Scheduling Solution
September 27, 2016
One of our state's consistently best high school football programs needed a ninth game this season but could find no opponent within the state of Michigan. It was able to find a game with an equally prestigious football program in an adjacent state that was having the same problem – the "problem" of being such a formidable program year after year that other schools shied away from scheduling them.
Two different schools in two different states with two different football playoff formats and qualifying procedures, facing the same problem.
This helps to demonstrate that it is not any particular football playoff system that is at the heart of high school football scheduling difficulties. Much more at fault is human nature. One could change the qualifying system or double the number of qualifiers so that even winless teams make the playoffs, and some schools would still refuse to schedule others, which would then have to travel out of state to complete their schedules.
The solution to football scheduling will have very little to do with expanding the playoff field or changing the qualifying criteria. It is only when the scheduling of varsity football games is removed from the local level and assigned to the MHSAA that all teams will play the opponents that are closest to them in enrollment and location. Hard to fathom that will ever occur. But then, no team would have to travel out of state, or even across the state, to complete a varsity football schedule.
Moment: Comets Make Last Minute Count
October 8, 2020
By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
A hop and a wave.
That’s what it took for Grand Ledge to pull off the most unlikely of comebacks in the 2000 Division 1 MHSAA Football title game at the Pontiac Silverdome, doing what no team has ever done – scoring two touchdowns during the final minute to claim a 19-14 victory over Utica Eisenhower.
The game was your typical large-school, heavyweight fight, tied at 7-7 with less than five minutes to play when Eisenhower’s Chris Hoover broke loose for a 36-yard scoring run. But Grand Ledge bounced right back, mounting an 80-yard drive following the ensuing kickoff, capped by quarterback Matt Bohnet’s five-yard scramble to the end zone.
With just 53 seconds left on the clock, Comets coach Pat O’Keefe, already known as one of the state’s most successful baseball coaches, decided he had to gamble. Go for two.
“We were tired,” O’Keefe told the Lansing State Journal after the game. “I thought the momentum was there for us and I didn’t want to play overtime.
“We thought about it a little bit, and I saw it in the kid’s faces. I asked Matt (Bohnet) what he wanted to do and he said, ‘Let’s go for the win.’”
But the conversion play broke down. Bohnet couldn’t find an open receiver and was tackled short of the goal line.
Everyone in the Silverdome knew what was coming next. No one could have seen, however, what was going to happen.
The onside kick by Nick Sandy took a textbook hop, and Colin O’Keefe flew through the air to grab it and give the Comets new life.
Two plays later, Bohnet was scrambling again – and a wide-open Tim George was downfield waving at him. Bohnet connected with George at the 15-yard line, and after shaking off one would-be tackler, George headed for the end zone, finishing with a pylon dive that gave the Comets the lead. It was the second TD catch of the game for George.
“I caught the ball and got bumped,” George told The Detroit News. “I saw the goal line and I knew I had to get there. I didn’t even think about going out of bounds.”
You can watch the final moments of the FOX Sports Detroit coverage of the 2000 Grand Ledge-Utica Eisenhower game below.
PHOTO: Grand Ledge's Tim George dives for the winning touchdown during the final seconds of the 2000 Division 1 Final at the Pontiac Silverdome. (Photo by Gary Shook.)