IHSA considering new district high school football playoff format. Here’s what we know

Jonathan Duncan
·2 min read

For the second time in five years, a proposed district playoff system format for Illinois high school football is going before a vote of the IHSA Board of Directors.

The IHSA announced Tuesday that it has advanced 14 proposals from its legislative body. Proposal 18 centers on the addition of district football playoffs.

“I anticipate that the voting on Proposal 18, the Football District Proposal, will be very close once again, as it was in 2018 when it passed by 17 votes,” IHSA Executive Director Dr. Craig Anderson said in a statement Wednesday. “There are myriad issues that are the impetus for this proposal, and they impact each IHSA member school in a variety of different ways.”

Some of those issues include threats to longstanding conference traditions and rivalries. Others hope the format will help solve scheduling or competitive issues.

Under the current proposal, there would form eight districts statewide in each of eight enrollment classes. Schools would play district games from week 3 through week 9 of the regular season with the top four schools in each district eligible for the IHSA postseason.

Each school would be allowed to schedule and play two non-district games per season. Those schedules would be set by IHSA.

But there’s no single solution, Anderson said.

“If the proposal passes, our staff will work as efficiently and transparently as possible to confirm member school football participation for the 2024 season, and then create classification cutoffs and district assignments based on that information,” he said. “If the proposal fails, we will continue to work with our membership on ways we can improve high school football in Illinois.”

This marks the second time the proposal has been put to a vote. It was previously approved by IHSA member schools in 2018 and set to go into effect in 2021 but schools rescinded the vote in 2019.

Voting on the proposal begins on Dec. 4 and will conclude on Dec. 18 with final results to be announced on Dec. 19.

A simple majority of IHSA members schools is all that is needed to pass the proposal and it would then go into effect on July 1, 2024, in time go into effect for the 2024 season.