Last football season, the Michigan High School Athletic Association allowed every single football team a chance to participate in the state playoffs. It was the first time that had ever happened, and it ended up being a popular aspect among coaches during what was an otherwise nightmarish season filled with numerous COVID-19 delays, quarantines and cancelations.
The all-inclusive playoff format was so well received by coaches and athletic directors last year that it just might come back permanently.
On Wednesday this week, MSHAA executive director Mark Uyl brought up the topic of an all-team participation playoff format with high school athletic directors from across Michigan as they met in Frankenmuth at an MHSAA Update Meeting.
“What better time to ask the question because of the real-world experience from last year and this year?” Uyl said. “There are pros and cons for both. We’re going to have a lot of conversations about it.
“The goal is to see what the football community wants and how it wants to get there.”
Traditionally, the MHSAA has allowed 32 teams in each of the eight 11-player divisions to qualify for the state playoffs. Six wins would automatically get you into the playoffs while the MHSAA would fill the holes with 5-4 and 4-4 teams as needed.
The MHSAA intended to implement a new playoff point system to determine who made the playoffs last season, but decided to scrap it for the all-inclusive option due to the unprecedented issues provided by the pandemic. Although the playoff point system did help to determine seedings last year, the point system is back this season to determine which 32 teams will make the state tournament in each division based on strength of schedule, with the main change – among other things – intending to reward teams for playing quality opponents, even if they lose the contest.
As Uyl brought up the topic with the state’s athletic directors, MLive’s reporters spoke with coaches from around Michigan about the idea of permanently installing a playoff system that allowed every team to participate.
A POSITIVE CONSENSUS
For the most part, many coaches liked the idea of a playoff format that allowed every team a shot. Although the enthusiasm ranged from casual acceptance to full support, the overall vibe from coaches was a positive one.
Warren De La Salle coach Dan Rohn became a believer in the all-inclusive season last year when his Pilots entered the playoffs with a 2-4 record but made a run all the way to the Division 2 state championship game before finally being defeated again.
“I hope everybody sees it as the right move,” Rohn said. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I don’t think there has been a perfect solution in anything they (MHSAA) have tried. So, bottom line is every other sport has it this way, so let’s just move in the direction of giving everybody the opportunity. Hopefully it will make scheduling easier and create more opportunities for schools to play local teams. You won’t have to be so concerned with winning six games or seven games to get into the playoffs.”
Because of last year’s inclusive playoff format, Ann Arbor Huron experienced the state tournament for the first time since 2002. Despite just a 2-2 record entering the playoffs, Huron managed to get its first playoff victory since 2000 when it beat Kalamazoo Central in the opening round.
Huron coach Antaiwn Mack thinks an all-inclusive format will be good for many teams and players that rarely ever get to play beyond the regular season.
“I’d definitely be for it,” Mack said. “Just giving teams the opportunity to participate and continue to grow their team together and just enjoy the season. I definitely think it’s great for the kids and MHSAA football as a whole.
“With the all-in, you really get to see where the teams match up. Some teams that might be 0-9 can matchup with a team that may have won a lot of games, but you have a team at 0-9 that matches up well and can upset those guys. It could be good for the kids and helpful for high school football.”
Saline coach Joe Palka has had no problem getting his program to the playoffs as the Hornets have been to the state tournament for the last nine seasons. Yet, he echoes Mack’s sentiment on creating opportunities for more schools who haven’t shared Saline’s success.
“I’m in favor of it,” Palka said. “I thought there was a lot of merit last year to the way things played out. You saw some teams got their first playoff win that normally wouldn’t have been in the playoffs. I’m all about opportunities for teams and I think that you’ll have Cinderella stories in those situations, and it will continue to take the stress off of in-season scheduling.”
Although Rohn’s De La Salle program benefitted from last year’s format, De La Salle has traditionally had little trouble qualifying for the playoffs and winning state championships. Already this season, De La Salle is back to its usual self with a 4-0 record.
Still, Rohn believes an all-in playoff format would also greatly benefit his team and others who struggle to find opponents. De La Salle and other Catholic High School League teams in the Central Division often struggle to find opponents outside of their three-game division schedule. With the Central Division being home to state powerhouses, teams are usually too apprehensive when it comes to scheduling tough opponents.
While the current MHSAA point system is supposed to alleviate that issue, Rohn believes it still hasn’t solved the problem. This season alone, every CHSL Central Division team has had to schedule at least one out-of-state opponent just to be able to fill its schedule. It’s been a problem Rohn has noticed since coaching on the west side of the state at Grand Rapids West Catholic.
