The Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association announced recently that it’s modifying this year’s high school football playoffs.
All schools may qualify for the playoffs, if they desire, the OSSAA said.
This is related to the Pandemic that has forced many football teams across the state to have to cancel games.
OSSAA officials explained the reason for the modification is due to the cancellations of multiple games during the regular season that caused a concern about the accuracy of seedings in each district entering into the playoffs.
The OSSAA announced the modification on Oct. 20, stating, “that to facilitate possible seeding scenarios, all districts will begin ranking teams in their districts beginning the weekend of Oct. 23 (last weekend).”
The second ranking was last weekend, Oct. 30, and the third and final ranking is Nov. 6.
According to the OSSAA, rankings open Friday at noon and close at noon on Saturday.
Mike Whaley is Associate Director of the OSSAA. He said recently, “All of the first round games will be played over one weekend. Teams may play the games on Friday night or Saturday,” he said.
By mutual agreement, teams may play those games on Thursday, Whaley said.
“We don’t know how many teams will play,” Whaley noted. “We offered Saturday as an option because of the number of officiating crews we have.
“There could be a total of 160 games possibly played in that first round. We have only 135 officiating crews. We could possibly pick some more officiating crews,” he said.
As the OSSAA indicated in its announcement, teams may opt out of the play-in round. But as Whaley noted, “if a team opts out of that round, its season is over.
“That play-in round is the first round of the playoffs,” he emphasized.
McLoud High School football Coach Rusty Hall said that first round will be played the weekend of Nov. 13- 14.
He provided an example of how the play-in round will proceed. The play-in games, he said, will be paired between Districts 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8 in each class.
“Our team is in District 1 of Class 3A, so we’ll play a team in District 2 in the play-in round,” Hall said.
He pointed out this will add one weekend to the football season.