2025 high school football thread

State of Football said:

You can read their policy in the online handbook. It’s actually quite interesting. 32 is based on the smallest number for a class to allow a State tournament. And you have 4 sections of 8. For all has one too many classes I believe. Dump 6A back into 5A and you’d go the top 64. 6A didn’t ask for 6A. #33 through 64 did. Wayzata is the largest at around 3,700 and 64 school would be around 1500.

If you think Minneapolis South and St. Paul Harding should be in the top class by using real enrollments. I can’t agree with that.

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I have a secret plan to fix it all.

And it involves 48 teams per class.
6 teams per section.
Your schedule is 5 in your section and self schedule 3 games. You can play a team from another class if 4 teams agree to play from another class to make the classes “whole”

4/6 teams make a 32 team playoff per class designed like the current 6a bracket (not exactly but similar)
5 and 6 seeds play a 9th game against another 5 or 6 seed.
This seeding is done via section record and coaches vote essentially.

A class is “full” at 48
Section from the top down.
The last class will be bigger than 48

Benefits.
Guarantees teams at least 2 games against non playoff teams.
Guarantees teams can play up to 3 games against teams they’re not assigned to to preserve rivalries. This also gives flexibility to play between classes.
This makes 2/3rd of schools have a degree of success they can sell to the community “made the playoffs”
Fixes MEA Wednesday, Tuesday, Saturday because one fewer round of playoffs in lower classes (wed/th, Fri, Fri)

Downfalls
Not all teams make playoffs
Not all sections created equal. In theory, A 4-4 (1-4) team could miss playoffs in one section while a 1-7 (1-4) team could be in a 3 way tie for 4th and make the playoffs in another.

Some guy said:

I have a secret plan to fix it all.

And it involves 48 teams per class.
6 teams per section.
Your schedule is 5 in your section and self schedule 3 games. You can play a team from another class if 4 teams agree to play from another class to make the classes “whole”

4/6 teams make a 32 team playoff per class designed like the current 6a bracket (not exactly but similar)
5 and 6 seeds play a 9th game against another 5 or 6 seed.
This seeding is done via section record and coaches vote essentially.

A class is “full” at 48
Section from the top down.
The last class will be bigger than 48

Benefits.
Guarantees teams at least 2 games against non playoff teams.
Guarantees teams can play up to 3 games against teams they’re not assigned to to preserve rivalries. This also gives flexibility to play between classes.
This makes 2/3rd of schools have a degree of success they can sell to the community “made the playoffs”
Fixes MEA Wednesday, Tuesday, Saturday because one fewer round of playoffs in lower classes (wed/th, Fri, Fri)

Downfalls
Not all teams make playoffs
Not all sections created equal. In theory, A 4-4 (1-4) team could miss playoffs in one section while a 1-7 (1-4) team could be in a 3 way tie for 4th and make the playoffs in another.

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So how does that last class work with more than 48 teams?

Gopherwatcher said:

So how does that last class work with more than 48 teams?

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This is likely an issue in both the smallest 11 man class and the 9 man class.

Depends on how many teams but:
Sections will be more than 6.

So a section of 8 will have 7 games vs section and one self scheduled
A section of 7 will be paired with another section of 7.
Every team will play 8 games amongst those 14 teams and 6 of them will be against your section (2 vs other section).
A different set up could be done if a swap is agreed upon by 4 teams.


Not even sure who co-oped or opened or stopped playing football this year. But for the last two year cycle there were 58 9 man teams.

This means 9 man would’ve been 4 sections of 8 and 4 sections of 7. Each section of 7 would be paired with another odd numbered section for scheduling.

11 man football there were 244 teams in the last two year cycle.

Top 48 = class 1
Next 48 = class 2
Next 48 = class 3
Next 48 = class 4
Next 48 = class 5
Last 52 = class 6 (either 6 sections of 6 and 2 sections of 8 OR 4 sections of 6 and 4 sections of 7 paired with another section of 7).

This would mean in class 1-5 67% of teams would make playoff.
In class 6 62% of teams would make playoff
In 9 man 55% of teams would make playoff.



If the new numbers have an odd number of teams it will create and issue regardless of what system you use

Any system where not every team makes the post-season is an improvement for this state. My opinion!

GopherGrit said:

Any system where not every team makes the post-season is an improvement for this state. My opinion!

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Any system change would still require an extra regular season game. It floors me that the coaches, schools, and parents are still fine with playing 3 games in 10 days in many sections. Other states play 10 regular season games and we play 8+1 playoff.

MaxyJR1 said:

Any system change would still require an extra regular season game. It floors me that the coaches, schools, and parents are still fine with playing 3 games in 10 days in many sections. Other states play 10 regular season games and we play 8+1 playoff.

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And those games are late in the season with worn down kids.

Some guy said:

I have a secret plan to fix it all.

Your schedule is 5 in your section and self schedule 3 games. You can play a team from another class if 4 teams agree to play from another class to make the classes “whole”

Click to expand...

