Region, and the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th-seeded teams in the Region. My point was that those would not be "Districts" in any meaningful sense of the term if they are just two seeded groups labeled "Districts" (sorta like how NCAA Men's Basketball has 4 nationally-seeded groups of 16 and calls them "Regionals"), and that my proposal takes language seriously and uses the words "District" et al., which facially suggest a geographic meaning, in their most natural sense.

To quote myself:

"add 2 weeks to the playoffs (have the Finals be one weekend after the current weekend, and slash one week from the regular season) and collapse to 5 Divisions. Each Division would consist of two Sectionals; each Sectional would be divided into 4 Regions; each Region would be divided into 4 Districts. Districts would have 3 or 4 teams, depending on geography. Seed the Districts 1-4, as now; Districts with an odd number of teams would have the top seed get a bye."

The 9-week regular season does not, it seems to me, get taken very seriously anyway. Teams are, by and large, primarily concerned with coming up with a schedule that gives them their best shot at 6 wins. Another thread on here mentioned that Saginaw-Nouvel played two Canadian teams. Five Divisions of 7 rounds would, as you note, accommodate 640 teams, which allows everybody to make the playoffs in a fashion consistent with every other MHSAA sport. Byes would play a fairly small role; of the 160 Districts, 21 (13%) would have 3 teams in them (with the top seed getting a bye) with a field of 619 teams, so I don't know why that would induce you to "never go to another" HS game again. You note that byes are used in other sports where everybody makes the playoffs (which 5 Divisions of 7 rounds allows for), and that in those sports its a random draw (wouldn't a merit-based allocation of byes be superior to a random draw?).

With virtually zero growth in the number of Football teams in recent years, there is little to suggest at this time that my proposed format would not be able to continue for the foreseeable future.

It's not one in 8 schools; it's 1 in 8 Districts. 21 Districts with 3 teams means 21 No. 1-seeds are getting a bye instead of playing a 4th seed. 21 total schools getting byes out of 619 schools is 3.4% of all schools getting a bye. Not exactly rocking anybody's world.

I think the CPA numbers should be "monkeyed" with anyway. Two proposed changes there:
1. A losing team gets 25% of the points they'd have gotten for winning. That is to say, instead of all losses being worth 0 points, a loss to a Class A school is worth 20; loss to a Class B is worth 16; loss to a Class C is worth 12; and a loss to a Class D is worth 8.
2. The "multiplier" for bonus points should not be affected by wins and losses; however, it should be affected by the classification of the opponent. Therefore, use a multiplier of 10 for Class A; 8 for Class B; 6 for Class C; and 4 for Class D.

The advantage of those changes is that it would increase the granularity of the CPA numbers, making ties that much less likely, and also (I think) overall make the CPA numbers fairer and more accurate. The current formula goes overboard in penalizing losses.

trezdustrial wrote:

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Apparently it was the MHSAA decision to play this game in Gaylord. IM and Montague may have had nothing, or very little, to do with it!? Montague was apparently assuming it was going to be at the Dome (same as last year). I think either team was fine with the Dome, just didnt work out that way.

I tend to find that the people on this message board (as well as MLive) tend to ascribe to the participating schools more choice in the assigned game locations than it was my understanding they exercised. I thought that you mostly got a phone call tell you that you were going to the Dome, or Gaylord, or Alpena, or wherever, and off you went. No give and take; no negotiations; no "suggestions" or "requests" accepted in any meaningful way. Since the vibe on here is different, I thought perhaps my understanding was wrong, but your comment now makes me wonder whether I was right all along.