City Section to Consider Elimination of Two-Division Football Playoffs

A City Section competition committee on Monday proposed the elimination of the two-division playoff system for the section’s 49 high school football teams, effective next fall.

Under the plan, proposed at an Interscholastic Athletics Committee meeting, all teams would play in one division, with 16 teams advancing to a postseason tournament that would crown one champion. The IAC is scheduled to vote on the proposal at its next meeting, April 23.

Since 1976, the City has crowned 4-A Division and 3-A Division football champions, but the system has been criticized because of the size of the divisions. Currently, 16 teams compete in the 4-A and 12 qualify for the playoffs.

City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness has called the system a sham, saying it merely isolates the schools--Carson, Banning, Dorsey--that no one wants to play. Nevertheless, he expects some schools to resist the change.

“It would be foolish not to expect an outcry,” he said. “But is it a viable, legitimate division? Either the divisions have to be of equal size or we should do away with the divisions.”