WIAA does the right thing with football playoff changes. This should be only a start.

On Wednesday the WIAA Board of Control announced three significant changes to the football playoff landscape in Wisconsin. The 8-Player field was expanded from 16 to 32, changed playoff qualification from a winning conference record to a transparent wins-based metric and changed seeding and regional grouping in the playoffs.

Details can be found at https://civicmedia.us/news/2025/2/5/wiaa-approves-high-school-football-playoff-changes-beginning-with-2025-season

I don’t want to get into the details of those changes for football that will go into effect this fall. There is plenty of time for that. However, I want to state my approval of the WIAA listening to the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association, who pushed for the changes. This needs to be the start of a trend and not the end. There is so much room for growth in high school athletics in the state of Wisconsin but, IMHO, for years there has been a disconnect between the decision makers at the WIAA and those closer to the ground in Wisconsin HS sports. In my years covering HS sports I have heard story after story of coaches’ associations and others who have tried to move forward good ideas for growing their sports and, especially, their state tournaments. Whether it’s the format of a state tournament or a location that could be better for a particular sport, way too often the stake-holders have been given a stiff arm by the WIAA. That didn’t happen with the football changes, which happened at a breakneck speed compared to previous changes. I believe, maybe wrongly, that the WIAA may have been a little more accommodating after the disaster of having two qualified playoff football teams not in the postseason last fall because of a mistake by the organization. The person in charge of football then announced his “retirement” shortly thereafter.

Bottom line is that basketball, hockey and other sports can be grown in Wisconsin. I think the actions taken this week for football is a step in the right direction. It’s time to take a complete look at the state tournament formats, locations and anything else that maybe holding other sports back. Let’s take that cooperation we saw this week to the courts and ice next and start building HS sports together.