Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

The number of teams to reach the playoffs won’t change for Iowa high school football teams this fall.  

It’s how those teams reach the postseason that will be a little different.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association announced in a news release on Wednesday it has approved a 16-team playoff field for all six classes and revealed a new qualifying system in which all nine regular seasons games count towards playoff qualification.

“Player safety is the number one priority,” Iowa High School Athletics Association executive director Alan Bester said in a release. “And we are also committed to playing early round postseason games on Friday nights. Keeping 16 qualifiers per class allows for maximum recovery time between games and maintains high school’s Friday night tradition.”

There was discussion of expanding the playoff field back to a 32-team format used from 2008 to 2015 or even a 24-team field.

Instead the state elected to keep the number of playoff qualifiers at 16 which has been the setting for the past two seasons.

The 16-team bracket was met with approval by West High head coach Garrett Hartwig.

“I like the 16-team bracket,” Hartwig said. “There was debate to go to maybe 24 and I think 16 is good, I think you can find the best 16 teams.”

The most significant changes announced on Wednesday center around how teams will qualify for the playoffs.

All district champions, including first-place ties, will receive automatic playoff bids under the new qualifying format.

Additional playoff ‘wildcard’ teams will be determined by a RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) formula that weights teams winning percentage as well as the winning percentage of opponents and teams opponents have played.

The RPI formula does not factor teams playing opponents from larger or smaller classes which raised questions from Hartwig.

“I don’t know how the RPI system is going to work, I understand the formula but they are allowing cross-level play to factor into the RPI and I don’t know how that can be entirely accurate,” Hartwig said. “They are allowing out of state competition which I don’t know how that can be complete evaluated either.”

Two-time defending Class 1A runner-up Regina has made a habit of playing larger schools under head coach Marv Cook.

Last season the Regals played a pair of 3A semifinals in Solon and Cedar Rapids Xavier.

Cook said he’d like to see the RPI account for out of class games but the system won’t change much with how Regina goes about its business.

“At the end of the day if you are playing good teams and you lose to a good team and they have a good season it doesn’t hurt you so I think they are moving in the right direction,” Cook said. “I do think it would be nice if there was a balance on the bigger and smaller schools playing and right now there isn’t.”

The number of districts and teams per district were tweaked in the new system.  

Class 4A will consist of seven, six-team districts with each team playing four non-district games.

In Class 3A, 2A and 1A, there will be nine districts of six teams with four non-district contests per school.

Class A will feature 10 districts of either six or seven teams while 8-player is divided into eight districts with eight or nine teams.

Last season 3A, 2A and 1A teams played seven district games.

Cook likes the flexibility that comes with being able to play four non-district games.

“I like it, I think it solves a lot of the issues and hopefully we get back to some natural rivalries,” Cook said. “It allows each team to have four games where they can try to go out and get games with great gates and conscessions and give each sports program a hot in the arm financially a little bit.

The IHSAA also allowed the playing of out-of-state games on Wednesday and will release district pairings on Thursday.

Regardless of playoff size or qualifying format Hartwig says the opportunity to reach the postseason via district championship remains the same and will continue to be the focus of his team.

West High is 22-4 over the past two seasons while finishing runner-up in Class 4A each season.

“Our priority is to control what we can control and that’s winning our district,” Hartwig said. “That’s been our focus from day one and that will continue to be our focus.”

2018-2019 Football Districts

(Area Teams Only)

Class 4A District 4 (2017 Record)

City High (2-7)

West High (12-1)

Davenport North (3-6)

Linn-Mar (2-7)

Muscatine (2-7)

Pleasant Valley (7-3)

Class 3A District 5

Clear Creek Amana (3-6)

Liberty High (N/A)

Davenport Assumption (8-3)

Central DeWitt (1-8)

Clinton (3-6 in 4A)

North Scott (9-2 in 4A)

Class 3A District 6

Solon (11-1)

Fairfield (2-7)

Fort Madison (4-5)

Keokuk (0-9)

Mount Pleasant (6-3)

Washington (8-2)

Class 1A District 4

West Branch (9-1)

Dyersville Beckman

Bellevue (8-2)

Cascade (10-1 in 2A)

North Cedar (1-8)

Northeast (1-8 in 2A)

Class 1A District 6

Regina (10-3)

Dike New-Hartford (6-4 in 2A)

East Marshall (5-4 in 2A)

Jesup (0-10)

North Linn (5-4 in A)

South Hardin (1-8 in 2A)