Member schools of theIllinois High School Association have narrowly approved a proposal to change the way high school football scheduling is managed.
It means starting in 2021; the IHSA will assign each school's regular-season games in eight or nine team districts. They will be set for two years, allowing home and away scheduling within the district. Schools will have the ability to schedule their non-district opponents.
Marion High School voted in favor of the proposal. Head football coach Kerry Martin says it will greatly cut down on the number of miles his team has to travel.
"We think it'll be better for us, keeping us within a 2-2 ½ hour range and avoiding those long trips. (We) played Dunlap last year and on a Friday night drove 4 hours to Dunlap to play a game and we got home at 2:30 in the morning."
Anna-Jonesboro High School head football coach Brett Detering is on the IHSA's legislative committee that sent the proposal to the schools. He says he voted for it, but was still surprised it passed. Detering says the IHSA now has a lot to figure out in a changing football landscape.
"There are teams dropping football regularly. There are a couple of teams just this week I think went from 11-man football to 8-man football. So ,that changes the number of teams that are playing. Are all the Chicago schools going to play? Are they not going to play? I mean so there's a lot of questions that have to get answered, so to speak, before they can even go to work on what a district might look like."
The IHSA playoff format will continue to be eight postseason classes with 32 qualifiers per class based on how teams finish within their districts. The new format eliminates football conferences.
The scheduling change that only affects football narrowly passed with 324 schools voting in favor and 307 voting in opposition.
