Sports

Friday, November 1, 2002

Different feeling for first round


Football playoff quadrant system not well received by area coaches


By Jim Benson
Pantagraph staff

The high school football playoffs begin today.

Many coaches swear they can't tell the regular season actually ended.

The Illinois High School Association's decision to use four eight-team quadrants in each class -- based on geography instead of seeding all 32 teams -- has drawn heavy criticism from coaches in every part of the state.

In the first round, five Pantagraph area teams are playing teams from their leagues they've already faced. The prospect for similar matchups exist in the second and quarterfinal rounds.

The quadrant system, designed to limit travel and thus encourage more fan support, was voted by the principals and approved by the IHSA Board of Directors.

"I don't like it at all. There's nothing about it I like," said LeRoy coach Gary Tipsord.

In the past two years, LeRoy was in Class 3A because of its co-op with Tri-Valley. The Panthers played several teams from the south in the first couple rounds, including Carlinville, Anna-Jonesboro and Chester. Class 3A was split into two 16-team brackets, with teams seeded 1-16 in each bracket.

This year, LeRoy dropped to Class 1A. The Panthers face Danville Schlarman in Saturday's first round. LeRoy beat Schlarman 34-0 in a Sangamon Illini Football Alliance Blue Division game in the season's second week.

The possibility exists for LeRoy to play two other Blue Division opponents -- Fisher and Bismarck-Henning -- in the next two rounds.

"I think what we were doing before made a lot of sense," said Tipsord. "It was very good for us to be exposed to a lot of other teams. We didn't know what southern Illinois football was about until we made 3A and had to go south."

One of the Class 5A quadrants should be called the Corn Belt/Mid-Illini Tournament. Only one team, Mount Zion, doesn't play in either league.

Corn Belt champion Pontiac entertains league brother Olympia tonight. Pontiac could face another Corn Belt team, Mahomet-Seymour, next week. And in the quarterfinals, Pontiac and Mid-Illini champion Metamora could meet in a rematch of last week's regular-season finale.

Of course, Metamora might play Mid-Illini rival Morton next week. Morton begins its Mid-Illini tournament Saturday night when it hosts another league member, Canton.

"We prefer to play new people," said Morton coach Hal Chiodo. "It's a lot of fun and educational to go to new places. We've been to Riverside-Brookfield, Salem and Maple Park Kaneland since I've been here. Those are great memories, even if we didn't win a lot of those games."

Pontiac interim coach Dave Young agreed with Chiodo's assessment.

"You might have to travel some. But to me part of the fun is facing teams you have not seen, and to see a little bit of the state is nice," said Young. "The other system was better balanced. You definitely felt like going to the quarterfinals or semifinals, you were in kind of an elite group. With quadrants, all the strong teams can be in one quadrant."

Big 12 Conference and Intercity rivals Bloomington and Normal Community could square off in the quarterfinals. Using the previous seeding system, BHS would have been the No. 3 seed and NCHS No. 4.

In that scenario, they only could have met in the Class 6A championship game.

"It's nice as far as not having to travel and playing teams locally. It gives you a certain amount of familiarity, but at the same time it takes away a certain adrenaline of playing someone new and different," said BHS coach Rigo Schmelzer. "It's enticing playing someone outside your area.

"But it's done. I have other things to worry about like playing a ball game."

According to Tremont coach Lou Wicks, the coaches should stop complaining.

"The association (IHSA) put out information proposing these changes. We, as coaches, have to understand the principals are the voting members, and we have to do a better job educating the principals on what's best for our programs," said Wicks. "I feel we dropped the ball on that.

"If the (Illinois High School) Football Coaches Association would have let the principals' association know we're not happy with that ... the principals have the voting power (in the IHSA) and rightly so since they run our high schools. That's where we need to do a better job. They went through the normal process in the by-laws. We didn't react fast enough, and then it was too late."

Tipsord doesn't believe taking a long bus trip on a Saturday was that much of a hardship. He doesn't buy the cutting-the-travel theory.

"I think part of it is that every other sport is geography based. But in every other sport everyone qualifies and plays multiple contests through the course of the week. We don't do that," said Tipsord. "To me, that eliminates that argument."

PBL coach Jeff Graham is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"Let's go ahead and check it out and ask me afterwards," said Graham, whose team travels a couple hours to face Bureau Valley Saturday in a Class 3A contest.

"It doesn't make any difference to us. We still have to go a long way. I've heard both sides. We'll see how it works. You have to remember that I'm a first-year head coach. What do I have to compare it with? If we're successful, I'll think it's the greatest (system) ever."