Rod's Tuesday Thoughts

One thing nice about writing blogs is that people can read it and leave one thinking "Does he really believe what he is saying". Only the blog writer knows for sure. So in that vain, I have come up with a new playoff plan for football in South Dakota's high schools that has nothing on the BCS in college football. But here goes.

In Class 11AA not alot of changes except that if you aren't a member of the ESD or the GDC, your not a 11AA playoff participant. Current regular season schedule stays as is, 9 games, 7 conference, 2 non conference. No byes. And you go by final conference standings. No power points. First round of playoffs. Cross bracket. Number 1 ESD plays No. 8 GDC while Number 1 GDC plays Number 8 ESD. And all games are played at neutral sites. Lets say, Pierre vs. S.F. Washington would be played at Huron. Brookings vs. Sturgis is played in Pierre, Yankton vs. Spearfish would be in Aberdeen etc. That way there is no in town, 2 mile road trips. No Lincoln vs. O'Gorman or RC Stevens vs. RC Central. Second round games would involve highest ESD/GDC vs. lowest according to final conference standings. Semi's the same all at neutral sites. And games should be played on the weekends to avoid missed school time. This probably means the season starts a week earlier than it does now. It would even out the budgeting process.

The other 5 divisions, use the power point system if you must but it should have a 8 game regular season schedule for everyone, but two of those games should be teams from different regions within your own classification. For instance, a Region 4 team and a Region 3 team has a Region 2 and a Region 1 team on their schedule. 1 home and 1 on the road. This is the west river vs. east river thing designed to get west river teams an opportunity to play other competition so they have an idea of what to expect if they make it to the playoffs. Again, Harding County vs. Gayville-Volin for instance should probably be scheduled at a neutral site like Highmore. Playoffs come around and Region 3 and 4 should cross bracket as should Region 1 and 2 with for instance, Region 4 number 1 team playing Region 3 number 4 and the like. Forget the wild card stuff. And again, neutral sites for the playoffs. Then when you get to the semi finals you have number 2 west region vs. number 1 east and vice versa.

This is interesting. I like it!! I don't know if I beleive it, but I like it!!!