Attending to Football

November 29, 2013

The interscholastic football season comes to an end this weekend with the MHSAA Finals at Ford Field, but the most talked about sport in high schools today will continue to make headlines for many months into the future.

Some of the headlines will introduce topics that are merely footnotes compared to what is really most important, that being the efforts to keep school-sponsored football the safest and sanest brand of football in America.

At the center of these efforts has been a task force appointed by the MHSAA to work throughout 2013 to advance these two objectives: “To promote the value of interscholastic football and to probe for ways to make the sport safer in Michigan.”

The tangible results of the task force’s four meetings are these:

- A proposal to the MHSAA Representative Council to revise football practice policies to improve acclimatization of players and to reduce head trauma. The proposal goes to the Representative Council Dec. 6 for discussion, then to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and MHSAA Football Committee in January and to the MHSAA League/Conference meeting in February, before returning to the Representative Council for action on March 22.
- Three proposals to the NFHS Football Rules Committee to modify playing rules to promote player safety.
- A variety of print, online and broadcast promotions on behalf of the value of interscholastic football and its safety record and to encourage healthier out-of-season activities by students in all sports.

MHSAA research informs us that participation in 11- or 8-player football in member high schools this fall was down 3.0 percent compared to 2012, and down 7.63 percent since the 2008 season. The biggest reasons cited by those surveyed are, in declining order, safety issues, declining enrollment, athletes playing other school or non-school sports, cultural changes and pay-to-participate.

It is important to note that participation is not declining everywhere, not even everywhere where enrollments are down and participation fees are up. It is important to note also that some other sports are in much greater decline than football in terms of high school participation.

It is difficult for me to imagine my life without football as a part of it. It’s difficult to imagine schools and communities without football. I very much doubt that the absence of football would have improved my life or the schools and communities I’ve been a part of. It’s a sport that needs our attention, not its extinction.

Week 6 Football Playoff Listing

September 26, 2012

Here is a list of Michigan High School Athletic Association football playing schools, displaying their win-loss records and playoff averages through the fifth week of the season. Schools on this list are in enrollment order. An asterisk (*) beside a record indicates that a team has eight or fewer games scheduled. A carrot (^) beside a school’s name indicates that a team is one win away from playoff qualification.

Those schools with 11-player teams with six or more wins playing nine-game schedules, or five or more wins playing eight games or fewer, will qualify for the MHSAA Football Playoffs beginning Oct. 26-27. Schools with 5-4, 4-3 or 4-4 records may qualify if the number of potential qualifiers by win total does not reach the 256 mark. Schools with six or more wins playing nine-game schedules or five or more wins playing eight games or fewer may be subtracted from the field based on playoff average if the number of potential qualifiers exceeds the 256 mark.

Once the 256 qualifying schools are determined, they will be divided by enrollment groups into eight equal divisions of 32 schools, and then drawn into regions of eight teams each and districts of four teams each.

Those schools with 8-player teams will be ranked by playoff average at season’s end, and the top 16 programs will be drawn into regions of eight teams each for the playoff in that division, which also begins Oct. 26-27.

To review a list of all football playoff schools, individual school playoff point details and to report errors, visit the Football page of the MHSAA Website.

The announcement of the qualifiers and first-round pairings for both the 11 and 8-player playoffs will take place at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21 on the Selection Sunday Show on FOX Sports Detroit. The playoff qualifiers and pairings will be posted to the MHSAA Website following the Selection Sunday Show.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11-Player Playoff Listing

1.	Utica Eisenhower	2772	3-2	62.000
2.	Sterling Heights Stevenson	2766	4-1	75.800
3.	Clarkston ^	2721	5-0	94.400
4.	Grand Blanc	2644	3-2	57.600
5.	Macomb Dakota	2608	4-1	80.600
6.	Lake Orion ^	2565	5-0	96.000
7.	Rockford	2526	3-2	57.400
8.	Troy	2502	3-2	57.400
9.	Clinton Township Chippewa Valley	2462	4-1	77.000
10.	Dearborn Fordson	2442	4-1	83.400
11.	Holland West Ottawa	2262	4-1	71.000
12.	Northville	2220	3-2	60.400
13.	Detroit Cass Tech	2200	4-1	77.400
14.	Canton	2166	3-2	51.200
15.	Monroe ^	2154	5-0	83.200
16.	Detroit Catholic Central	2060	3-2	47.800
17.	Plymouth	2050	4-1	71.200
18.	Salem	2039	4-1	75.600
19.	Livonia Stevenson	2005	4-1	77.200
20.	Holt	1992	3-2	57.200
21.	Hartland ^	1932	5-0	91.200
22.	Warren Mott ^	1879	5-0	86.400
23.	Livonia Churchill ^	1877	5-0	100.800
24.	Walled Lake Central	1857	3-2	52.200
25.	Macomb L'Anse Creuse North	1853	3-2	58.400
26.	Saline	1849	4-1	72.400
27.	Grandville	1846	3-2	53.600
28.	Flint Carman-Ainsworth ^	1772	5-0	88.000
29.	Grand Ledge	1743	4-1	70.600
30.	Rochester	1725	4-1	72.800
31.	Traverse City West	1720	4-1	72.200
32.	White Lake Lakeland	1700	4-1	72.400
33.	Harrison Township L'Anse Creuse	1680	3-2

Search