Thinning the high school herd

We're down to three football teams in the state semis. Fortunately, basketball hasn't gotten too crazy yet. But with the Iron Bowl on tap and the local D2 in the playoffs, there's little time to relax.

Shotty...you can have your football friday every week of the year. I get pumped for the first couple but, like Henry, that wears off rather quickly.

 

We went into last week with 7 teams alive and came out with 5. Two teams were playing each other so we were guaranteed a loser there, and the other team that lost was a fringey six-man we don't really care about.

Of course, one of the teams still alive is one of our flagship schools, so that seems to eat up triple the resources.

We've had at least one team in our circulation area go to the state semifinals and beyond every year since 1994. So we're in football deep into December as a matter of routine. Basketball started in earnest this week, but those are phoners until football is over.

I'm more glad the other fall stuff (volleyball, cross country) is finally over. We had a state semifinalist in volleyball and a local runner that finished second as a medalist. Trying to squeeze that in amongst all the football advances was fun.

 

This will be the first time in a long time we don't have a football team in the state finals.

 

We went in with eight and out with three (tho two were playing each other).
And yes, boys and girls HOOVER is in the state semis again.
Less pomp, more piety -- and a shitload of arrogance

 

Don't you realize when you root against these kids, you're costing them schollies? They try just as hard as everyone in other coverage areas!

 

I don't mind the Friday nights at all. If every Friday night was a football night, that'd be fine with me.

What I don't like is the Saturday playoff days, when you have teams spread all across the state. And soccer and volleyball teams at state. And the local DIII college playing in a playoff football game four hours away, just close enough that the powers-that-be will OK the mileage, but far enough away that it takes that writer completely out of commission so he can't help on the desk at deadline. All of this while the basketball tab is a few days away from deadline, all-area football teams to put together and a Thanksgiving week looming in which everyone needs to get three days off.

If the high school sports associations let us set the playoff schedule, I'd love for a whole bunch of teams to make deep playoff runs. But it doesn't work that way.

 

We started off with 39 qualifiers. After two rounds, we're down to 12, half of them six-man. It helped immensely that one of our big three city schools went out in a shocking first-round upset. We've had a handful of games between area teams each round and will have at least one more this week. This is usually the round where most of our area teams get wiped out. One year we lost something like nine of 11 in this round.

 

Love the losing!

 

Plus the mileage is sweet.

 

There is always that. I really don't begrudge a team that makes the playoffs. It sells papers and makes my job less, um, expendable.

 

Does anyone else post a "Hit List" the day tournament pairings are announced?

You gotta love crossing off the losers!

 

Our guys have to staff all the state finals anyway, so there's really no point ...