Coaches Confidential: How would you make IHSAA football better?

[MarshallCounty]

9 hours ago, Titan32 said:

I would prefer anything to what we have now.  We have enough time in the summer to prepare to play.

Just make it a intra squad scrimmage, you are not required to scrimmage another school.

[jets]

10 hours ago, Titan32 said:

I would prefer anything to what we have now.  We have enough time in the summer to prepare to play.

What is good for one is not always good for another. Some schools have multiple athletes all over the place during the summer- so really there preseason and acclimation to the heat/hitting truly does come on August 1. Some might find it advantageous to get a "dress rehearsal" of sorts before the real lights come on. 

Regardless of how you handle yours- I think it is a disservice to call it "worthless" - imagine being one of those JV players/tweeners and thinking your time or risk of injury isn't that important. 

I think someone said earlier - just have an intra-squad. I don't believe it is required to have a scrimmage. 

[Titan32]

15 minutes ago, jets said:

What is good for one is not always good for another. Some schools have multiple athletes all over the place during the summer- so really there preseason and acclimation to the heat/hitting truly does come on August 1. Some might find it advantageous to get a "dress rehearsal" of sorts before the real lights come on. 

Regardless of how you handle yours- I think it is a disservice to call it "worthless" - imagine being one of those JV players/tweeners and thinking your time or risk of injury isn't that important. 

I think someone said earlier - just have an intra-squad. I don't believe it is required to have a scrimmage. 

Well not sure which side you are taking here...but totally agree with the last sentence. 

[tango]

47 minutes ago, jets said:

What is good for one is not always good for another. Some schools have multiple athletes all over the place during the summer- so really there preseason and acclimation to the heat/hitting truly does come on August 1. Some might find it advantageous to get a "dress rehearsal" of sorts before the real lights come on. 

Regardless of how you handle yours- I think it is a disservice to call it "worthless" - imagine being one of those JV players/tweeners and thinking your time or risk of injury isn't that important. 

I think someone said earlier - just have an intra-squad. I don't believe it is required to have a scrimmage. 

I agree. If a coach thinks its worthless he isn't forced to do it. I think the value also depends on who you scrimmage.   

[ragdoll]

On 8/10/2023 at 1:36 PM, Bonecrusher said:

I believe it depends heavily on the support level/buy-in from the parents and community.  How well do the fans travel?  How much do they get "into the game"?

Granted I haven't been to a HS game in Indiana for a good while so you may be correct for Hoosier ball, but I can tell you in the lone star state where I reside now, that argument about the atmosphere lacking won't hold water.

Example: You know local support may be an issue when hometown team is on road playing for sectional championship, you get off work late,  head into town to get carryout (listening to beginning of game on radio), and notice the local establishments are packed and no promo/school spirit signs/banners around town.  

[CLKeller16]

With all the seeding talk over the years, I took it upon myself to mock up a bracket based off of last year's Sagarin ratings for class 6A, split by North/South. What does everyone think of this?

 

Edit: the seed numbers aren't exactly right. I took all 32 teams, seeded them 1-16 based off of their respective half of the state, and plugged them into a generic bracket generator.

Edited August 11, 2023 by CLKeller16
context

[Trojanmp52]

15 hours ago, CLKeller16 said:

With all the seeding talk over the years, I took it upon myself to mock up a bracket based off of last year's Sagarin ratings for class 6A, split by North/South. What does everyone think of this?

 

Edit: the seed numbers aren't exactly right. I took all 32 teams, seeded them 1-16 based off of their respective half of the state, and plugged them into a generic bracket generator.

 Like this only thing I might do is slit them east and west as well

Edited August 12, 2023 by Trojanmp52

[BTF]

Hamilton Southeastern in the south, Carmel in the north?

[CLKeller16]

On 8/12/2023 at 8:43 AM, BTF said:

Hamilton Southeastern in the south, Carmel in the north?

Whoops, my mistake. Guess that changes things around a bit

[BTF]

24 minutes ago, CLKeller16 said:

Whoops, my mistake. Guess that changes things around a bit

Looks good otherwise, good work. 

[CLKeller16]

On 8/12/2023 at 8:43 AM, BTF said:

Hamilton Southeastern in the south, Carmel in the north?

So I was correct on Carmel being in the North, the mistake I had on that half was Franklin Central. I swapped those, reseeded the brackets, and came up with this:

[Trojanmp52]

My 5 things I would like see to change

1 no dress limit 

2 move the regular season to the left by a week, in doing this week 10 is now a bye for classes 1-4 and  5 and 6 gets theirs the following week like it is now.

3 the last 2 weeks of July before school start teams can have up to 10 practice. Now they can do one a day for that time or have old school camp and with 2 a days

4 seed the playoffs as much as like the idea of the blind draw, I do like what what was proposed on here, my only thing would have a north east bracket and north west.and same in the south to help out with travel as much as possibly 

5 do away with the idea of neutral site.  Let the home team do all the fantastic things they do in the regular season.  It brings so much to Friday night lights 

[PDB26]

On 8/14/2023 at 12:58 PM, Trojanmp52 said:

1 no dress limit 

2 move the regular season to the left by a week, in doing this week 10 is now a bye for classes 1-4 and  5 and 6 gets theirs the following week like it is now.

3 the last 2 weeks of July before school start teams can have up to 10 practice. Now they can do one a day for that time or have old school camp and with 2 a days

4 seed the playoffs as much as like the idea of the blind draw, I do like what what was proposed on here, my only thing would have a north east bracket and north west.and same in the south to help out with travel as much as possibly 

5 do away with the idea of neutral site.  Let the home team do all the fantastic things they do in the regular season.  It brings so much to Friday night lights 

These are great; I especially like 1, 4, and 5.

