Northern Illinois Sports Beat: Too many flaws in the IHSA system?

By Jon Lewis, NISB Writer

In an effort to save money, the Illinois High School Association has done a few things that don�t make sense to average fan. For example, picking the teams for each regional site for sports before the season starts. Then they schedule the regional finals in volleyball on the same day as the first round of the football playoffs. But my biggest complaint with the IHSA is applying the quadrant system in the football playoffs.

PROBLEM:

Why is it that the teams in each regional are put there before the season starts? The IHSA wants you to think that this is to save money. Wrong. In Erie�s boys basketball Regional last year, Orangeville and Pearl City, two schools thirty minutes away from each other, had to travel two hours to play. On the next night Pearl City had to go back there to play Eastland.

Last year�s girls basketball Regional at South Beloit had a similar situation. Erie and Prophetstown played games two hours away. If it wasn�t for schools taking fan buses the audience for these games would have only been parents who could get off of work in time.

This season in volleyball the team that has the most legitimate gripe this year would be Milledgeville as a No. 3 seed in the Eastland Regional, finishing second in its division to host school. The Durand and Scales Mound regionals give us another issue teams that finish first and second in their conference will have to play each other. I am talking about Dakota vs. Orangeville and Stockton vs. Lena-Winslow.

SOLUTION:

Take the teams in the sectional and seed the top eight one through eight and split them up between the four regional sites one vs. eight, two vs. seven and so on. Location should not matter for the top eight schools, and the top two teams in a conference should not meet until the sectional. Then take the remaining teams and split them up geographically.

For example this year�s Polo Sectional seeding would go as such:
Scales Mound Regional: No. 3 Stockton, No. 6 Freeport Aquin
Durand Regional: No. 2 Dakota, No. 7 Milledgeville
Eastland Regional: No. 1 Eastland, No. 8 Lena-Winslow
LaMoille Regional: No. 4 Erie, No. 5 Orangeville

Notice among these eight none would play a first or second place team from their conference in the regional. Also Milledgeville, one of the better teams in the area, isn�t getting hosed.

PROBLEM:

Why are the volleyball regional finals on the same day the football playoffs begin, and later the super-sectionals on the same day as the third round of the playoffs?
However, based on the fact that students would have to miss one day of school as opposed to two I agree that the state tournament should be played on Friday and Saturday. By this time the number of participants in the football playoffs is minimal anyway. The IHSA once again probably thinks they are generating money by bringing more fans to the volleyball games. What is really happening is making fans choose between going to watch their football or volleyball team. In the long run this is probably losing money for both sports.

SOLUTION:

Go to a Monday-Tuesday-Thursday format for the regionals and change the super-sectional to a Thursday night.

PROBLEM:

Let�s switch to a different sport. Football is the only sport that doesn�t include every team. The playoff system is a good one: having eight classes of 32 teams. This was great back when the IHSA seeded teams one through 32. This would be the ideal way to seed them but in effort to save money and lessen competition in the later rounds of the playoffs the state has gone to a quadrant system. Take the 2007 results from the championship games: for example only the 5A and 7A games were decided by less than three touchdowns. This is almost worth the price of admission paying to see a bunch of blowouts.

This year in Class 1A it looks like Galena will get the shaft, after losing only one game all year to the team currently sits atop the class. But how about this loaded quadrant with four unbeaten teams and only one team at 5-4 (Keep in mind this is all with one week to go in the season so I have the team with the better record winning)? Why don�t we just call it the battle for the state championship because whoever comes out of this quadrant will most likely put a running clock on the rest of their opponents on the way to winning 1A? The same can be said in Class 3A where Genoa-Kingston, Addison Driscoll, Stillman Valley, Mendota, Oregon, Aurora Christian, Rockford Christian and Decatur St. Teresa may all be put in same quadrant. I guarantee if this happens the 3A champion will come out of this quadrant.

The quadrant system also has the same flaw as the brilliant volleyball seeding, teams from the same conference playing each other.

SOLUTION:

This can easily be fixed with a one though 16 format. Since the championship is played in Champaign located near the middle of the state, let�s make a northern half of the state and a southern half of the state. Seed them one though 16 with no team playing a team from within their conference in the first round, similar to the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. This would allow school within the mega-conferences to play one another as long as they didn�t play during the regular season.

For example, a mock 2008 1A playoff seeding system:

1. Milledgeville
16. Milford
9. Deer Creek-Mackinaw
8. Kewanee Wethersfield/Annawan
12. Freeport Aquin
5. Chicago Hope Academy
4. Princeville
13. Cuba North Fulton
14. Virden
3. Alden-Hebron
6. Galena
11. Toulon Stark County
10. Polo
7. Alexis United
2. Dakota
15. Orangeville

But notice seeds are changed from playoff points within the same record to prevent teams from the conference playing in the first round.

Another Point: Should the schools be able to vote who they want to see in the IHSA office? This would be done by giving the Athletic Director of each member a vote.

It is my passion to see NUIC teams succeed and be treated as the conference power that they have proven to be in the past. I think that it is unfair to have these schools playing each other in the first round of a playoff or a regional situation.

P.S. Remove the quadrant system