“It’s always been difficult,” Rohn said. “Even when we were on the west side, we trying to find teams to play us. (West Catholic) played Orchard Lake St. Mary’s twice. Same thing here now, we’re scheduling teams out of state. Throw COVID and everything on top of all that last year and schools not being willing to travel, it’s been extremely difficult.
“I can understand how some people feel and how some teams don’t want to compete and do that to their program, but I just don’t think the MHSAA or the coaches association have found the right combination that works. If that’s the case, let’s just roll it out where everybody gets to play, everybody gets in, and hopefully it will create some opportunities to create more rivalries and play some more local teams and also save some money on travel for every school.”
Detroit Country Day coach Dan MacLean has won two state titles, including last year’s Division 4 championship, and has been in the playoffs in 14 of the last 15 seasons. As a school that plays an independent schedule, it can be often difficult for MacLean to fill his schedule because teams have not wanted to risk taking a loss against the Yellowjackets in order to preserve their playoff chances.
MacLean said allowing everyone to make the playoffs would great alleviate – if not, eliminate – the problem altogether.
“I’m still looking for a seventh week for this year’s season,” MacLean said. “It’s difficult. We would welcome it completely… That would make scheduling and everything that goes with it -- and all the things around football – just a whole heck of a whole lot easier. So, yes, we definitely support that.”
MacLean is also the athletic director at Country Day and he said he would not be surprised to see the MHSAA continue to survey coaches and athletic directors about the all-inclusive playoff format. There might even be a chance that the MHSAA will consider scheduling a vote on the topic at another meeting in October.
Rohn believes an all-in format would have passed a vote for this season if it had been brought up in time.
“I think it would have been a done deal this year,” Rohn said. “After the way things played out last year, I think the MHSAA was leaning toward wanting to support this process moving forward into 2021. I just don’t know if it was recommended by anybody. I can understand that some people wanted to see how the new (point) system worked out, but obviously, it’s not working out. I 100-percent believe that people that this is the best move for every school and get everybody the opportunity to be in the playoffs.”
Bay City Central coach Kevin Frederick believes it would have been best to keep the all-in format through this season as well, considering how much COVID took away from the football experience for players, coaches and communities.
“These are high school kids,” Frederick said. “If you can give them the chance for those Cinderella stories – or just the opportunity to play one more game, one more time – by all means, let’s do it … I’m thinking about these seniors. So much has already been taken away from them, whether it was in football or any other sport with all the stops and starts. To give them the opportunity to go out by playing in the playoffs would’ve been nice.”
WAIT AND SEE
Despite the growing popularity of an all-in playoff format among coaches with winning and losing programs, there are still many coaches out there that are not willing to jump completely on board. Yet, they understand why so many coaches support it.
One of the coaches who is in favor of seeing how the current playoff point system plays out is Jackson High varsity head coach Scott Farley, who also serves as the executive director for the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association.
“It’s a concept that’s been talked about for quite a while. I know that there are some coaches that are in favor of it for a variety of reasons. My personal feeling on it and kind of the company line with the (MHSFCA) is that before we entertain changing the playoff system, we’d like to see the strength of schedule playoff system play out.
“The hope was that the new playoff system would lessen some of the issues that schools were facing with scheduling because of the six-wins format. That’s kind of where I stand on it and I think the (MHSFCA) is in a similar position right now. We’re certainly willing to listen and see what might happen in the future, but I’d like to see where the current system goes.”
Constantine coach Shawn Griffith is in his seventeenth year and his program has made playoffs in all of his seasons at the helm, except for 2017. While he says he understands why schools would support an all-in tournament, he has mixed feelings on the issue.
“I totally understand how some schools that play maybe in a league where it’s tough for them to get out and get into the playoffs would feel that everybody should make it, but I also have several friends who coach that haven’t made it on a regular basis, and their feeling is that when they do make it, the excitement that it generates is second to none.
“To me, it is a great feeling to make the playoffs, and I think to know that you have to earn it has added to us being able to get kids interested in offseason stuff and things like that, but I also understand that there are times teams might be trying to push an injured player to get back sooner than they really should have him get back. It also might drive some other discipline things that you might be doing, whereas if everybody makes the playoffs, those things aren’t in play.
“I think it might take a little bit of the specialness away from being in the playoffs, so that would be the only concern that I would have.”