Herein lies the problem, and why 6A and district scheduling came to be, if I recall.
The biggest schools, (EP, Wayzata, Tonka, but mostly at the time EP) had a hard time scheduling teams. The example I always use was EP scheduling a home and home with a team from Winnipeg.

disco said:

Herein lies the problem, and why 6A and district scheduling came to be, if I recall.
The biggest schools, (EP, Wayzata, Tonka, but mostly at the time EP) had a hard time scheduling teams. The example I always use was EP scheduling a home and home with a team from Winnipeg.

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The 9 most "mega" programs should be required to play nobody but themselves. Problem solved!

But in some seriousness, why shouldn't it be let's say PL, Shak, EP, Edina, Tonka, Wayzata, MG, and ... two more? Lakevilles?

Very few if any other schools in the state match those in the combination of enrollment, football participation (youth program up through fresh/soph), and district average household income. I don't think the east side metro schools are on the same level.

GopherGrit said:

The 9 most "mega" programs should be required to play nobody but themselves. Problem solved!

But in some seriousness, why shouldn't it be let's say PL, Shak, EP, Edina, Tonka, Wayzata, MG, and ... two more? Lakevilles?

Very few if any other schools in the state match those in the combination of enrollment, football participation (youth program up through fresh/soph), and district average household income. I don't think the east side metro schools are on the same level.

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Because as mentioned before, the MSHSL requires a certain number in a class to have a tournament.

disco said:

Herein lies the problem, and why 6A and district scheduling came to be, if I recall.
The biggest schools, (EP, Wayzata, Tonka, but mostly at the time EP) had a hard time scheduling teams. The example I always use was EP scheduling a home and home with a team from Winnipeg.

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Correct
All of Minnesota high school football is broken because Eden Prairie and Wayzata cried

In this setup though. The 48 have to be scheduled within the 48 unless there is a 4 team deal. So mathematically someone would have to play them.

+

Wayzata and EP wouldn’t be in same section anymore.
So that’s one of the three
Tonka probably isn’t either
So that’s 2/3

What it could look like for 6A using this years top 48:
(I took two of teams 1-16, 2 teams 17-32, 2 teams 33-48 in each section and tried to balance geographically….dont worry about rivals splitting because your schedule is your 5 games vs section and self schedule 3)

Section 1 ((avg 24)
Rosemount - 12
Eagan - 13
East ridge - 18
Park - 24
Mayo - 35
Century - 44

Section 2 (avg 25)
Eden Praire - 6
Shakopee - 9
Lakeville North - 26
Lakeville South - 29
Park center - 38
Jefferson - 41

Section 3 (avg 25)
Prior lake - 4
Eastview - 15
Farmington - 17
Apple Valley - 32
Burnsville - 33
Two Rivers - 47

Section 4 (avg 26)
Stillwater -8
White Beak Lake - 10
Woodbury - 22
Moundsview - 27
Irondale - 42
St Paul Central - 45

Section 5 (avg 23)
Blaine - 3
STMA - 14
Roseville - 20
Forest Lake - 31
Spring Lake Park - 34
Coon Rapids - 37

Section 6 (avg 23)
Minnetonka - 2
Edina - 7
Moorhead - 23
Hopkins - 28
Brainerd - 36
Armstrong - 40

Section 7 (avg 26)
Champlin Park -5
Anoka -16
Osseo -21
Centennial - 19
Cambridge Isanti -46
Duluth East 48

Section 8 (avg 25)
Wayzata - 1
Maple Grove - 11
Rogers - 25
Andover - 30
Buffalo - 39
Elk River - 43


The strongest sections are the sections with teams 17-32 punching far above their weight (like Lakevilles and centennials)

The weakest are the sections where teams 1-32 are currently in maroon.

But even a team running the gauntlet.
Jefferson would play:
Eden Prairie
Shakopee
Lakeville N
Lakeville S

But they’d also play park center
3 self scheduled such as Hopkins, apple Valley, Burnsville, park, irondale etc

Jefferson is in the worst situations and they’d get 4 competitive games. + rather than lose to a 1 seed in the playoff they’d play another competitive game as a 9th game.

Their setup sucks for two years and probably wouldn’t make the playoff…but it gets resectioned every two years.


The only teams who probably have zero shot at the playoff the next two years would be St Paul Central, Rochester Century, park center, Jefferson, (maybe Hopkins and Brainerd depending how you feel about Armstrong and Moorhead).
And all those teams would get at least 4 competitive games per year if they self scheduled well

disco said:

Because as mentioned before, the MSHSL requires a certain number in a class to have a tournament.

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I'm only talking about regular season scheduling, nothing more. Whether it be "voluntary" or official, doesn't matter. Stick those nine in a district, conference, or whatever and have them play each other only during the regular season. No one else. I guess probably need 10 so that someone isn't on a bye week every week of the season. Champlin or Blaine to go with MG probably makes the most sense.

MaxyJR1 said:

Any system change would still require an extra regular season game. It floors me that the coaches, schools, and parents are still fine with playing 3 games in 10 days in many sections. Other states play 10 regular season games and we play 8+1 playoff.

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32 teams per class making the playoff is pretty much the only way to resolve the issue

I take that back. The other way would be to make scrimmage Saturday become week 1