Can you have Districts vs Conferences and still keep ALL IN Format?

[Coach Nowlin]

Question is in the title 

GO. 

[Irishman]

You mean something like tweaking the Cluster system? Bigger clusters/divisions/conferences? 

[Coach Harvey]

As long as the district allowed for differing classes I would think so. No more than 2 class difference between all the schools so no 2a playing a 5a etc. This still keeps the sectional different than the district. Probably would make for more balanced scheduling. 

[Coach Nowlin]

just sparked in my head with so much in conference movements in the last decade 

 

[Yuccaguy]

6 minutes ago, Coach Harvey said:

As long as the district allowed for differing classes I would think so. No more than 2 class difference between all the schools so no 2a playing a 5a etc. This still keeps the sectional different than the district. Probably would make for more balanced scheduling. 

So a few schools in say, the Summit Athletic Conference couldn't play (by edict) the schools that are classified as 6A within that conference? 

And with the SF, are you using THAT as the barometer....or the the original classification that they 'would' have without the SF?  

[Coach Harvey]

10 hours ago, Yuccaguy said:

So a few schools in say, the Summit Athletic Conference couldn't play (by edict) the schools that are classified as 6A within that conference? 

And with the SF, are you using THAT as the barometer....or the the original classification that they 'would' have without the SF?  

Correct, and SF wouldn't be considered in my theoretical district alignment. Pure enrollment based. 

[oldtimeqb]

Personally, I am not a fan of a teams schedule being set the same way annually.  Whether it is with a closed conference of 10 teams, so you play the same nine opponents every year. Or if it were set by the state with some sort of district type play.

[Basementbias]

No, it's not needed. Rather see a seeding system that would seed the top half of teams by sectional or regional.

[foxbat]

This is pretty much the Texas model ... same sized schools all grouped together in a district.  The all-in part wouldn't necessarily matter that much, but might actually cause some grief.  The thing that makes Texas where folks don't really care about the conference stuff is because only the top four teams in a district advance to post-season, so the end-all and be-all is the district.  Also, Texas is so large, that it's not necessarily an issue finding enough teams of the same class for a district.  My old alma mater in Houston belongs to a school district that has 12 6A schools and, for a long time had a state district for football that was almost entirely comprised of a single school district. If you went to districts in Indiana, with an all-in, I'm not sure the district would get nearly the focus that it does in Texas; whereas, at least IMO, conferences seem to have focus/interest besides the post-season.

[US31]

What if we just called changed the term "sectional" to "district" and then seeded them....

Based upon Sagarin, W-L, or some other voodoo

 

Thats probably blasphemy

[Bonecrusher]

Thought I was reading a Texas football forum for a sec.

@foxbat makes some good points.

If you stay with the all-in format, I don't know what the diff would be, aside from not having big schools play small schools, except maybe old conference rivalries could go away.  6A in IN might have difficulty finding a large enough mix of schools to change scheduling without some really long drives to opponents.

In TX, you have non-district (first part of season) where you can play whoever you want and results don't count towards playoff seeding.  Some look at it as a long "pre-season".  In district play all teams are the same classification.  We always tried to schedule a few larger schools or opponents we knew would give us a tough game (referred to as "toughening them up for district") and a few we thought we could handle to let the 2nd string get some meaningful experience.  Again, there's a lot of schools - all sizes - in TX to choose from, and used to making long commutes semi-regularly (1 hour +).

Also, with less schools to pick from it might be more of an issue, but districts in TX are re-aligned every two years.  Some teams will stay in your district, and some new will come in, or you'll move to a different one - depends on how you look at it.  So you're not playing the same teams year after year, but could be different in IN.

The one thing it would reduce, as mentioned before, are the small school vs. large school games.  I personally don't get that whole thing after living in TX for almost 20 years.  Maybe it's the larger number of schools, football culture, whatever, but you would never have a 2A playing a 5A here.  A semi-final 2A team would get smoked by an average  5A team, if for no other reason than attrition.  2A probably half to 2/3 of the guys play both ways where the 5A has 2-platoon and plenty of subs.  My kids school (large 2A) never played anyone larger than a small (4A) team in non-district a couple times who was known to be a below average program.  We did play above average 3A when we could.

Apologies if this sounds like I'm rambling, but I am.  Time constrained to post this, and lots of thought all at once. 

Just now, Bonecrusher said:

Thought I was reading a Texas football forum for a sec.

@foxbat makes some good points.

If you stay with the all-in format, I don't know what the diff would be, aside from not having big schools play small schools, except maybe old conference rivalries could go away.  6A in IN might have difficulty finding a large enough mix of schools to change scheduling without some really long drives to opponents.

