Thanksgiving morning football

My grandfather had cable long before we did (he lived near Coudersport, Pa., where Adelphia started), In the 1960s we'd go to their house for TG and somehow always watch New Hyde Park (NY) play somebody on Long Island every TG morning.

Richmond and William and Mary, the oldest rivalry in the South, used to be played on TG day to, back in the day.

 

When I was a kid in Wilmington, but before I was a teenager, two city high schools, Wilmington High and P.S. DuPont (there's also an A.I. DuPont high school) played on Thanksgiving morning. Memory plays tricks after five decades or so, but I think they were the only ones.

 

Pre-playoffs, aka early 70s, Little Rock used to have a Turkey Bowl game between Little Rock Central, the first public high school in town, and Little Rock Hall, the second high school.

You also had some Thanksgiving day games between the Catholic private schools as they played each other.

I think was pretty well duplicated across the South in the pre-playoff years as it seems someone did a big takeout on Thanksgiving games. It might have been posted here.

 

Every school in RI plays on Thanksgiving as well.
It used to be an awesome tradition, but after Massachusetts switched their playoff system the unoriginal dipshits at the RIIL adopted the same format.
That led to this Thanksgiving where several games ended up being JV games because teams are playing in the Super Bowl next week.
My alma mater's game was ruined by the new format. Since the games were now after the playoffs started, they had to schedule the rival earlier in the season. The same teams played in the playoffs the previous Friday and again on Thanksgiving. Every year the Thanksgiving Day crowd was the biggest in the state by a mile, but this year barely anyone showed.

 

And it doesn't make any sense in R.I.

There are, what, 40-50 high schools in the state? And there are four divisional champions. If they're using the Mass. format, that means at least 80 percent of the teams are making the playoffs. This isn't the NBA.

 

Lincoln hasn't been bad the last few years, in fact the Lions turned down an auto bid to the playoffs this year. Things got screwy this year because San Jose and Lincoln are in the same league and Lincoln was undefeated in league play. Since playoff berths and seedings are determined by powerpoints—a combo of wins and strength of schedule—there had to be a mandate from on high to declare Lincoln the league champ so everyone who played the Lions could get a bonus point for playing a league champ. With playoffs starting last week, it actually mattered for a couple of teams.

 

when I said the Mass system, I meant more of the dates. In the past, we did Thanksgiving, then the Tuesday after was the semifinals with the Super Bowls the following Sunday.

But your point still stands - 44 teams, 20 make the playoffs.