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Home Field Advantage


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I'm sure that this topic has been approached in the past, but why is there still home field advantage in the tournament after sectional? IMO, Regional & Semi-State should be played on neutral site between the two schools. Since there is no Sectional Rankings, how do they decide who gets homefield?

Basketball and Baseball do it, why can't football?

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8 hours ago, Bobref said:

Same way everything else is decided: randomly or arbitrarily. Otherwise, someone’s feelings might be hurt.

Yeah, but think of the IHSAA as the gift that keeps giving ... GID's thread count would be halved if the IHSAA changed things. 

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2 hours ago, foxbat said:

Yeah, but think of the IHSAA as the gift that keeps giving ... GID's thread count would be halved if the IHSAA changed things. 

I understand your thought process. But I’ve consistently argued that a playoff qualification format or, to a lesser extent, seeding, would greatly increase interest in the regular season. Thus, I think if the IHSAA changed their way of doing things, activity (and membership) on the GID would double ... or better.

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The people that are complaining about home advantage in regionals would find something else to complain about if that happened so it wouldn't reduce the complaining rate on here.  It would just be complaining about something even more petty.  

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32 minutes ago, XStar said:

The people that are complaining about home advantage in regionals would find something else to complain about if that happened so it wouldn't reduce the complaining rate on here.  It would just be complaining about something even more petty.  

You might be right, but why is this the only sport that this is the case?

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2 minutes ago, RoadRunner said:

You might be right, but why is this the only sport that this is the case?

I don't know but I'd be more inclined to let the other sports move to one team hosting than change football to neutral.  I just think homefield is way overblown as an advantage at the high school level.  It's not like we're playing in venues that allow for 4800 fans from one team and only 200 from the other.  Both teams get as many fans in as will come buy tickets to watch them.  There is a small advantage for travel and familiarity but I'd say it's very rare that this "advantage" determines much at the high school level.  

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11 minutes ago, XStar said:

I don't know but I'd be more inclined to let the other sports move to one team hosting than change football to neutral.  I just think homefield is way overblown as an advantage at the high school level.  It's not like we're playing in venues that allow for 4800 fans from one team and only 200 from the other.  Both teams get as many fans in as will come buy tickets to watch them.  There is a small advantage for travel and familiarity but I'd say it's very rare that this "advantage" determines much at the high school level.  

To me the argument for neutral site games is more for the field conditions themselves. Some schools just shouldn't be hosting those games with so much on the line, plain and simple. The last thing anyone wants (or should want) is for the field/playing conditions/surface to be a factor in the game. 

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On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 3:17 PM, RoadRunner said:

I'm sure that this topic has been approached in the past, but why is there still home field advantage in the tournament after sectional? IMO, Regional & Semi-State should be played on neutral site between the two schools. Since there is no Sectional Rankings, how do they decide who gets homefield?

Basketball and Baseball do it, why can't football?

I'm all for neutral sites but basketball isn't always neutral sites for regional. Schools like Washington  , Southridge  etc... that are in the regional host rotations still have the chance to play on their home floors the years they host if they win sectional.   Southridge host sectional and regional this year in Boys basketball , Washington doesn't host sectional but if they win the Vincennes sectional they would host the Regional. True neutral sites would be playing 2A regional at Washington and 3A Regional at Southridge etc..., Still using larger gyms but ensuring no team has chance to host past sectional.

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In the last sectional alignment there was a lot of travel between schools after Regional's.  Marion, which is North of Indy, had to travel to Evansville for Semi-State.  Marion had to use charter busses and go down the night before.  I'm not sure how many hotel rooms they had to get plus the food for the team.  The game was played on Saturday afternoon to allow Marion to travel to Evansville and then get back to Marion before Midnight.  Marion to Evansville is about a 4 hour drive in a car, depending on which way one goes.  With the I-69 extension, the drive time may be a little shorter.  Mississinewa and Marion, which are about 8 miles a part, were the 2 farthest North schools in 4A Southern Indiana bracket.  One would have thought that perhaps the IHSAA could have contacted Indiana State, IU, any of the Terre Haute, or Bloomington area schools to see if they would have been interested in hosting the game on Friday night. This would have saved Marion a lot of money in travel expenses as they wouldn't have to get 30 hotel rooms or so.  I think a neutral site for Semi-State would be good.  Find a couple of neutral sites South and North of Indy.  Then like in baseball, each site will host 3 games say on Saturday or 1 Friday night and other 2 on Saturday and if a team in the Semi-State is the host site, then they have to travel to the other location in the region.  The determination of what classes will play at the site will be based on the travel distance between the Semi-State teams.  With this thought it would be best to play on a turf field, as we all know playing 3 games on a natural grass field in that short of time would not be good. In the North here are some idea's of locations:  Indiana Wesleyan University, Warsaw High School, Ball State University, Taylor University, Saint Francis University, and a high school in the Northwest corner of the State.  In the South: Indiana State University, Bloomington area, Columbus, Jeffersonville, Franklin College, Hanover College, and one in the Evansville area.   Notice I left out the Indy area, this is because Indy already hosts the State Finals.  Using a small college field would be best, but it would also have to work with the college football schedule.  If they are played at a College Field, the games could start at Noon, 3, and 7 on Saturday with game times determined by travel distance of the teams.  For example:  Indiana Wesleyan is a host site, Marion make it to Semi-State in 4A to play against Pendleton Heights the 4A game would be at Noon since Pendleton and Marion would be the 2 closest schools to the site.  The farthest schools assigned to IWU Semi-State would be played at 3 or 4, with the second closest played at 7.  

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