Sports 6 February 2020

High school football playoffs to remain the same in 2020

Iowa’s high school football playoffs will basically remain the same for at least another year after the Iowa High School Athletic Association announced district assignments on Thursday.
Each class will continue to have 16 teams make the postseason, and save for some changes at Class 4A, where all 16 teams will be decided by RPI, the format will remain the same.
District champs in all classes but 4A will qualify for the playoffs and the remainder of the field will be decided by RPI.
The biggest change is that the districts announced Thursday will be only used for one year, instead of the two-year cycle the IHSAA has had since district football started in 1992.
“We have solicited lots of feedback from our membership and a one-year cycle gives us more time to evaluate that feedback and work on making classifications better,” IHSAA Board of Control chairperson Rod Earleywine said. “It’s never going to be perfect, but we acknowledge that there are problems with our current classification system and we need to see what kind of improvements we can make.”
After four years of basically heading “west,” New Hampton will compete in Class 2A, District 4 that includes Crestwood, Independence, North Fayette Valley, Oelein and Waukon. Only Crestwood has been a district opponent for the Chickasaws the past four seasons, although Waukon was a non-district opponent.
In eight-man football, Turkey Valley will be in District 2 that includes AGWSR, Clarksville, Janesville, Northwood-Kensett, North Iowa of Buffalo Center, Riceville, Rockford and Tripoili.
Nashua-Plainfield will be in Class A, District 3, which also includes Lake Mills, Mason City Newman, North Butler, St. Ansgar and West Fork, while Sumner-Fredericksburg is in Class 1A, District 4 with Central Springs, Waterloo Columbus, Denver, Jesup and Osage.The news that the playoff field would remain at 16 disappointed the Iowa Football Coaches Association, which had pitched an eight-game regular season with 32 playoff qualifiers.
— For more on this story, see the Feb. 11 Tribune

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