New Statewide Playoff Format for High School Football

Article by: Robert Zeitz, Photo by: Nathaniel Weitzer
School has started again, and high school football resumes this weekend. East Boston will face Latin Academy Friday evening, and Brighton will be in action against Minuteman. Next week the rest of the City League as well as teams across Massachusetts will start their seasons.

The start of the season remains familiar, however the season will end very differently.

Last year the winners of City League North and City League South (Madison Park and Dorchester) each went to the playoffs. MP lost in triple OT in the Division 4A title game. Dorchester lost to Upper Cape in the D5 Super Bowl.

This year there's a new playoff format. More teams will qualify (160 total across the state), and there will be fewer State Championship games (only 6, compared to 19 last year). The playoff format is more like tournaments for other sports. And instead of regional state champions, the champions from different regions will meet in the final rounds of the playoff. All State Championship games will be played at Gillette Stadium.

Because of this larger playoff format, the regular season will end by October 27th. That's right, just 7 weeks from now.

Teams that don't qualify for the playoffs or get eliminated will still play games. There just won't be anything on the line.

This has me somewhat concerned as I think about City League football. Participation (or lack of it), especially in football, has been an issue for City League teams. With this new system, I can imagine City League teams losing players once the regular season is over. Teams once playing for playoff success will have to adjust to playing for wins to add to their total. With such a drop in motivation, how could there not also be a drop in participation?

I also worry that some kids will sign up to play, figuring that October 27th will be the end of their season. So instead of making the commitment to play out the full fall season, they'll only play slightly more than half of it.

Maybe the City League could do something to give teams something to play for after the regular season. Last year MP and Dorchester happened to play each other in what became an unofficial City Championship between North and South winners. Maybe the week after Thanksgiving the City League could stage a similar game. That would give an extra incentive for teams to play hard for their full schedule, and it would be a fun game to look forward to every season. And at least one City League team would end the season in celebration, every year.

There are City Champions in all the other sports. Maybe with this new scheduling system the City League can now have a football championship.

As far as the new state playoff format goes, time will tell. I do like the possibility of more City League teams being able to qualify for playoff football. And the expanded playoff format as a whole seems like a good idea. I'm still concerned about what has to be done in order to make it happen. And I'm worried that there will be a significant drop in players after Halloween.

We'll see.