Thanks everyone for the feedback on my alternative to the IHSA District Proposal. Edgy has been nothing but awesome in giving me a forum to share this plan. This is just one more reason why he is one of the best sports journalists in the business and why I am going on 15 years as a member of this site. I share the premium side subscription with a friend of mine and I can tell you that it is definitely worth the money so you should check it out for great recruiting info and a lot of other stuff.
Having said that, there were a lot of good suggestions and criticisms of my original plan this week so I wanted to do the best I could to address those.
First of all, I completely realize that this plan as currently written of course would have very little chance of actually being adopted by the IHSA. There are a ton of bureaucratic procedures they need to follow and they don't have the luxury like I do to simply make subjective decisions without the input of their membership.
I do know that there are some individuals with a connection to the IHSA that follow this site, so I would encourage them to feel free to steal any of my ideas and make them their own for the final district model that is set to roll out in 2021. I truly believe that I am proposing something that is within the spirit of what the IHSA and a majority of IHSA schools wish to accomplish with districts, while still attempting to keep the positives that come with our current football conference model.
However, I feel there are still major threats to the viability of high school football for many Illinois schools under the current district proposal as passed this December. This proposal is designed to address those threats.
Here are the first two changes regarding private schools that I have made based on feedback from this board to my original proposal. Thank you again for your input.
1. Complete reworking of the private school districting model. Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice will be placed geographically with non-private schools in 8A. 8A will not have any separate private districts. It will simply be 8 districts of 6 with the top 4 qualifying for the playoffs. As a result, Mt. Carmel, St. Rita, and Niles Notre Dame will be dropped down to 7A. The remainder of the private schools were placed based on enrollment, geography, and competitiveness reasons while still trying to preserve private schools playing each other during the regular season. I think this revised structure will work better than what I originally proposed.
2. There was criticism that while I officially eliminated the multiplier and the success factor for private schools, I was still unofficially imposing these on schools. This is true. I attempted to smooth this out in this revised proposal. Changes and notes you will see are as follows:
First for 8A...Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice stay in 8A for historical playoff pairing and enrollment reasons. Technically, it is hard to make a pure enrollment argument for any private school to be in 8A, however Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice seem to be the three schools that should always be associated with the highest playoff class in the state which is 8A.
As for 7A...Mt. Carmel and St. Rita drop down to 7A which is more in line with their actual enrollment. In addition, the IHSA enrollment figures for 2019-2021 will factor a lot heavier into this model than the previous one, so St. Patrick and St. Ignatius will now be in 7A and Carmel and Fenwick will be in 6A. Obviously, this can be changed if needed.
Next, Rockford Boylan was moved down from 7A to 5A. Geographically this works and it more fits their enrollment number. In addition to Rockford Boylan being placed with local public schools at their enrollment level, 5A ended up with an 8 team all-private district that seemed to work very well based on enrollment so I decided to create this district as well.
I also created two 6 team private school districts in 3A and 2A. This means that Immaculate Conception and Bishop McNamara will be playing 3A based on enrollment, but they both do raise a competitive balance concern by being placed so low.
As for the criticisms regarding Springfield Sacred Heart Griffin being placed too high in 5A, the current IHSA enrollment figures (with the multiplier which I am removing) have them placed in 6A for the next two years. I think a geographically fitting conference in 5A is more than appropriate.
I plan on posting the rationale for the rest of my changes and my revised districts very soon. Thanks for reading.
Having said that, there were a lot of good suggestions and criticisms of my original plan this week so I wanted to do the best I could to address those.
First of all, I completely realize that this plan as currently written of course would have very little chance of actually being adopted by the IHSA. There are a ton of bureaucratic procedures they need to follow and they don't have the luxury like I do to simply make subjective decisions without the input of their membership.
I do know that there are some individuals with a connection to the IHSA that follow this site, so I would encourage them to feel free to steal any of my ideas and make them their own for the final district model that is set to roll out in 2021. I truly believe that I am proposing something that is within the spirit of what the IHSA and a majority of IHSA schools wish to accomplish with districts, while still attempting to keep the positives that come with our current football conference model.
However, I feel there are still major threats to the viability of high school football for many Illinois schools under the current district proposal as passed this December. This proposal is designed to address those threats.
Here are the first two changes regarding private schools that I have made based on feedback from this board to my original proposal. Thank you again for your input.
1. Complete reworking of the private school districting model. Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice will be placed geographically with non-private schools in 8A. 8A will not have any separate private districts. It will simply be 8 districts of 6 with the top 4 qualifying for the playoffs. As a result, Mt. Carmel, St. Rita, and Niles Notre Dame will be dropped down to 7A. The remainder of the private schools were placed based on enrollment, geography, and competitiveness reasons while still trying to preserve private schools playing each other during the regular season. I think this revised structure will work better than what I originally proposed.
2. There was criticism that while I officially eliminated the multiplier and the success factor for private schools, I was still unofficially imposing these on schools. This is true. I attempted to smooth this out in this revised proposal. Changes and notes you will see are as follows:
First for 8A...Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice stay in 8A for historical playoff pairing and enrollment reasons. Technically, it is hard to make a pure enrollment argument for any private school to be in 8A, however Loyola, Marist, and Brother Rice seem to be the three schools that should always be associated with the highest playoff class in the state which is 8A.
As for 7A...Mt. Carmel and St. Rita drop down to 7A which is more in line with their actual enrollment. In addition, the IHSA enrollment figures for 2019-2021 will factor a lot heavier into this model than the previous one, so St. Patrick and St. Ignatius will now be in 7A and Carmel and Fenwick will be in 6A. Obviously, this can be changed if needed.
Next, Rockford Boylan was moved down from 7A to 5A. Geographically this works and it more fits their enrollment number. In addition to Rockford Boylan being placed with local public schools at their enrollment level, 5A ended up with an 8 team all-private district that seemed to work very well based on enrollment so I decided to create this district as well.
I also created two 6 team private school districts in 3A and 2A. This means that Immaculate Conception and Bishop McNamara will be playing 3A based on enrollment, but they both do raise a competitive balance concern by being placed so low.
As for the criticisms regarding Springfield Sacred Heart Griffin being placed too high in 5A, the current IHSA enrollment figures (with the multiplier which I am removing) have them placed in 6A for the next two years. I think a geographically fitting conference in 5A is more than appropriate.
I plan on posting the rationale for the rest of my changes and my revised districts very soon. Thanks for reading.
