Right off the bat - I am such an idiot. In my last post, I was so excited about the state's changes to the playoff structure (cutting the field to 16 teams per class instead of 32, eliminating the Wednesday-Monday-Friday playoff grind) that I neglected to pay full attention to the news coming out of Boone.
That isn't happening this year. That starts next year. In 2016.
So for this season, things continue as they have since 2008. Each class qualifies 32 teams, the top 4 finishers from each district. The first round playoff game is Wednesday, October 28, with the second round Monday, November 2. The quarterfinals are Friday, November 6. Class 3A semifinals will be Thursday, November 12 with the 3A championship on Thursday, November 19.
All clear now? Sorry about that.
At least that means the playoff change will come in combination with a new two-year schedule/district setup, since the state association rejiggers class and district membership and sets up the schedules anew every two seasons. Not to mention, there's rumors floating about that the state might add an additional class, in order to lessen the impact of losing 96 games' worth of ticket sales (all playoff ticket revenue goes directly to the IHSAA). One rumor is making the top 40 teams by size into a new Class 5A. The next 40 would become 4A, then distribute the rest among 3A, 2A, 1A, A and eight-player. That rearrangement would also mean coming up with some kind of at-large qualification system, rather than simply using district finish, which in my mind would be a plus. So instead of cutting playoff teams in half from the current 192 to 96, there would be 112 qualifiers under this system. That way the state loses out on 82 playoff game gates, instead of the 96 they'd lose sticking with 6 classes. (By the way, expect an increase in playoff ticket prices in 2016. You read it here first.)
Okay. So ... starting afresh. But not til next year.
Just because I've been thinking about it, let me mention that the traditional Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball conflict will continue again this year on KMRY (unless something is in the works that I don't know about). The Kernels have regular season games scheduled on Friday, August 28 and Friday, September 4, which means the Xavier games against Dowling and Assumption will be broadcast on a delay following baseball. The next Friday, September 11, when Xavier opens district play at Solon, there is a Midwest League playoff game possible. The Kernels are assured to play in the first round, but that Friday would be Game 3 of a best-of-three series (in other words, "if necessary"). We won't know until the outcome of the game Thursday, September 10 whether we'll be live with Xavier-Solon on the 11th. After that, we should be good - the Midwest League has no playoff games scheduled for Friday, September 18.
2015 Xavier football on KMRY (93.1 FM, 1450 AM, kmryradio.com, TuneIn app):
August 28 vs West Des Moines Dowling - delayed after baseball.
September 4 vs Davenport Assumption - delayed after baseball.
September 11 vs Solon - possibly delayed after baseball.
September 18 vs Central-DeWitt - live
September 25 vs Maquoketa - live
October 2 vs Western Dubuque - live
October 9 vs Dubuque Wahlert - live
October 16 vs Iowa City Regina - live
October 23 vs Marion - live
Playoffs October 28, November 2, November 6, November 12, November 19 - live as far as Xavier can go.
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