Viewpoint: The high school football playoff format
How would you change the current playoff format of 32 playoffs teams per classification for high school football?
Marist coach Alan Chadwick: I'm not in favor of more playoff games. In the old days, back in the 1970s and 1980s, you used to have to play 13 games to make it to the state championship. Then we went to 15 games, and that's enough games for a high school kid to play in one season. Then, there's going in the other direction, with 16 teams making the playoffs. That's not going to fly because of the economic advantage of having more teams in the playoffs and generating revenue, so that's a moot point talking about that. I like it just how it is now. I think if you took a vote of high school football coaches, they would be fine with current system of 32 teams. It's about as fair as you're going to get.
M.L. King coach Mike Carson: Right now, you have 32 teams, and I don't know if you want to go any higher because you're talking about prolonging the season. If you did go to more than 32, you'd have to look at cutting into your 10-game regular season, and I wouldn't be in favor of that. Now if you cut the number of playoff spots from 32 to 16, that would make it very interesting because you'd have a lot of good teams with one or two losses that wouldn't make it in. That's where we are right now, with one loss in the region, and I would hate doing it like that because we'd probably miss the playoffs because Newnan beat us head-to-head for the tiebreaker. I like it just how it is at 32 and wouldn't make any changes.
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