On Friday, July 17, the Iowa High School Athletic Association sent out a notice that fall sports activities would proceed on schedule, with practices able to begin August 10. This applied to cross country, 4A tennis, and importantly for our purposes, football. So, the preparations began, athletic directors were contacted, schedules were referred to, and this simple radio sportscaster began counting down to the beginning of the published nine-game regular season on August 28.
Until ... the following Friday, July 24. The IHSAA threw a big monkey wrench into everything, skewing the upcoming football season and causing ADs to scramble all over the state. For the purposes of dealing with a possible COVID outbreak amongst a school or team, it was probably for the best - but it caught administrators and coaches by surprise and knocked planning for the season askew just five weeks before the first game.
Here's what's changed:
- There will no longer be a nine-game high school football season in 2020. Schools will have a minimum of five and a maximum of seven games scheduled; plus a first-round playoff game, as every team in the state will now qualify for an expanded playoff field this season.
- Weeks 1 and 2 are now optional games. Schools may elect to play either, both, or none of those weeks.
- In Classes 3A-A, the five district games will remain on the schedule, but move from Weeks 5-9 up to Weeks 3-7. The optional games in Weeks 1-2 can be the same as already scheduled, or completely new rescheduled games for each school.
- In Class 4A, schools can build their entire schedule anew, playing whatever opponents they are able to put together. Weeks 1-2 are still optional, with scheduled games Weeks 3-7.
- In eight-player, the original schedule from Weeks 3-9 will now move to Weeks 1-7, in order to cover most of district play in that class. Schools may still opt out of games in Weeks 1-2.
- The RPI system will not be used in 2020. Instead, every school will make the playoff field, with the first round happening on October 16 (originally Week 8). This allows for six rounds of playoffs, leading to the originally scheduled championship games on November 19 and 20.
- Should a team miss games due to COVID, there is no penalty - instead of a forfeit, it would be considered a "no contest" and not count against their season record. Again, with no RPI or other playoff qualification required this season, your overall record will only count towards postseason seeding (the state intends to use "geography, quality, and team availability" as the considerations in setting up playoff games).
So it's weird, but then again, what's not weird in 2020? The IHSAA is trying to put a structure together to allow for football, that allows most teams to play and a playoff system to happen, whether or not some teams have to miss games or end their season early due to health concerns. Baseball and softball went probably better than was expected this summer (several teams did have to miss two weeks during the season, and several others ended their play prior to the tournaments due to COVID concerns), so the state is moving ahead with fall sports.
A lot still to be determined, however, as plenty can change in the next month (look no further than the Miami Marlins in MLB, with about a dozen team members testing positive after their first three games of the season).
To get closer to home, how does this new revised setup affect Xavier? Well, the games scheduled for Week 3 and 4 (North Scott and Linn-Mar) disappear, unless something involving one or both of them gets worked out for the opening two weeks. Several schools have already announced their revised schedules, with many of them simply keeping their opening 2 games and rolling into district play for Week 3. If Xavier goes with that, the new schedule would be:
- Western Dubuque at Xavier, August 28
- Waverly Shell Rock at Xavier, September 4
- Clear Creek Amana at Xavier, September 11
- Newton at Xavier, September 18
- Xavier at Oskaloosa, September 25
- Xavier at Grinnell, October 2
- Benton at Xavier, October 9
- First round playoff, October 16
- Second round playoff, October 23
- Third round playoff, October 30
- Fourth round playoff, November 6
- 3A semifinals, November 12
- 3A championship, November 19
This isn't a sure thing, by any means. Some schools have changed at least one of their opening games (Grinnell, for example, dropped their Week 1 game with Waverly Shell Rock and subbed in Harlan instead), so things might still be in flux. The 4A schools, in particular, might be scrambling a bit for some games (they didn't have district games at all, remember, so their 2020 schedules are now wide-open ... might Linn-Mar want to try to move their game vs Xavier up into one of those first two weeks?). Also, should teams have to drop out of games due to positive COVID tests, the IHSAA is leaving the door open for replacement games on the fly (just for an example, if Oskaloosa, say, has an issue and can't play September 25, should Xavier be able to find another opponent that's available and agreeable for that game, the state would let them work that out).
If this is how it finally shakes out, it would give Xavier five home games out of seven, which is something. Also, the original Week 3 game had been scheduled for Thursday, September 17, because of the Minnesota-Iowa game scheduled in Iowa City on Friday the 18th - unless Newton is agreeable to move to Thursday, that game probably ends up back on the Friday.
Anyway ... deep breath. Schools have until August 17 to let the IHSAA know if they intend to play football this fall, so dominoes may still be dropping until then. More details as they become available. And hopefully, we'll actually have a full season of football for 2020.
