Non-Friday Games

 

This coming Friday is always my least favorite week of the football season. Beginning in 2011, almost every school in the area began to take the exact same bye week – NFHS Week 07 – which corresponds to the fall break of most of the schools. It’s not that I don’t understand the appeal of not having the game, it’s just frustrating that every single school takes off during that time meaning you have very little options as to what to watch. South Warren pretty much stands alone in throwing a bone to the area, scheduling a game during that week in each of their three years of existence. What I miss about the staggered bye weeks is that when your team was off, you could pick another game to watch, picking from several to figure out the best. It’s no fun if you’re pigeon-holed into the only one available. I suppose it works out if the team you follow is South Warren – they have tons of options available to them since almost every other team is playing during their bye week (whenever that might be).

 

But tangentially the frustration of that makes me think about something else I wish there were more of around here – games on nights other than just Friday. Last Thursday Bowling Green visited Logan County, and that provided an opportunity for someone like me to at least listen to the game instead of focusing on what I’m normally doing while Warren Central plays. I remember in 2009 Greenwood and Warren Central moved their game up from a Friday to a Thursday due to weather, and the atmosphere was as good as any non-Bowling Green game I can remember for Central. Some people just enjoy watching football and especially love the opportunity to watch or follow more than one game in a single week. The first two weeks of the season with the bowls are a blast for that with the grouping of games on both Friday and Saturdays. I look at the schedule each week and there are a modest number of games that take place on Thursday night or Saturday mornings.

 

So why don’t more schedule on an “off”-night? Are coaches trying to prevent another school from coming to scout them? Is it a desire not to fight with other events that might be taking place? A desire to not have a game before a school day – something almost every sport does? Not wanting to face a short week on one side or the other? By that token, why not change up the scheduling heading into a bye week as Bowling Green did? It just seems a shame that in the small amount of weeks we have to enjoy football that we can’t fit in even more than we already do. Am I alone on this island?

Non-Friday Games

So why don’t more schedule on an “off”-night? Are coaches trying to prevent another school from coming to scout them? Is it a desire not to fight with other events that might be taking place? A desire to not have a game before a school day – something almost every sport does? Not wanting to face a short week on one side or the other? By that token, why not change up the scheduling heading into a bye week as Bowling Green did? It just seems a shame that in the small amount of weeks we have to enjoy football that we can’t fit in even more than we already do. Am I alone on this island?

 

I will tell you that if I ever played a HS football game on a Thursday, you would not see me or any of friends at school that Friday morning, possibly the entire day. You need a day of recovery/relaxation and school is not the place to accomplish either.