I join the crowd that finds this to be unquestionably a good thing. I also am as confused as some others about those who can't articulate anything beyond "this is soft!" and can't see the big picture beyond "back in my day, teams had to EARN their way in."
Sure, "back in the day" teams played their conference schedule, stayed in their conferences, and played some of the teams nearby for their out-of-conference slate. The teams that won more than they lost made the playoffs. But, as has been happening everywhere in sports (and in life) - people started to more deliberately "game" the system to try and get five wins. This ranged from teams jumping conferences to abandon a hopeless football situation, to conferences shuffling their own division alignments to help teams that are traditionally at the bottom of the standings, to teams hunting wins out of conference and refusing to play anyone they don't think they can beat. As someone who has worked in athletic departments at multiple schools, this creates chaos. Now the girls' freshman basketball team has to drive 45 minutes for every away conference basketball game because a school switched conferences to help their football team win more games. It's silly.
I'm not excusing those moves as sensical or good for those football programs. But it is the reality of what has happened. The other downstream consequence is that as these conferences shuffle, some teams that had made the playoffs are no longer qualifying or at risk of not qualifying. Your two annual guaranteed wins fled the conference. Now, even though you EARNED it in the past, you are having trouble finding five wins without your two in-conference cream puffs still around. So you're going to avoid playing anyone who might beat you in weeks 1 and 2. Those games just became critical for you to qualify for the playoffs with five wins (and be seen as worthy in the eyes of the old diehard high school football fans).
It has been much harder for many teams to schedule week 1 and 2 games as a result of the above. This has had some positive impacts as a fan - with annual fun matchups in the first weeks between highly ranked teams like Batavia and LWE and Glenbard West and MC vs ESL, etc. These have happened more frequently in recent years because no one would play these teams anymore. Every win is too important now. (And if you don't get five wins, you haven't earned anything or done it right.)
Some of these teams that have tried to game the system have made it work. They made the playoffs by playing an incredibly weak schedule and finding five wins. I don't really understand the motivation behind doing that just to say "I made the playoffs" and then getting smoked in a first-round away game, but alas, that's what some of these schools have done. And even though some of these teams would lose to the JV team of a 4-5 team in a better conference, they get to make the playoffs.
However, in this new system, any of these weaker 5-4 teams will play a first-round game against that 4-5 team from a stronger conference. And they will lose. And that's okay. They still get to say "we made the playoffs." And the 4-5 team that worked really hard and plays much better football, and has a situation where they are maybe a small fish in a big pond and therefore don't get to 5 wins a lot of years... they get to win a playoff game. And they likely offer a more competitive game in the second round than the 5-4 team would have. Good for fans, good for players. All good things.
I see the hypothetical above from a different poster about a team getting clocked 6 times and making the playoffs... so what? We have some teams that are pretty damn close to that already - where they find five wins against a weak schedule and get clocked four times and then get clocked in the playoffs. I don't think this team EARNED it more than the team whose athletic department has stayed in a tough conference, has a program that does all of the right things, and loses a few close games yet doesn't reach five wins. Again, the latter school is likely a little friskier in the playoffs. I gladly take the tradeoff between some 3-6 teams that "don't deserve" to be in by taking in more teams that are actually better at football and give their kids more meaningful games.
(That's without even getting into the fact that I could extend the hypothetical and put a mid-upper tier 7A public team into the CCL Blue - where they'd likely get clocked 5 or 6 times and yet still probably be a team that could win 2-3 playoff games. The complete discounting of the strength of schedule from the "if you don't get five wins, you don't deserve it" crowd is astounding. There are some really bad 5/6 win teams and some much better 3/4 win teams.)
More meaningful football games for more kids and more communities is a good thing. A team that loses its first five games is currently eliminated from the playoffs. They are practicing for fun and not playing for anything. But in this system, that team can get a key player back from a summer injury (whereas last year he would just choose to not return and focus on basketball season since football has no point after a fifth loss), improve their play, find a few wins in the last few weeks, be playing their best football at the end of the year (everyone's goal), get a win in the playoffs, and make some awesome freaking memories for themselves and their parents and their community. A stark contrast to "playing for pride" in weeks 6-9 in the prior system. You cannot convince me this is a bad thing just because some other "bad" programs might also make the playoffs.
This is high school sports. This is what it's about. More kids playing meaningful football, maybe causing them to fall a little too hard for the sport we love, and then being crazy enough to still be posting about it on a high school football message board 20 years later. Spreading the passion and energy. It's a good thing. I think a lot of good comes from this. I'm really happy for the kids today.
Ratsy
