Memo on 2014-15 football

Iowa Prep Sports has received copy of an email from the Iowa High School Athletic Association to school athletics directors (sent at 10:18 this morning), regarding football for 2014 and 2015:

The district assignments for football for Classes 4A  through 8-Player will be available for viewing on the IHSAA website under Football at (noon Thursday).

Class 4A will have 46 schools Class 3A will have 56 schools Class 2A will have 56 schools Class 1A will have 56 schools Class  A will have 62 schools 8-Man will have 64 schools

1.      a. Please note that only the teams in your district are listed.  Actual schedules will be released at a later date. b. For classes 3A, 2A, and 1A, your bye week opponent is not listed, will use a combination of geography and your priority list to determine the non-district opponent. c. No weekly schedule is available at this time. Nor are home and away games available.  Each team will be guaranteed 9 home games over the two year cycle.  Make sure to click the box if you share your facility with another school so we can provide each schedule appropriately. 1. For Class 4A, you will have non-district contests during weeks 1-4.

2. For Classes 3A, 2A, and 1A, you will have a bye week contest sometime during weeks 3-9.  One team in your district will play a non-district game during weeks 3-9.

3. For Class A, district games will be held during weeks 3-9.  There are two 7 team district which will have a a bye each week during weeks 3-9.  We have placed those district side by side so that a cross-over game will occur during weeks 3-9.

4. For Class 8-Player, after much discussion and deliberation the IHSAA will assign all your non-district  contests for you.  Do to the inability to be able to play an 11 player school, the IHSAA is concerned that schools may be left out of the process and unable to find non-district opponents due to only having 63 other schools to choose from.  I realize that earlier correspondence indicated the possibility of you choosing your non-district opponents, we feel that in order to guarantee all a 9 game schedule, we need to assign the non-district games.

2.  For Classes 4A  through A, your most important task now is to complete your priority list for non-district games to be played weeks 1-4 for 4A, and weeks 1 and 2 for 3-A through A.  Please rank the schools in order of priority for who you want to play during those non-district weeks.  It is important that communication take place between schools and that you are assured that each school wants to play each other.  Every effort will be made to make sure that those schools that put each other #1 on their priority lists will be matched up.  Class 4A will have 6 choices for their priority list, while Classes 3-A through A will have 5 choices for their priority.  Just a reminder that you are choosing your priority of who you want to play, not the week that the game will be played.  The IHSAA will determine the week the game is to be played.  Just a reminder that if you put someone on your list, you are stating that you would be interested in playing them, so make sure you are comfortable with your priority list.  The priority list will be available at 12 PM today for you to begin the process.  It will close at midnight on Sunday, February 2nd.

THE NON-DISTRICT PRIORITY LIST WILL BE AVAILABLE BEGINNING AT 12:00 PM ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 23RD AND WILL CLOSE ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND MIDNIGHT. THE LINK IS AVAILABLE ON THE MEMBER SCHOOL LINK AT THIS TIME, HOWEVER, YOU WILL NOT FIND ANY SCHOOLS FROM YOUR CLASSIFICATION LISTED AS WE ARE NOT PREPARED TO PROVIDE THE DISTRICT THAT EACH SCHOOL IS IN.  DO NOT LIST YOUR SCHOOLS UNTIL AFTER 12 PM TODAY.

The IHSAA will not assign hosts to have district football meetings.  These are to be done on your own at the discretion of the respective district.  I would recommend that after the district assignments are released today, that a meeting be scheduled with your district teams to discuss a variety of issues from admission prices to curtain-raisers, to passes, to district awards.  I have a complete agenda for you if you are interested in having a meeting.  We cannot recommend or endorse that this meeting take place during the school day, but I would recommend that a meeting take place.

Now, let's talk about some of the items that were approved yesterday and the impact it will have on our schools.

1.  Obviously, the major item is in regards to the game schedule.  For the next two years, there will be a 9 game schedule starting with the first competition date of August 28th and practice starting on Monday, August 11th.  The post season schedule will be Wednesday, October 29th, Monday, November 3rd, Friday, November 7th, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, November 13-15, and Thursday and Friday, November 20-21.  At this time, we are not anticipating any Week 0 contests according to the teams we have now.  This could change if any schools decide to drop their football programs.

2.  The biggest change will be in regards to how the post season match-ups are determined.  Based on a recommendation from the Football Advisory Committee, sister district assignments have been eliminated and a 125 mile limitation has been reinstated for travel in Classes 8 player through Class 3A.  There will still be criteria in which a district champion will play the district fourth place team in the first round and the district second place team will play the district third place team in the first round and the district champions will not meet until the quarterfinals, however, the mileage aspect will come into affect and the slight potential of playing the same team from your district could occur.  Post season assignments will be made after each round and there will not be a bracket for viewing.For example:  District 1 Champion plays the District 2 4th place team in the first round at the same time The District 1 Runner-Up may play the District 3 third place team in the first round as well.  In the second round, the District 1 Champion may play the District 3 Runner-up and then play the District 4 champion in the quarterfinals.

3.  Another recommendation that was approved was allowing up to four teams to be at a scrimmage site, with each team only being allowed to scrimmage one other team.  All current scrimmage rules would remain in affect.  This would allow schools that share a facility to both be able to use that facility on the same night.  Cedar Rapids, Washington could scrimmage another school at Kingston Stadium and Cedar Rapids, Jefferson could scrimmage a different school at Kingston Stadium on the same night.

4.  The final recommendation that was approved deals with the amount of practice time per day during the 14 day acclimitization period.  The one practice per day was extended to no more than fours during the heat acclimitization period, with no more than three hours of physical activity allowed.  The key is still you cannot bring your student-athletes in twice a day, but it does allow you to have class time before and/or after the physical contact.I will continue to update you throughout the winter and spring on these issues.