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The WIAA
Board of Control approved a recommendation to have
football coaches seed teams, within their Regional
groupings, starting with the 2012 Playoffs, it was
announced following their winter meeting on Jan. 25,
2012.
Those seeding
meetings will take place on the Saturday morning after
the final regular season games. The approved plan
also has two key, new elements:
(1) It eliminates the requirement that teams avoid
playing teams from their same conference in the first
round, a step that should reduce extensive travel during
the early rounds and bring football in line with other
sports, and ,
(2) It includes that the higher seeded team
will now host Level 3 games in all situations, unless a
neutral site is required. Previously, a lower
seeded team would host a L3 game if it had not hosted as
often in Levels 1 and 2 as its L3 opponent.
Also, the
Board voted unanimously a proposed plan to return to a 9-game
regular season starting in 2013 -- after going to 8
games this coming fall to avoid an Aug. 1 start date for
practices. A proposal to return to 9 games in 2012
was defeated.
AD-HOC
COMMITTEE PLAN GOES BY WAYSIDE
A special
ad-hoc committee had been considering various plans,
including some complex
proposals, to preserve 9 games for all schools without
starting practice early in August. But, many coaches
could not agree to any of those ideas, so the Board
decided to maintain a 9-game season and deal with
calendar issues, as they relate to the start of
practice, as they become known.
After some
displeasure over the early start to the 2011 football
season, Wade Labecki of the WIAA said coaches determined
after the season that it was not as much of a hardship
as they thought. Labecki said this fall's 8-game
season will be an important test for the WIAA to
determine if similar adjustments can be made in future
years when the calendar dictates that practice must
start during the first few days of August.
OTHER
IMPORTANT CHANGES
Also approved
was a recommendation for coaches to conduct fitness
testing in conjunction with equipment handout on the day
before the first practice. It also lifted the
requirement of 9 days of practice before a scrimmage can
be scheduled, due to an officials shortage, so that
teams have the option of scheduling scrimmages on Friday
and not only on Saturday.
The Board
also re-affirmed that Saturday should be the default day
for Playoff games, with Friday being an option if both
schools agree. There was discussion about
reversing that to avoid conflicts with college football.
8-PLAYER
FOOTBALL IS NOW RECOGNIZED AS WIAA SPORT
The Board
also voted to add 8-player football as a WIAA-recognized
sport. About 15 schools have indicated they will
play 8-player football this coming fall, but it is expected
that number may grow to more than 20 by a May 1 deadline
for declaring that intention. An eight-team
"jamboree" will be played this fall opposite
the Level 3 11-player football Playoff games. The
WIAA will seek a centrally located site with artificial
turf.
READ
MORE - ON THE WIAA WEB SITE
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