This past weekend, I sent out an email on the Coaches' Listserve, seeking tough topics for our podcast. We are seeing a trend of listeners wanting to remain anonymous. Here is part of one email today...

The reason(to drop out of district play) I hear from their staff is not to avoid the losses even though they are piling up, but because they can't compete on even terms and they can't get kids out for a losing program. So now they can't compete for a state championship, which wasn't going to happen anyway, but they can make their own schedule, win some games and try to get their kids interested in football again. Hard choice, tough choice, but there are many teams like this across the state in every level of competition. 

 

Maybe these teams need to all go independent, at least for a while and try to build their teams, garner community support, re-structure their schedules and try to establish a winning or at least competitive environment. 

 

Current system has too many rounds, 4 team districts and everyone makes the playoffs and your best teams still play the struggling teams in the 1st round for yet another beat down for the struggling schools. Maybe 3 teams advance and the district winner receives a first round bye! Then struggling teams are not on the road to get humiliated in the first round. The district winner is still rewarded and the 2nd and 3rd best teams battle to see who advances. Not really sure the current RPI calculations are the best, but have not seen anyone offer a better solution either.  

 

Just my thoughts from one of the teams that finds ourselves somewhere in the middle most years. 

 

 

 

Dropping out of the district is not a decision for most schools. It is really an option for the lowest achieving teams in the state, if you are debating on dropping from the district as a Coach, you are aware you have 0% of a team set up for success in the next few years.  let's face it, most people in the state don't have a clue about any other school.  If we win games people are happy and you get more people excited, if you lose, interest from kids and the community die with it.  The state has made it very difficult for schools to drop.  With our schedule having certain weeks that all district games are played, if you are nondistrict, you only have out-of-state teams or others who have dropped to play so it is difficult to schedule.  To me, the answer is go with the Ohio model, if you think you have a team that can compete, schedule for it.  If you know you can't schedule some games you think are competitive, end the year 6-4 and try to get more kids and excitement and try to build for the future, not all schools have the resources to compete for state titles.