Dear dimwit on the phone

That's a long time to be playing a game.

How many overtimes is it in?

 

Ahh, the importance of punctuation.

Sorry about that....

 

hilarious...that slipped past me the first time

 

@ Hawkeye...who plays Wednesday football? Never heard of that.

 

Happens some in Miami because of the scarcity of fields.

 

Translation: You didn't mention my kid, who held for the last extra point in a 49-0 victory.

 

Iowa plays its first round of the playoffs on Wednesday night. Second round on the following Monday. If you want an idea on how screwed up the Iowa high school associations are, there you go.

They do it because they want to get the postseason over before Thanksgiving, and the fact that they allow half of the teams into the playoffs (32 of 48 in Class 4A, the biggest class) really tightens the schedule.

Last year, our biggest local school played a Wednesday playoff game 3 hours away — and it was an 8:45 p.m. start. The IHSAA plays two playoff games each round, for the first three rounds, at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls (the semifinals and finals in all classes are also there), and they had to play there for the first round. Kids got home around 2 a.m. It's stunningly ridiculous.

 

We covered four games on Friday night (which isn't bad for a staff of four full-timers and two part-timers). One was the co-op team of two of our local high schools playing at home, one was of the team the guy was complaining about, one featuring a small school in the area who was going for its first playoff berth in 14 years (they lost) and one featuring a playoff-bound area team playing the No. 1 team in the state.

This morning I received an e-mail from someone complaining that we didn't cover an area team with a 5-4 record who had clinched the last playoff spot in the district the week before. This is a team that lost by 80 points one week, and gave up 55 points the next week.

I almost told her not to worry, we'll be there for the playoff game when they get lit up by a ranked team in the first round. At which point, I'm sure we'll get the "you only cover us when we lose" e-mail.

 

I can't believe you are turning up your nose at this quickly improving team!

 

Don't forget about how the state quarterfinals are split between Friday and Monday. On the other hand, Illinois has its state title games the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

 

Yes, if the state association is concerned about wrapping up the season, they should shrink the playoff fields...first-round games are pointless anymore. We treat them as such...basically finding the one matchup between the most evenly matched teams and leaving the rest for call-ins.

You want coverage, finish higher than sixth in the 7-team league.

 

Connecticut's playoff are on the Tuesday and Friday/Saturday after Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving Day games are sacrosanct in parts of New England.