Conference play vs. District Football

[rocket2004]

Since all high school football is concluded in the country, I thought I would bring this up again for discussion. What are the thoughts of playing a conference football schedule vs. district football? Even though I have been in Iowa for 15 years, I miss and prefer playing our conference schedule. I watched the Ohio state finials this past weekend where 3 schools from the same conference won state titles. This is the third this this conference has done this. The teams range in size from Division 3 to Division 5. Had a team finish 15-0, 14-1 and 12-3. I have posted this other times and usually get blasted that you can not play conference football in Iowa

Why not??? I would rather play rivalry games every year, play for conference championships and know who we are going to play. You can change up the non-conference teams if you want. People will say that not all the schools are the same size, so what!!!! When smaller schools win, it will benefit them. For conference with more than 9 teams, you can play 8 regular season games and week 9 be a championship game with crossover games for the rest of the conference. We go years not playing our top rival in the conference which is not right. Even when we put them down as non district game, we usually do not get them.

Again, just wanted to bring this back up for discussion since the season has been over and we need topics to discuss.


PS - For those who cry about private schools vs. pubic, Ohio had 7 out of 14 teams in the finals that were private and they went 1-6 in the finals. Yes, two played each other. It is no different there and schools are expected to compete.



This post was edited on 12/8 6:07 AM by rocket2004

 

[wolverine55]

Honestly, I think it's mostly semantics. I think most schools would play the same schools whether we call it "districts" or "conferences." I know in my area--southeast Iowa--very little would change in terms of who plays who.

 

[cidhawkeye]

I think there was some gerrymandering with the districts in this assignment cycle.

 

[rocket2004]

We only play two of our conference schools.

 

[smallcenter]

Well, for one, you've got the Upper Iowa conference. If you went back to conference football you would have 2A state champion playing against 8 man Turkey Valley and Lansing Kee. I don't know how you make that work.

 

[rocket2004]

In Iowa that would be a issue but could be worked out what to do. This would be the same with HVL, Tro County playing North Mahaska, BGM and so on.

 

[fmclonefan]

District football is here to stay. It has worked out well for scheduling purposes and for fairness. It just got too difficult for conferences to continue a football schedule as many conferences have a fairly big disparity between school sizes. Football is the sport where that disparity is most evident, due to the number of players needed. Also, some conferences exist that have more then 9 schools, so can't get a true conference champ anyway.

My local conference has teams that range from 3A to 1A. Not sure how you would do the statewide playoff seeding and such in that scenario. It would go back to how it used to be when it was more of a crap shoot as to who made the playoffs. Districts work well and I don't think will ever go away.

But, I do miss elements of conference football as well, I won't lie.
This post was edited on 12/12 8:22 AM by fmclonefan

 

[rocket2004]

AllI can say is if Ohio can do it with over 800 schools playing football then Iowa could make it work. Most conferences back home at not of all one size. Biggest issue here is the conferences that have 8 man in them.

 

[smallcenter]

The biggest issue is the disparity in the size of schools. You'd have New Hampton, middle of the pack 2A, playing against nearly 4A sized Waverly-Shell Rock. You're talking a school with less than half of the other school's enrollment...

It would not work without restructuring all of the conferences...

 

[ORSKY1]

A conference for Burlington doesn't work in SE Iowa. Rivalry games will be against the 3A opponents near them, not the schools in Iowa City or Davenport. I know it's an isolated issue, but I am all in favor of the Districts in this area.

 

[rogerfrank]

Maybe the Hounds could be competitive against Keokuk, Ft Madison, Fairfield ,Mt Pleasant, and Washington

 

[rogerfrank]

Maybe the Hounds could be competitive against Keokuk, Ft Madison, Fairfield ,Mt Pleasant, and Washington throw in a few 2A times like Mepo and West Burlington. What you think about that.

 

[ORSKY1]

Wasn't talking about being competitive Roger, just mentioning more natural rivalries.

 

[rogerfrank]

Thats true about more natural rivals. And would be interesting. With basketball too.

 

[Herdcyclones]

District football is awesome. I like games with school size parity. I like that there are 3 opportunities to play schools that may be all-sport rivals, but aren't necessarily the same size as you in the non-district matchups. I like being able to travel to new schools and fields.

The only way to make conferences work and have playoff fairness is to have state mandated conferences. So football would end up messing up rivalries in other sports.

This post got me to thinking about playing other schools. Football is more of an event than other sports, and that is why I have enjoyed traveling to other schools, and seeing their fields and how they do stuff. I'm a Roland-Story partisan, and have really paid attention the the Norsemen for the past 10 years or so. So I thought I would type out here off the top of my head the places the Norsemen have played in that time frame during the regular season. (or will play next year)

Gilbert, South Hamilton, CMB (at both Baxter and Maxwell), North Polk, South Hardin, West Marshall, East Marshall, Union, South Tama, Grundy Center, Boone, Eagle Grove, South Central Cal, Iowa Falls-Alden, Hampton-Dumont, Dike-New Hartford, A-P, Central Springs, Osage, PCM, (this is the first spot I slowed down in typing and had to think about it), Nevada, Ft Dodge St. Edmund, Greene County, Bondurant.

So not counting playoffs, by this fall I will have got to see Iowa HS football at at least 26 different fields in the past 10 years. That has been a lot of fun. Keep district football.

 

[paxregis]

Any change would have to come from the coaches association. I don't see a majority of coaches clamoring for a return to conference play. It's been 23 years since non-4A went to district play, so the vast majority of today's head coaches know nothing of conference rivalries on the gridiron. Also, the oldtimers aren't likely to want the uncertainty of making the playoffs on criteria rather than by direct competition in districts.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[mtdew_fever]

One of the biggest reasons for district football was to help with scheduling, which it did.

I don't see the issues with district football. If you school doesn't get to play it's biggest rivals in their district, then they have 2 non-district games that allow for them to get scheduled.

 

[DSMan]

I can't comment anywhere else but in Central Iowa it was unfair to Ankeny, SE Polk and Dowling to all be in the same league (CIML Central) while the Missouri River and CIML Metro conferences were often weak. Of course with Ankeny splitting up, Waukee seems to have taken there role as the spoiler team.