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Massachusetts high school football might be hopping on the Super 8 train.
The possibility of adding a Division 1A "elite" tournament to the sport's playoff structure took a big step forward on Thursday, May 14 when the MIAA Football Committee voted 13-4 in favor of the proposal during a virtual meeting.
This news comes on the heels of the MIAA Board of Directors' decision on May 13 to approve Super 8 tournaments for baseball (starting with the 2027 spring season) and boys and girls ice hockey (beginning with the 2027-28 winter season). Boys hockey staged Super 8 tournaments from 1991-2020, and baseball ran them from 2014-19. This will be the first time for a girls hockey Super 8.
The football version of the Super 8, which would only draw teams from Division 1 and Division 2, still must be approved by the MIAA Tournament Management Committee. If they sign off on it, it would go to the Board of Directors for a vote.
The plan, if approved, would start with the 2027 season.
"They have already approved Super 8s (for other sports), so I don't know why they wouldn't approve this one," Milton High coach Steve Dembowski said.
MIAA spokesperson Jim Clark said he did not know when the TMC would consider the proposal, noting only that it was not on the agenda for the committee's next meeting on May 20.
Dembowski, a former president of the state coaches association, voted in favor of the proposal even though he has mixed feelings about it. "I think it's a Band-Aid to where we need to get to," said Dembowski, the coaches' representative to the Football Committee, "but it's probably the next step to improve it and try to give all teams that play football a quality regular season."
The proposed football Super 8 would be part of a larger plan that reimagines the calendar and cuts the divisional playoff fields in half -- from 16 teams per division to eight. That would reduce the overall playoff field from 128 teams (16 teams from each of the eight divisions in the current setup) to 72 (eight teams from each of the nine divisions, including the new 1A bracket).
Teams that don't qualify for the playoffs would have just one week of consolation games instead of two. Also, the current rule that teams must win at least three games to qualify for the playoffs would be scrapped.
Teams would play a nine-week regular season, at which time the top eight teams from Div. 1/Div. 2, using the MIAA's power-rating system, would be grouped into the Div. 1A tournament. Teams from Div. 3-8 would not be eligible.
The rest of the football schedule would look like this:
Week 10 -- First-round playoff games, plus consolation games
Week 11 -- Divisional Final Fours
Week 12 -- Thanksgiving games
Week 13 -- Nine state finals (Div. 1A, plus regular Div. 1-8 games)
If the Super 8 had been staged last season, based on the power rankings the field would have featured the top six teams from Div. 1 (St. John's Prep, Springfield Central, Xaverian, Natick, Central Catholic and Wachusett) plus the top two teams from Div. 2 (Catholic Memorial as the No. 4 seed and Bishop Feehan as the No. 5 seed). Bridgewater-Raynham, which was the third-ranked team in Div. 2, would have lost out on a bid by a razor-thin margin.
Xaverian has won the last three Div. 1 Super Bowls, and Catholic Memorial has won four of the last five Div. 2 Super Bowls. Over the past five seasons, only two public schools have won Div. 1 or Div. 2 crowns -- King Philip (Div. 2 in 2023) and Springfield Central (Div. 1 in 2021).
"It incorporates a lot of things that we've asked for in the past," Dembowsi said of the football Super 8 plan. "The coaches who voted in our survey are 65 percent in favor of it, so I voted for it on behalf of the association.
"Personally, I'm concerned (with some aspects of it). The Super 8 makeup is designed to handle the dominance of the private schools, particularly the Catholic Conference. But I'm concerned that there's not a lot of detail to the plan in terms of (how we handle) some Division 2 public schools that do well and have a great season and would be caught up in (playing Div. 1 powers in the Super 8).
"I would have preferred that we had more time to dive into it before taking a vote today."
In other football news, coaches are unhappy about the MIAA Board of Directors' decision to decline the Football Committee's request to push the start of this year's preseason back to Friday, Aug. 21. Practices are scheduled to start on Monday, Aug. 24.
With Rosh Hashanah falling on Sept. 11, the first Friday of games, some schools might opt to play their season openers on Thursday, Sept. 10. Since Sunday practices are not allowed, that would leave the exact minimum required 15 days of practice before a Thursday opener. As the New England Football Journal pointed out, "If any team is unable to practice for a day, or any individual misses a practice, they would be ineligible to play Thursday, Sept. 10."
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: MIAA Football Committee supports Super 8 proposal beginning in 2027
Continue reading...