Farley also touched on the aspect of earning a spot in the playoffs and the type of message it sends to teams trying to get there.
“Frankly, if you go 1-8 or 2-7 or even 0-9, I’m not sure you deserve to be in the playoffs and I’d argue a lot of those teams wouldn’t want to continue playing in the postseason and get matched up with a team that’s probably 9-0 or 8-1 in the first round,” Farley said.
Milan coach Jesse Hoskins finds himself more in the middle and is not quite willing to fully support an all-in scenario. However, he also wonders if the current point system is the right solution.
“I see both sides,” Hoskins said. “The 6-win carrot was always very definite. That was something that was easily understandable, and people could work towards and made a lot of sense. This year going to the point system, you can do the math and figure it out and have an idea of what you need to do, but to your average person, that’s just not as tangible of a goal. I don’t think people understand it at all yet because we don’t have any experience with it.
“It seems like an option like six wins or an option like everybody gets in would be much more popular overall with people just because it’s more tangible than the points system.
As with other coaches, Hoskins does like the potential of Cinderella stories in an all-in playoff setup.
“I can see positives and negatives with either one,” Hoskins said. “I don’t have issue with either system. Everybody getting in would definitely cause more upsets in the first couple rounds. I think you’d have some ugly games and opt outs that were similar to last year, but you’d also have some surprises. It would give it a little bit more of a March Madness, Cinderella feel because of new life.”
FURTHER COMMENTS
Here are more comments made surrounding the topic of an all-inclusive playoff format.
Saline coach Joe Palka:
“I think you’ll see even more people willing to play other people because you know that that’s only going to get you better for the playoffs and it won’t necessarily exclude you if you lose.”
On potential concerns of underserving teams winning playoff games:
“I know anything can happen, but if you’re doing everything right and you have a solid team that is capable of getting to the final eight or final four, playing a winless team or team with two wins, you shouldn’t get knocked off by them.
“On the other hand, if a team is building a little momentum and normally wouldn’t have made the playoffs but won their last three games and are playing pretty well, those are the teams that are dangerous. It makes for more interest for everybody.”
Bay City Central coach Kevin Frederick:
“Every team has the opportunity to participate in the postseason whether they’re successful or they struggle during the regular season – except for football. There are always teams in those other sports that don’t have a great regular season, but they find a spark and put it all together and something special happens. Football would be no different.”
New Lothrop coach Clint Galvas:
On teams being reluctant to schedule opponents that might hurt their playoff averages:
“For me personally, some of the smaller schools didn’t want to play us and the bigger schools, they have nothing to gain by playing us. If we beat them, it looks bad for them and if they beat us, well hell they’re supposed to beat us. It was kind of a lose-lose for some of those teams.
“My mentality is we’re going to roll and adapt. whatever happens, we’ll adjust and make the best of any situation.”
New Lothrop has had no issues making the playoffs over the years as the Hornets have made the playoffs for 21 straight seasons, which is a Flint-area record. New Lothrop the Division 7 state title in 2018 and last year, have won at least 10-straight games in 11-straight years.
“Think of every sport. Everyone is in in their district. Everyone gets a chance, which I always thought was kind of nice. And again, it helps in the long run with scheduling. If you’re automatically in, who gives a crap who you’re playing so why not make your schedule as tough as you can so when you do get there you don’t have to worry about the wins and losses as much.”
Constantine coach Shawn Griffith:
“I wouldn’t say that we’re immune to that (scheduling trouble). I mean, there’s certainly a reason that we traveled up to Ferris and played somebody from up north, and we’ve gone as far as Marquette. I know that (perennial Division 8 power) Mendon (where Griffith graduated from) was traveling out of state a few times – Wisconsin and places like that – just to try to find a game because people don’t want to play them. Everybody’s trying to find those six wins to get in.
“The point system that they have now is supposed to take some of that away, and I think it has. It’s made it easier for smaller schools to justify playing huge schools, but the flip side of that is when a school like (Division 1) Kalamazoo Loy Norrix schedules a (Division 7) Delton Kellogg, is that if Delton Kellogg loses that game, they still get huge points for playing a school Division 1 school, but the other part of that is it kind of hurts Loy Norrix.
“There are a lot of bigger schools that are saying we’re not going to play smaller schools, so that really didn’t fix the problem that some of us thought it would fix, but I don’t know that you’re going to totally get away from that even when everybody makes the playoffs because they still think there’s just certain teams that don’t want to play certain teams because they think it’s a competitive disadvantage or a size disadvantage.”
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