In TX, you have non-district (first part of season) where you can play whoever you want and results don't count towards playoff seeding.  Some look at it as a long "pre-season".  In district play all teams are the same classification.  We always tried to schedule a few larger schools or opponents we knew would give us a tough game (referred to as "toughening them up for district") and a few we thought we could handle to let the 2nd string get some meaningful experience.  Again, there's a lot of schools - all sizes - in TX to choose from, and used to making long commutes semi-regularly (1 hour +).

Also, with less schools to pick from it might be more of an issue, but districts in TX are re-aligned every two years.  Some teams will stay in your district, and some new will come in, or you'll move to a different one - depends on how you look at it.  So you're not playing the same teams year after year, but could be different in IN.

The one thing it would reduce, as mentioned before, are the small school vs. large school games.  I personally don't get that whole thing after living in TX for almost 20 years.  Maybe it's the larger number of schools, football culture, whatever, but you would never have a 2A playing a 5A here.  A semi-final 2A team would get smoked by an average  5A team, if for no other reason than attrition.  2A probably half to 2/3 of the guys play both ways where the 5A has 2-platoon and plenty of subs.  My kids school (large 2A) never played anyone larger than a small (4A) team in non-district a couple times.  We did play above average 3A when we could.

Apologies if this sounds like I'm rambling, but I am.  Time constrained to post this, and lots of thought all at once. 

 

[Yuccaguy]

12 hours ago, oldtimeqb said:

Personally, I am not a fan of a teams schedule being set the same way annually.  Whether it is with a closed conference of 10 teams, so you play the same nine opponents every year. Or if it were set by the state with some sort of district type play.

Do you honestly believe that the logistics of doing this would be "doable"?  

You would have to have the "state" cancel contracts for all/most officials (many signed YEARS in advance); Then theoretically assign them to games.

In certain situations, you would have schools having to travel extended lengths in order to comply with the classification limits that would be in place in certain areas of the state.   

What would YOU think is "easier to do"?  What you are proposing?  OR just seeding the post-season tournament?   I think the LATTER.  

 

[Coach Nowlin]

I had my annual verbal spat with my brother a few weeks back who coaches in San Antonio about the ole systems of qualifying/all in and districts vs conferences.  

I think I won when I said, remember last year when you coached at a school that went 0-10, I am sure it was a real real productive last 3 or 4 weeks when there was literally NOTHING to look forward to or work towards 

[foxbat]

2 hours ago, Coach Nowlin said:

I had my annual verbal spat with my brother a few weeks back who coaches in San Antonio about the ole systems of qualifying/all in and districts vs conferences.  

I think I won when I said, remember last year when you coached at a school that went 0-10, I am sure it was a real real productive last 3 or 4 weeks when there was literally NOTHING to look forward to or work towards 

In some of those Texas districts, you can find yourself looking at next season by the time you get to this year's mid-season.  Not a lot of fun.

[MarshallCounty]

I don't want the state dictatating who I have to play for regular season. AD's have to weigh conferences and non conference games with several different factors. Tradition, Rivalries, competiveness, travel, and gate are all factors. If the state tells me I have to play Lake Station rather than Jimtown or Triton, that is a huge lose of money, tradition, and convience. 

The more the state gets involved the more they screw it up.

 

The other thing to consider is the IHSAA isn't going to have one sport being a qualifying tournament and other sports be all in.  Basketball is never going to allow this. The uproar that would occur if you told basketball teams they had to qualify in this state would be on par with the vote in 1995 when they went to class.  

[snrmike]

The all-in format is fine.  What I have an issue with, is that the regular season is effectively just a giant exhibition before the actual tourney starts.
Why not say that the first-place teams in each conference makes the play-offs and have a bye-week for the 1st round?
Then have a blind draw for the rest and use the first round as a play-in round for the participating teams.
The winners of the first round would then continue with the conference champs playing the opponents based on regular season records.

It will take an intense amount of work for IHSAA managers, but post season is always intense.

[JustRules]

This is how many states do it. You qualify for the state tournament based on your district record. Seeding and qualifying is easy because everyone plays everyone so it's decided on the field. #4 from one district travels to #1 of the next district. and the highest seeded teams host each week.

As someone else said, this does require the state to get involved in the schedule game for the district contests but that wouldn't be difficult if you had a formula and applied it to each district. The schools could then schedule their 3-4 non-district games (assuming 10-week seasons with 1 fewer tournament round). This would also likely result in a centralized assigning system for officials which also would not be a bad idea. It would eliminate the occasional scrambling for schools or crews to find last minute officials for games. Fans would be surprised how many games are almost cancelled or postponed on Friday afternoon because they don't have enough officials.