Jon Lunceford@jlunce
Of the things mentioned to be on the agenda:
1. Expanding 6A (formerly 7A) to 24 team playoff - I don't really know why, all it's going to do is allow Region 2 & 3 to dominate even more. Poor Region 1 and 4 can't get wins as it is, putting their 5th and 6th teams in could get rough.
2. Private playoffs - I actually do think AA should be at 12 playoff teams (of 16 total) and run it like TSSAA's AAA playoffs, but I don't know about A. However, travel is going to be rough if they mix them all together, similar to 7A Regions 1v4 this past season.
3. Private school tweaks - AA probably should be areas, but not sure that will be the easy fix for A based on the map. Also, will there be any tweaks to A to in terms of dominant programs like Mars Hill/Bayside having the chance to play up (aka competitive balance again of some sort).
4. Super 7 format - We are going from 9 games (including 2 flag) to 12 games (adding 2 flag, 1 tackle). They already announced it would be a 4-day format instead of 3 moving forward, but Georgia fit 13 games in 3 days (8 tackle, 5 flag) by only needing 2 hours for flag, and 3-3:15 for tackle (which probably works, there is always a ton of downtime between games). We currently allow 4 hours for every game. If it went to a 4-day format, you'd probably keep 3 a day at 4 hours apart, but maybe spread flag out to be the same days as tackle when applicable (such as 6A flag the same day as 6A tackle, etc.)
If 6A does indeed move to 24 games, then they will technically follow the same schedule as the other classifications with a bye for the top 8 teams in the first round. So they may push back to the last game (similar to how the Super 6 used to be). The question is just whether it's Tuesday-Friday or Wednesday-Saturday. I know it's been avoided recently, but we used to play two games on Saturday (which will be the day of college conference championships). I'd probably say do private flag and tackle on day one (because they likely will have the old 7A bye during Thanksgiving). Something like:
Day 1: A-AA Flag, A tackle, AA tackle
Day 2: 1A-4A flag, 1A tackle, 4A tackle
Day 3: 5A flag, 2A tackle, 5A tackle
Day 4: 6A flag, 3A tackle, 6A tackle
Or if they want to match up the flag/tackle games better, then play the lower classification tackle game in the morning, then flag in the afternoon.
Also, do we call it the Super 12? Super 6 again? Super 8? Get rid of the numbers because it keeps changing and will probably change again?