The dress limit is farcical.

It seems like seeding each of the four regions within a class would resolve most of the issues that people have with the current tournament format. Schools at the margins of a region--I'm thinking like Penn and Lake Central in the first round-- would potentially benefit least from this strategy, but it seems like a good way to make the regular season mean more and mitigate any post-season travel concerns at the beginning of the tournament--Carmel and Lake Central, above--as much as possible.

Neutral sites are a drag, totally agree.

[foxbat]

On 8/14/2023 at 12:58 PM, Trojanmp52 said:

My 5 things I would like see to change

1 no dress limit 

 

Is the reasoning for the dress limit that the IHSAA wants to limit player medals/rings to 75 on a side?  Or are they worried about teams tossing in a bunch of kids that are just going to be there to grab a medal/ring, but that aren't really varsity?  Or is there something legit about 75 players being the upper cap of folks that can fit without incurring a beyond-bound infraction or a realistic safety issue?

It would seem like the first two are pretty easily addressed.  If the IHSAA only wants to pay for a max of 75 rings/medals they can simply tell a team, "Anything more than 75 is on your dime."  The second one is also fairly easy by roster checks from start to end of season.  The last one seems like the only really legit reason which might be tied to safety.

To some extent, I'm not thinking it's the cost issue of rings/medals since this really would only seem to impact 6A and potentially some 5A schools too ... maybe a couple of 4As ... so that cost would be fairly negligible in the scheme of things.  This is especially true given that cheerleaders and other non-players are part of the after-game medal parade in LOS.

[tango]

7 hours ago, foxbat said:

Is the reasoning for the dress limit that the IHSAA wants to limit player medals/rings to 75 on a side?  Or are they worried about teams tossing in a bunch of kids that are just going to be there to grab a medal/ring, but that aren't really varsity?  Or is there something legit about 75 players being the upper cap of folks that can fit without incurring a beyond-bound infraction or a realistic safety issue?

It would seem like the first two are pretty easily addressed.  If the IHSAA only wants to pay for a max of 75 rings/medals they can simply tell a team, "Anything more than 75 is on your dime."  The second one is also fairly easy by roster checks from start to end of season.  The last one seems like the only really legit reason which might be tied to safety.

To some extent, I'm not thinking it's the cost issue of rings/medals since this really would only seem to impact 6A and potentially some 5A schools too ... maybe a couple of 4As ... so that cost would be fairly negligible in the scheme of things.  This is especially true given that cheerleaders and other non-players are part of the after-game medal parade in LOS.

The IHSAA doesn't pay for rings. They provide 75 medals for winning and losing teams at state. Any school can order more medals at a minimal cost. The 75 limit undoubtedly keeps the sidelines less cluttered and the post-game presentations more efficient. It also probably also has to do with the (very) modest reimbursements they provide during the latter stages of the tournament.

The IHSAA is pretty tight on host site costs, etc. for Regional & Semi-State, where they get the vast majority of the gate receipts. We have typically had to raise $10-12,000 to cover costs when we went to state, not counting rings for the 2 years we won. We are 3.5 hours away and don't own busses, so we have to rent them and pay for hotels, food, etc. 

[Grover]

So let the teams have the option to bring more kids on their dime.  Designate 75 kids to get medals afterward.  I don't care how you have to do it but don't send those kids to the stands.

[Coach_K]

3 hours ago, Grover said:

So let the teams have the option to bring more kids on their dime.  Designate 75 kids to get medals afterward.  I don't care how you have to do it but don't send those kids to the stands.

I agree with this statement because all these kids give up their Summers, Fridays, and countless hours working with coaches, teammates, and teachers. They sacrifice time, blood, sweat, and tears for their schools not just their teammates.  Let the kids play and let them all dress.

[OldschoolFB]

On 8/9/2023 at 11:24 AM, npcougar15 said:

I wouldn't change too much about the current season except:

1. Seed sectionals 1-4 (in 8 team sectionals) then random draw the other 4. better seed gets home field advantage. Once you hit regionals and or both teams are seeded it goes to the current format to determine home team.

 

The only other thing I'd think about touching is something with the privates. Don't know if that means they automatically play up a class? Create 2 classes with privates (small and big school) and have their own tournament? Don't know what the answer is exactly but it's time to get creative

 

I don’t understand all of the blanket categorizing of all private.  Sure a few are bad at recruiting but up here in the Fort, ALL of the public schools are much much much worse with recruiting.  
and I don’t think Indy is any different.  Cathedral is the worst offender, however.  My point being the amount of moaning by public schools is sad.  And they do it too  

[psaboy]

I would like to see another regular season game. 

[dazed and confused]

On 8/9/2023 at 1:14 PM, BTF said:

IHSAA: Directly from the coaches....................seed the tournament, make the regular season relevant. The team that went 8-1 deserves to play another week more so than the team that went  2-7. The kids might even learn something worthwhile from this lesson. Imagine this................"it's ok honey, D's and F's are just fine. Purdue and Indiana put all names in a hat and everyone get's an equal chance." We look kind of stupid on a national scale by drawing teams out of a hat. 

New start time of 7:30 pm. Daylight Savings Time has ruined Friday Night Lights. No thanks to wearing sunglasses at a high school game. I sit on whatever side is facing east. 

Four game sit-out period for players who transfer.

Not only that, we used to also be central time... thats 2 hours them aholes we elected screwed up the time !!!

[BSUKingsmen]

Allow kickoffs to be returned out of the end zone and allow players to hurdle.