February 23, 1998

IHSA Board Acts On Football Playoff Proposals

BLOOMINGTON — Recommendations for changes in the manner schools are classified and the scheduling of the state championship games were acted upon by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Board of Directors at its regular February meeting Monday (Feb. 23).

Acting on recommendations from the Football Advisory Committee, the Board:

1. Did not approve a recommendation which would classify public schools based upon each school's actual official enrollment and non-public schools based upon each school's football enrollment.

However, the Board directed the Executive Director to reconvene the Football Advisory Committee to address football classification issues again. The Board also directed that the meeting include representatives from non-public schools to present that perspective on classification.

The enrollment of each member school reported to the Illinois State Board of Education on Sept. 30 is a school's actual official enrollment for purposes of classification in the following school year in all IHSA state series except football. Currently, football enrollment is the greater of a school's actual official enrollment or the average enrollment of its opponents. Average enrollment is figured by eliminating the largest and smallest opponent enrollments and dividing the total enrollment of the remaining opponents by that number of opponents.

2. Approved a recommendation to play only three state championship games a day, each as a single-game session. The new time schedule will be identical each day. Games will be played at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Friday's schedule will be:
Class 1A at 11:00 a.m., Class 2A at 3:00 p.m. and Class 3A at 7:00 p.m.

The Saturday schedule will be:
Class 4A at 11:00 a.m., Class 5A at 3:00 p.m. and Class 6A at 7:00 p.m.

The move to single-game sessions is a step to solve parking and seating problems at the championship games.

(Seating capacity at Hancock Stadium on the campus of Illinois State University, where the championship games are played, is approximately 11,500. Attendance at two sessions in the recent 1997 playoffs was over 10,700. Session tickets will be priced at $6.00 each.)

3.Approved a recommendation to allow only the home team to practice on the game field during the week of the state series contest. (Kaneland would be the home team this year!). Visiting teams will be permitted on the game field no later than one (1) hour prior to the scheduled game time.




football . Top . Home . Email