The possibility of adding a Division 1A "elite" tournament to the sport's playoff structure took a big step forward on Thursday, May 14 when the MIAA Football Committee voted 13-4 in favor of the proposal during a virtual meeting.
This news comes on the heels of the MIAA Board of Directors' decision on May 13 to approve Super 8 tournaments for baseball (starting with the 2027 spring season) and boys and girls ice hockey (beginning with the 2027-28 winter season). Boys hockey staged Super 8 tournaments from 1991-2020, and baseball ran them from 2014-19. This will be the first time for a girls hockey Super 8.
The football version of the Super 8, which would only draw teams from Division 1 and Division 2, still must be approved by the MIAA Tournament Management Committee. If they sign off on it, it would go to the Board of Directors for a vote.
The plan, if approved, would start with the 2027 season.
"They have already approved Super 8s (for other sports), so I don't know why they wouldn't approve this one," Milton High coach Steve Dembowski said.
MIAA spokesperson Jim Clark said he did not know when the TMC would consider the proposal, noting only that it was not on the agenda for the committee's next meeting on May 20.
Dembowski, a former president of the state coaches association, voted in favor of the proposal even though he has mixed feelings about it. "I think it's a Band-Aid to where we need to get to," said Dembowski, the coaches' representative to the Football Committee, "but it's probably the next step to improve it and try to give all teams that play football a quality regular season."
The proposed football Super 8 would be part of a larger plan that reimagines the calendar and cuts the divisional playoff fields in half -- from 16 teams per division to eight. That would reduce the overall playoff field from 128 teams (16 teams from each of the eight divisions in the current setup) to 72 (eight teams from each of the nine divisions, including the new 1A bracket).
Teams that don't qualify for the playoffs would have just one week of consolation games instead of two. Also, the current rule that teams must win at least three games to qualify for the playoffs would be scrapped.
Teams would play a nine-week regular season, at which time the top eight teams from Div. 1/Div. 2, using the MIAA's power-rating system, would be grouped into the Div. 1A tournament. Teams from Div. 3-8 would not be eligible.
The rest of the football schedule would look like this:
Week 10 -- First-round playoff games, plus consolation games
Week 11 -- Divisional Final Fours
Week 12 -- Thanksgiving games
Week 13 -- Nine state finals (Div. 1A, plus regular Div. 1-8 games)
If the Super 8 had been staged last season, based on the power rankings the field would have featured the top six teams from Div. 1 (St. John's Prep, Springfield Central, Xaverian, Natick, Central Catholic and Wachusett) plus the top two teams from Div. 2 (Catholic Memorial as the No. 4 seed and Bishop Feehan as the No. 5 seed). Bridgewater-Raynham, which was the third-ranked team in Div. 2, would have lost out on a bid by a razor-thin margin.
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Xaverian has won the last three Div. 1 Super Bowls, and Catholic Memorial has won four of the last five Div. 2 Super Bowls. Over the past five seasons, only two public schools have won Div. 1 or Div. 2 crowns -- King Philip (Div. 2 in 2023) and Springfield Central (Div. 1 in 2021).
"It incorporates a lot of things that we've asked for in the past," Dembowsi said of the football Super 8 plan. "The coaches who voted in our survey are 65 percent in favor of it, so I voted for it on behalf of the association.
"Personally, I'm concerned (with some aspects of it). The Super 8 makeup is designed to handle the dominance of the private schools, particularly the Catholic Conference. But I'm concerned that there's not a lot of detail to the plan in terms of (how we handle) some Division 2 public schools that do well and have a great season and would be caught up in (playing Div. 1 powers in the Super 8).
"I would have preferred that we had more time to dive into it before taking a vote today."
Season start date controversy
In other football news, coaches are unhappy about the MIAA Board of Directors' decision to decline the Football Committee's request to push the start of this year's preseason back to Friday, Aug. 21. Practices are scheduled to start on Monday, Aug. 24.
With Rosh Hashanah falling on Sept. 11, the first Friday of games, some schools might opt to play their season openers on Thursday, Sept. 10. Since Sunday practices are not allowed, that would leave the exact minimum required 15 days of practice before a Thursday opener. As the New England Football Journal pointed out, "If any team is unable to practice for a day, or any individual misses a practice, they would be ineligible to play Thursday, Sept. 10."
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: MIAA Football Committee supports Super 8 proposal beginning in 2027
Continue reading...
