Expanded football playoff has multiple approval steps

A proposal to expand the playoffs for Connecticut high school football was moved forward to the vetting process by the CIAC football committee at its May meeting.

Hamden Athletic Director Tom Dyer, who serves as the CHSCA (Connecticut High School Coaches Association) representative to the CIAC football committee, confirmed that the football committee has moved the proposal to be vetted by the CIAC member superintendents, principals, athletic directors and the sports medicine committee.

Once vetted by the different committees the proposal must be approved by the CIAC Board of Control — a group of school superintendents, principals, athletic directors, and consultants.

Dyer, who is also the Hamden football coach, gave the proposal on behalf of the CHSCA in April.

“Ultimately, it’s about competitive balance and it gives teams a chance to grow their program,” Dyer said.

Currently, teams usually have to win 70-80-percent of their games to have a chance to make the postseason. In sports like baseball, softball, boys and girls basketball, team’s only have to win 40-percent of their games, and in some sports even less in the “fill-in-thebracket” model the CIAC adopted in 2017.

“If you start the season

0-2, the kid’s kind of know that they probably won’t go the playoffs,” he said.

Dyer mentioned the 2017 Foran baseball team that entered the Class L tournament as the last seed in the tournament as an example. Foran went 7-13 and made made the tournament because of the “fill-in-thebracket” model, which allows sports to fill the bracket to 32 teams if not enough teams won 40percent of their games.

The Lions ended up winning the Class L state championship.

“That’s what high school sports is about,” Dyer said.

He added that if you give more teams a chance to make the playoffs, more kids will come out to play and coaches can build their programs.

In 2018, Connecticut high school football participation dropped for the third straight year and fell to its lowest level in 15 years.

The proposal wouldn’t interfere with the regular season schedule set up or with Thanksgiving games.

Currently football has four divisions — Class LL, L, M and S. The proposal, which could be in place as early as the 2022-23 season, would add classes for MM and SS divisions.

Each division would have eight teams make the playoffs, increasing the number of state playoff teams from 36 to 48 — the highest number of teams in the playoffs since the CIAC added state football playoffs in 1976.

It would also be the first time since the 2014 season, when the CIAC used a one-year model of eight divisions to align itself with new medical recommendations over contact, that there would be more than four divisions.