I like the system just the way it is! If any change is contemplated it would be to insure more even distribution of East-West teams based on geography to prevent the Beechwood Mayfield fiascoes of years past. Dividing the state into geographical quarters makes a lot of sense.

Nice thought but not at all practical. You use Lexinton or EKU as possible examples in the east. Apply last years and this years semi final to that equation and see if there are any issues.

 

I think you would need to look at how the classes are divided geographically, the example I gave was for 2A and in 2A a Bowling Green area and Lexington Area Game would be pretty neutral for that class.

I like the system we have now, and I strongly suspect it is the most cost efficient method, which in-turn would return the most money to the participating schools. I also think it is a pretty fair method by alternating years between the odd/even regions hosting.

 

The way it is now, the travel costs for the visiting team are paid out of the gate receipts first, along with other game expenses, and the remainder is split between the two schools. Those figures are reported to the KHSAA, and are available for review on the KHSAA website if you want to see them. I don't know if there is a formula for calculating the travel costs or not, but there should be. If the visitor wants to travel first class, above and beyond the "normal" costs, then it should come out of their pocket, IMO.

 

I have looked at those reports before and it seems like some teams pay the game expenses first, then split the rest of the money between the two schools and let the visiting team pay their own travel costs. Maybe that is by mutual agreement, I don't know.

 

The KHSAA does not get a cut of any money for playoff games except the state finals.

 

If you have both teams traveling to a neutral site, I can't help but think that would be more costly than having one team travel a bit longer distance.

For those who think playing the semifinal at one team's home field is an inequality issue, it is a valid concern, but consider the way Georgia does it.

 

They may have changed it but just a few years ago it was like this.

 

The semifinal's were all played in Atlanta in the dome. It was a big weekend long event, a neutral site, fairly centrally located. To me that sounds great and would provide a chance to really showcase high school football.

 

BUT...

 

The following week, the championship games were played at the home field of the higher ranked team in each class. :scared:

 

I can't imagine that. Just awful if you ask me.

It's a 4 1/2 trip by car from Wayne Co. to Paducah, add another 45 minutes or so by bus, and it seems rather unfair for a team to have to travel that far to play such a big game. If Bell Co. or Tilghman had to travel to the other to play, they would be looking at a 7 hour bus ride.

For those who think playing the semifinal at one team's home field is an inequality issue, it is a valid concern, but consider the way Georgia does it.

 

They may have changed it but just a few years ago it was like this.

 

The semifinal's were all played in Atlanta in the dome. It was a big weekend long event, a neutral site, fairly centrally located. To me that sounds great and would provide a chance to really showcase high school football.

 

BUT...

 

The following week, the championship games were played at the home field of the higher ranked team in each class. :scared:

 

I can't imagine that. Just awful if you ask me.

 

Yeah, that's backwards... The semi's would have a better atmosphere than the Finals.

We could go the route of Colorado and give the Home field to the lower seed in the semis to be "fair."

I am little surprised they even bother to keep score with that mentality....

Home field advantage should lie with the team with the better overall record. Head to head next. District record, region record, class record. Then be determined by records against common opponents. This would encourage games against different region opponents. Score and point spread should be the next tiebreaker (vs common opponents). If all else fails then go to the current system.

I don't think it's really fair when one of the "neutral" sites is located in a large metro area that one of the schools in the game may be from.

 

Would you want to meet Madison Central at EKU or Scott County at Georgetown College for a "neutral" site game?

As for the Bell County examples people keep throwing out, that's more on the KHSAA for districting poorly and putting an EKY school that's on the easternmost border in the WKY region. Simple fix: put them in the East where they should be.

I like it. That way a team can't water down their field.

As for the Bell County examples people keep throwing out, that's more on the KHSAA for districting poorly and putting an EKY school that's on the easternmost border in the WKY region. Simple fix: put them in the East where they should be.

Not that simple. Class 3A is simply east-heavy and when redistricting was done, there were not enough teams who were geographically suitable to fill out District 4. In-season travel is more of a concern than playoff travel and that was a really tough situation at the time to shape out.

 

There were some good threads on the topic at the time, but it was obvious that come playoff time, some teams were going to be involved in travel situations. Look at the 3A redistricting map on KHSAA and see if you have a better solution. Look up some of those old threads, there is some good discussion about it.

Now that I have lived the travel nightmare of the semi-finals I would say it is crazy that teams have to travel so far to play a game. There has to be a better solution instead of 4-5 hour drives.

 

There is a problem when a team gets on a bus at 10am and gets off a bus at 3:30am when they arrive back.

 

Maybe have 3 sites per year that would split the drive and have multiple games at those sites.

I have found that home field sometimes really doesn't become an advantage when the visitor team brings more fans to the games. It's alwyas surprised me how many times the home team just doesn't have a lot of fans attend the games some of the times.

You could have a pool of hosting schools across the state, then on Saturday morning after the regional's the semi states could be assigned based on geography of the two participating schools. Of course no school in that system could host their own class.