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Source: Jimmie Kaska | Civic Media
The WIAA admits it made a mistake in setting the football playoff field this year. Now, the state's football coaches association is proposing a different way for teams to qualify for the playoffs.
Jimmie Kaska
Dec 4, 2024, 1:24 PM CST
MADISON, Wis. (Civic Media) – Wisconsin’s high school playoff qualifying system for football is unique among sports offerings in the state.
That’s because it’s the only sport that doesn’t go by “all-play,” meaning not every team can make it to the postseason.
Football specifically is limited in the number of games that can be played each week due to the physical nature of the sport. NFHS and WIAA guidelines only allow for one varsity contest to be played each week, unless there’s an exception due to a weather delay or other extenuating circumstance.
Because of that, the football postseason is limited to seven divisions of 32 teams and covers five weeks, wrapping up the week before Thanksgiving at Camp Randall Stadium. For reduced-player football, it’s a 16-team single-division playoff that covers four weeks and ends in Wisconsin Rapids.
Qualifying for the playoff field as currently constructed is simple math: The teams with the most wins get in. Where things get confusing for fans, players, coaches, administrators, and officials is when multiple teams tie for remaining playoff spots. Adding to the headache: football divisions aren’t set until the 224-team qualifying field is picked.
2024 saw some challenges to its current setup, and in response, the state’s coaches association for the sport has come up with a new playoff qualifying model.
At the outset of the 2024 Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, or WIAA, football playoffs, a mistake was caught in the brackets released for reduced-player football. The initial brackets included Gilman in the 16-team field for 8-player football, but a few hours after the brackets were published, a correction was issued, placing Clayton in the field and removing Gilman based on an incorrectly-applied tiebreaker.
However, the incorrect tiebreaker applications didn’t end there. Numerous media outlets, coaches, and other observers lobbied the WIAA to also take a look at its football qualifying field, pointing out a mistake that led to two teams that thought they should have been in – Madison West and Greenfield – out of the playoffs.
On Tuesday, the WIAA released a statement saying that they made a mistake.
“Following a review of the 2024 WIAA 11-Player Football Playoffs qualification process, we acknowledge challenges occurred with the computer program, which was unable to process the full field of 224 teams,” the statement said. “Based on the information that is now available to our staff, it has been determined Madison West and Greenfield should have been included in the playoff field of 224 teams.”
The specific tiebreaker deals with teams that do not have a winning conference record. That tiebreaker calculates opponent conference winning percentages of teams defeated, with the highest percentages getting in. However, as applied by the WIAA this year, it also factored in non-conference games, elevating Edgewood and Pewaukee to the playoff field.
No legal action was taken, so the playoffs went on as scheduled. Any court decisions could have delayed the start of the playoffs in at least four divisions, as the schools affected ranged from Division 1 to Division 4.
Travis Wilson of WisSports.net reported that WIAA Executive Director Stephanie Hauser met in person with staff at both Madison West and Greenfield to apologize and offer an explanation.
Another aspect to the discussion of football playoff fields: how computer rankings ended up sorting out each 32-team field.
For the fourth season, the WIAA left it to technology to sort out, eschewing the seeding meetings of past years.
Some of the more notable seeding decisions included putting 8-1 conference champion Oconomowoc on the road as a 6 seed. In Division 7, the top two teams in the Six Rivers were pitted against one another in a Level 1 game, with undefeated Potosi/Cassville eking out a 7-6 win over Black Hawk/Warren.
Potosi/Cassville, which received a 3-seed despite going 9-0, wouldn’t lose until the state finals against Edgar. Black Hawk Warren, who lost to Edgar last year in the D7 title game, got a 6-seed after finishing 7-2 in the regular season.
West Salem finished 8-1, falling by two points to the defending champion in their division, but got a 3-seed. Beaver Dam was a co-conference champion at 8-1 and was put on the road as a 5-seed.
Coaches have been loud about the current process. The unknown algorithm the WIAA uses has been a source of contention for coaches, who don’t have access to the actual formula used to calculate seedings.
So, what is next?
On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) announced a new proposal to solve two main issues with the current system.
First, it would divide the state’s 364 11-player football teams into seven 52-team divisions. In each of those, the top 32 teams would qualify. This would mean each team would know their divisions before the season began.
Second, the system would reward wins rather than winning percentages, weighting victories against other winning teams or larger-division squads more than beating small-school teams.
The proposed formula is available on the WFCA website, a mark of transparency that coaches say is missing in the current setup.
“A system that makes sense and brings much needed transparency,” John Tackmann, St. Croix Central head football coach, wrote on X Wednesday.
“There has been a lot of work put into this, all to make our football playoffs as good as they can be. Itâs transparent and balances all the brackets,” Brian Kaminski, WFCA President and Sun Prairie East head football coach, wrote on X.
The new system was proposed by Edgewood head football coach Jesse Norris and assistant Andy LaVoy. According to the WFCA release, it is based on Ohio’s playoff-qualifying procedures.
In addition to addressing pre-season divisional placements and value of wins, it also tackles how teams are seeded in the postseason, publishes a simple formula based on wins that eliminates the unknowns of the current setup, and attempts to eliminate some of the travel disparities that teams experienced in the computer ranking era.
An explainer video is available here.
Very soon, as in, ready to go for the 2025 season.
On Dec. 9 and 11, the WFCA will hold informational sessions for coaches to review the plan. Then, on Dec. 13, coaches will be sent a survey to vote on the plan, which will then allow the WFCA to present the plan to the WIAA Coaches Advisory Committee meeting on Jan. 7.
If the committee advances it, the WIAA Board of Control would be able to vote on it as soon as the Feb. 5 meeting for implementation this fall.
The 2025 high school football season falls in the second year of a two-year cycle of conference realignment. Under the current setup, teams must win more than half of their conference games in order to clinch a playoff spot. The WFCA’s proposal eliminates that requirement.
The WFCA is careful to note that the proposal doesn’t change the two-year realignment cycle for conferences. However, none of the playoff-qualifying metrics include conference games, treating all nine games on a team’s schedule the same.
Realignment work is already beginning for the 2026-2027 seasons. It is unknown if the WFCA proposal would eventually affect the current structure of conferences in Wisconsin.
