It’s About the Base

May 8, 2018

Former Southeast Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer, whom Michiganders like to claim as our own for his East Lansing High School and Central Michigan University coaching roots, seized the opportunity of an acceptance speech for an award he received recently from the Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation, College Football Hall of Fame and Knoxville Quarterback Club to deliver a sobering message regarding the game he loves so much – football.

His concerns were for the survival of football on college campuses “where their games will never be on television and will be played in front of less than 10,000 fans.” Which is the situation for 90 percent of the nation’s college football programs.

He also said, “I’m even more concerned about games on Friday night.” Mr. Kramer has been a long-time opponent of Friday night telecasts of college football games because they do poorly both at the gate and in television ratings, and they conflict with the tradition of approximately 6,000 high school football games played locally on Friday nights.

We Michiganders are sometimes criticized for our “conservative” views about the boundaries of a sensible scope for educational athletics. We come by this naturally, on the shoulders of people like Roy Kramer who, even after years in the glitz and glamour of elite college football, maintains his concern for more modest college programs as well as high school football.

It is this base of the game, not the few at the pinnacle, that is the future of a game under siege in dozens of courthouses and state houses across the U.S. – and worse, a game being questioned in many thousands of homes where football was once the game of choice.

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.

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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

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