Last week of the regular season
 

Tonight in Wisconsin we kick off week #9 of our high school football season...this is the last week of the regular season. Games are played today and tomorrow and the playoffs kickoff next Tuesday. Our state championship games must be done by the start of "HUNTING SEASON!" Hunting season starts Nov 20th. Where did the season go? It seems like it goes from week #1 to #5 to #9 and it is all over.

We still have 3 weeks left in the regular season in NC. Playoffs begin the second Friday in November. Scrimmages began way back on 8/12.
State Championship weekend is 12/11.

How many regular season games do you schools play?

I know. We have a game tonight and a game for a conference championship tomorrow night. Then our one playoff game and we're done.

I've followed along with the scheduling fiasco as it unfolded this fall, and it's the sanctity of hunting season that drives me crazy. By then, even if you extended the season by 2 weeks, only 28 schools would still be alive anyway. And championship games the week of or the week after Thanksgiving wouldn't be terrible. Move basketball season back a couple of weeks and move baseball season back too, as they should've done up here years ago.

Growing up back east, my school played 11 football games in the regular season. To be fair, we *had* no postseason until my senior year when they added a district championship game. I think now that they have state playoffs in place, they play a 10-game regular season.

In WI, since you only have 9 regular season games, do all teams make the playoffs, thus ensuring 10 games at minimum? And, if that is the case are all officials/crews guaranteed at least one post season assignment?

No, only about half of the teams get in (224 total). There are various criteria, but mainly if a team is over .500 in their conference or overall, they get in. So 5-4 is usually good enough, although I've seen 4-5 and 3-6 teams get spots at the end. Once the field is set, then the teams are placed into 7 32-team divisions.

According to the state football honcho, there were about 200 crews on the playoff eligible list and about 150 got at least one game. Only about a third of the crews get 2 games and those are typically crews where the referee has at least 15-20 years experience in WI.

So at least 50 eligible crews are not working the postseason. And I'd guess there's at least 100 more crews that work Friday nights that aren't on the list at all (for various reasons).

MN:
8 game varsity season, last regular-season games are tonight.
Sectional playoffs start next Tuesday (every team makes the playoffs).
Round 2 on next Saturday.
Section Finals on November 5th and 6th.

State Championship games on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

My crew managed to get a Section Final this year, so we have 4 games left. Haven't heard anything about a possible state quarterfinal game... they usually pick those crews after the first round of section games.

Every team makes the playoffs...that must make for some huge blowouts in the first round.

2 weeks left in Tennessee, then 5 weeks of playoffs

10 is normal, 11 if a school schedules an "endowment game" where a pct. of the gate goes to the state a.a. In return, schools can drop one non-conference loss for playoff qualifying.

Next year, they are reducing the season to 11 playing weeks so there is speculation that many schools may drop the endowment game if they want to keep an open date. This was done ostensibly to help schools whose playoff FB teams were overlapping with the beginning of boys basketball.

The unintended consequence is that the State may see a reduction in their endowment fund.

Depending on the section, the top seed (or top 2 seeds) get a first-round bye, which does limit the blowouts somewhat... but there are still a fair amount of first-round blowouts. Luckily, my crew has usually had decent games in the early rounds (we generally request the 4 vs 5 seed games in round one).

Indiana has an all-in as well but it gets even goofier than that. You are in predetermined sectinonals and classes but who you play and where you play is completely random. As the attached article states, we have 8-1 teams playing 9-0 teams in the first round while teams with losing records also play each other.

Rivals High - Bracket Breakdown: Indiana Insanity

The local fan boards debate it over and over again with the all-in proponents usually outnumbering the qualifying proponents. Here's an example of one of those debates.

Enough with the complaining about seeding... - The Gridiron Digest: Indiana High School Football

We have 156 first round games and there were apparently 166 crews that applied for the tournament. That means all but 10 crews work at least one playoff game. Our crew has a 7-2 team traveling to play an 0-9 team so while it is a playoff game, it might not be much of a game.

Yes, considering we have a lot of huge blowouts where all teams do *not* get in.

Last season in our first round game, we had a team that I flagged for illegal numbering on the first 2 plays because they had #46 as a guard and only 4 players numbered 50-79 in the game. Our HL convinced the coach to take a timeout so we could explain the situation to him so he wouldn't get flagged on every play and I even suggested that the kid could change jerseys if that would help him. He told me that they hadn't called this the entire season. His team wasn't from my part of the state. They fixed the problem -- with the exception of the play where they brought in #96 to play guard and I had to bring back their only score of the night. Game ended 59-0 and we had a running clock the entire second half.

Playoffs aren't always what they're cracked up to be, especially in the early rounds. In my crew's 5 years of playoff eligibility (I've only lived here for 8 years), we've had one close game (that finished 8-0). My long-term goal is to get our crew deeper in the playoffs and to have the first week off.