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Playoff Plans

KidSilverhair

Varsity
Aug 31, 2008
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www.thirdandamile.blogspot.com
If you haven’t seen yet, the IHSAA has announced their plans for how the 2020 playoffs will work. As reported in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, it’s kind of the equivalent of three separate mini-tournaments.

They‘ll first divide the classes into 16 “pods,” consisting of 2 to 4 teams and mainly set geographically (although I think there has to be a clear hierarchy of good-medium-not good in each pod; you wouldn’t want to have 2 good teams facing off in the round of 32, would you?). The 16 pod winners after Round 2 would then be bracketed in 4 groups of 4, which results in the survivors advancing to the semifinals in the Dome.

To make this work, of course, each class other than 8-player will have to have byes in the first round. For 3A, with 54 teams, that means 10 teams with byes (44 teams in round 1 = 22 games = 22 winners plus the 10 byes = 16 games in round 2). It would appear the 9 district champions get that bye, in addition to one more lucky team determined by who-knows-what.

As far as COVID issues go, should a team have an outbreak or quarantine requiring that they not play, it’s simply a “no-contest” and their opponent gets a free pass to the next round.

For practical purposes, this adds a dimension to Friday’s Xavier-Grinnell game. Xavier locks up the D-6 title with a win, and therefore a bye on October 16. Grinnell moves into the district driver’s seat should they win, but Clear Creek-Amana would still be alive (with a win over Oskaloosa) to move into the tie or outright title should they beat Grinnell next week.

Heres a link to the Gazette story: https://www.thegazette.com/subject/...a-high-school-football-playoffs-work-20200929
 
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