SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) member schools approved 11 amendment proposals Tuesday, December 18, including a proposal to implement a district scheduling system for the 2021 football season.
Jeff Alderman, the Alton High School Athletic Director, said this is truly "a groundbreaking decision" but the impact of the changes won’t be known until the process is fully set up.
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The significant proposal charges the IHSA with scheduling the majority of regular-season football games for its member schools starting with the 2021 season, while also changing the playoff qualification process.
“I think we are overall happy about it,” Edwardsville Athletic Director Alex Fox said. “I think we were pretty much in favor of it early on because of the difficulty in getting football games scheduled. Some say this is a big schools issue. Down here it is not so much of smaller schools issue, but it is complicated across the board for everybody to schedule games.”
“It is a historic change,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a press release. “The narrow gap in the voting indicates that there are pros and cons that impact our diverse football-playing membership in a multitude of ways. We hope that it will effectively address conference realignment and scheduling concerns while helping create long-term sustainability and growth for high school football in the state.”
The proposal was passed with a vote of 324 in favor and 307 opposed and states the scheduling system includes the following:
“a) a 9-week regular season, (b) playoff classes determined in advance of the season; (c) schools from each class placed into 8 geographic groups by the IHSA Office to play a round-robin schedule; (d) the remaining games on the regular season schedule to be arranged by the individual schools at their discretion; (e) the top 4 teams in each of the 8 groups qualify for the playoffs, based on games played within each group.”
“We understand that everyone wants to know what district and class they will be in, but the reality is that we are two years away from being able to tabulate that information,” said Anderson. “Because IHSA districts will operate on a two-year cycle, schools will need the next two years to evaluate their participation. Some may choose to join coops or disband coops. Some may choose to play eight-man football. Chicago Public Schools will need to determine what schools it will make playoff eligible, and we will also have non-boundaried schools that will change classes in that timeframe as they gain or lose multiplier waivers.”
Other amendments included a separate team and individual season limitation for girls wrestling and allowing grade school and junior high school students to participate with high school students in interscholastic agriculture events.
The list of approved proposals include:
• Proposal 1 (passed 440-170-89): Requires that the IHSA Executive Director make all eligibility decisions involving students transferring into any school district with ten or more high schools from a school outside the district's jurisdiction.
• Proposal 6 (passed 483-173-43): Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant limited eligibility, which would not include varsity or state series competition, to international students who are not part of a qualified foreign exchange program.
• Proposal 9 (passed 436-236-25): Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant limited eligibility, which would not include varsity or state series competition, to a student who transfers before the start of his or her sophomore year, and who would otherwise be ineligible.
• Proposal 10 (passed 414-120-164): Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant permission for a diver to practice with an independent team during the sport season if his or her school lacks diving facilities.
• Proposal 11 (passed 480-139-77): Allows the IHSA Executive Director to approve an athlete's participation in an event conducted by the junior affiliate of a sport’s National Governing Body.
• Proposal 13 (passed 415-159-125): Allows grade school and junior high school students to participate with high school students in interscholastic agricultural events.
• Proposal 15 (passed 480-186-30): Moves the start of practice to Monday of Week 6 on the IHSA Standardized Calendar for the following sports: Boys & Girls Cross Country, Girls Tennis, Boys Soccer, Girls Volleyball, and Girls Swimming & Diving.
• Proposal 20 (passed 539-79-80): Allows non-varsity football games to be played on Thursday of Week 8 on the IHSA Standardized Calendar.
• Proposal 22 (passed 490-73-135): Allows schools that are members of the Illinois 8-Man Football Association to participate in a post-season playoff conducted by the I8FA.
• Proposal 23 (passed 324-307-69): Directs the IHSA to implement a football scheduling system for regular-season varsity games that would involve the following: (a) a 9-week regular season, (b) playoff classes determined in advance of the season; (c) schools from each class placed into 8 geographic groups by the IHSA Office to play a round-robin schedule; (d) the remaining games on the regular season schedule to be arranged by the individual schools at their discretion; (e) the top 4 teams in each of the 8 groups qualify for the playoffs, based on games played within each group. This proposal will take effect starting with the 2021 football season.
• Proposal 25 (passed 383-103-214): Sets separate team and individual season limitations for Girls Wrestling.Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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