MSHSAA not yet ready to change football playoff system

~ Following the board's action, the current four-team pool structure will stay in place for at least two more years.

The current Missouri high school football district playoff system is not going anywhere; at least not yet.

A proposed eight-team, seeded football playoff system was shot down at the Missouri State High School Activities Association board of directors meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Columbia, Mo.

The new playoff format would have included an eight-week regular season, followed by a two-week, seeded tournament combining eight teams from two current districts. The losing teams in the opening round of district play would play in a consolation game in Week 10, while the winners would play for the district titles and two sectional berths.

The playoff proposal was discussed at MSHSAA's athletic director meetings across the state throughout the football season.

"There wasn't any area of the state that was in favor of the proposal as it was laid out," MSHSAA spokesman Rick Kindhart said.

According to Kindhart, two of the main sticking points for the new proposal involved increased travel, especially for small schools, and the loss of a home game. Under the proposal, teams currently in Class 1 District 1 such as St. Vincent or Chaffee could have had to travel several hours for a district playoff game.

Unlike the current system, the proposed system allowed higher seeds to host games instead of guaranteeing home games in the district playoffs.

Teams currently are placed in four-team pools for a two-year duration that includes one home game one year and two home games the next. Schools typically fill out the rest of the schedule on a two-year basis after that, guaranteeing certain rivalry games stay on the schedule.

The tournament proposal also threatened rivalry games -- such as MAFC Blue Division foes St. Vincent and Valle -- that currently take place in district play. Those games would have to have been scheduled during the regular season and could have been repeated in district play.

The MSHSAA may look at other playoff proposals in the future, but the current district system will stay in place through the 2007 season.

Schools approved for coop

The cooperative sponsorship experiment in Missouri will begin next season, as several school applied and were approved at the MSHSAA board meeting Wednesday and Thursday.

Cooperative sponsorship allows two schools from classes 1, 2 or 3 to combine to form a team in a sport which one or both schools are lacking. The enrollments of the two schools are combined to determine the classification of the new team.

No area schools applied to use the cooperative sponsorship program this year.

The list of schools which will field cooperative sponsorship teams next year includes Clopton and Elsberry in football, LaMonte and Northwest (Hughesville) in boys soccer, Lockwood and Golden City in football, Pattonsburg and North Davies in boys basketball, North Harrison and Ridgeway in softball and girls basketball, and Princeton and Mercer in football. These schools will be able to field teams for the 2006-07 school year.

"It will be interesting to see how it goes as this first group gets off the ground, how it works," Kindhart said. "Once people see there's no major issues with it, you may see more."