Prep football schedule scenarios tossed around
Decisions loom on how many games, playoffs
A majority of the state’s high school football coaches want some sort of playoff for this abbreviated 2021 season.
But what shape will it take? The coaches on Friday met with the New Mexico Activities Association to offer feedback and input for a possible blueprint.
Two options that were floated during Friday’s meeting:
■ Play five games with no playoffs, or;
■ Play three or four regular-season games, with either a one-game or twogame postseason.
“Those are two options out there; we could end up doing something completely different,” NMAA Associate Director Dusty Young said.
The coaches during the Friday meeting voted — the survey was an information tool only — that a resolution to the season would be the preferable option.
“So we will have an opportunity to play for a blue trophy,” said Cleveland High coach Heath Ridenour, whose Storm won the most recent Class 6A title on Nov. 30, 2019.
The most important aspect to any format is that all schools be afforded the chance to play the same number of games. Questions far outnumber answers for the moment.
“I don’t know what’s going to pan out; there’s too much left unsaid,” said Albuquerque High coach Tim Johnson. “It boils down to … what each individual school district is going to allow. Before we honestly get to a for
mat of trying to figure out a season, we’re gonna have to figure out who’s gonna do what.”
The status of Albuquerque Public Schools’ 13 football-playing programs remains somewhat up in the air, as APS is making efforts to get students safely back into classrooms as soon as possible. The Public Education Department said earlier this week that no school can take part in an NMAA sport unless it has shifted to a hybrid learning model.
“It’s a very big concern,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said.
There are many coaches who would like to find a way to play a game the first week back, the week of Feb. 22, the first day NMAA-sanctioned activities would be permitted if schools have safely instituted a hybrid learning model. Hypothetically, this could bump everyone up to six games from five. Coaches believe if teams are allowed to get into helmets and shoulder pads immediately, a Week 1 contest scheduled on Feb. 26 or Feb. 27 is viable.
“Six games is the one everyone wants to do,” Back said. “But it depends on whether we can play that first week. I think you’re always trying to play for a goal, and that gives these kids a little bit stronger buy-in. (But) there are so many hurdles to cover right now.”
Indeed, the six-game option is an extreme long shot, and unlikely to be implemented.
If it were, Ridenour’s outline was this: three regular-season games, and then classes could be “thrown into some form of a (eight-team playoff) bracket.”
The top eight, he said, could be placed in a championship bracket, with the next eight in a consolation bracket. But among many complications, this proposition has one glaring kink: there are more than 16 football-playing schools in all the 11-man classifications except Class 2A, which has exactly 16.
A five-game season, which is the most likely outcome, could go one of two ways: four regular-season games, and then a single postseason game, or three regular-season games. In the latter scenario, schools could be separated into mini-brackets of four teams apiece, with the top four in a two-round championship bracket. This option would also have to calculate how to account for an odd number of schools.
“At this point,” Johnson said, “we’ll take anything. … This is irregular. We cannot try to approach it with any type of normalcy. We’ve got to the roll with the punches.”
This sentiment courses strongly through the veins of New Mexico’s coaching fraternity.
“I wanna see my kids on the field,” Capitan football coach Justin Foust said. “If we can get three games, four games, five games, I don’t care. And I’ve talked to our kids. They don’t care. As many games as we can fit in.”
Foust said he likes the idea of one final game, a bowl-type atmosphere that pairs schools off and could even include a special trophy for the winner.
“Playoffs? I don’t see how we can do that in five weeks,” he said. “How are you gonna figure out who should be in (the playoffs) with only three games?”
The NMAA has another board of directors meeting on Monday morning, and they are expected to vote on the NMAA’s proposed sports calendar. They tabled a vote on this topic last Wednesday. One of the discussion items on Monday revolves around state championships.
For football, whenever it resumes, the consensus is that it’s probably not going to look pristine at the start.
“I would rather play ugly football,” Centennial coach Aaron Ocampo said. “We can get our kids in shape enough to handle playing football, but it may be ugly. But at least they’re playing.”
Said Back: “Whatever they (the NMAA) choose, there’s gonna be a giant asterisk next to it.”