IHSA's regions proposal fails
<span>Athletic directors, coaches and media personnel in the county can breathe a sigh of relief, there will be no massive overhaul of high school football now or in the foreseeable future.</span>
<span>Proposal 10, which would have revamped the football regular season and playoff systems failed by a margin of 395 to 212 in voting results announced by the IHSA on Jan. 6. Of the 613 schools who voted, 65.1 percent voted "no" on the proposal.</span>
<span>Among football-playing schools only, the margin was slightly higher at 65.4 percent (306-162).</span>
<span>Under Proposal 10, Illinois football-playing schools would have been divided into regions based on geography and enrollment. </span>Each region would contain from seven to nine teams.
<span>These regions would replace the athletic conferences currently in place. Each region would be valid for a two-year period under the plan.</span>
<span>The regular season would see schools playing at least one inter-region game, with the remainder of the schedule determined by the IHSA.</span>
<span>The proposal would keep the same eight playoff classes the IHSA currently uses, and divide the schools in those classes into eight different regions in the state. The top four teams in each region would qualify to go to the postseason.</span>
<span>According to IHSA documents, the proposal was submitted by Tim Carlson, principal at Sycamore High School. Sycamore is in the Northern Illinois Big 12 conference, with a student enrollment of 1,174 this school year.</span>
<span>"I coached out in North Carolina for 10 years and there was a similar system to this in place as far as you only played conference opponents that were the same size and they reshuffled conferences frequently," said Chester football coach Bryan Lee in previous statements to the Herald Tribune. "I'm not in favor of it. I feel it kills some rivalries and some constants.</span>
<span>"You like to know what your schedule is going to be from year-to-year. It's not a broken system right now, so I don't feel like tinkering with it is really necessary."</span>
<span>Chester Athletic Director Mike Coffey also said he was not in favor of the proposal, stating he would not want to give up control of games.</span>
<span>The IHSA's member schools did approve one change for football, removing the mid-summer "Dead Week" that had been approved in 2014.</span>
<span>That change will take effect July 1, which means the remainder of the "Dead Week" - which was slated to start June 28 - will be cancelled. Teams cannot hold practices from June 28 to July 1.</span>
<span>Schools also narrowly rejected two proposals regarding the Scholastic Bowl season. Proposal 17, which would have removed the season limitation, failed by a 52-48 percent margin, while Proposal 18 failed by six votes.</span>
<span>Proposal 18 would have increased the contest limitation for Scholastic Bowl to 30 dates from 18 dates.</span>
<span>A total of 613 of the IHSA's 810 member schools voted in this year's balloting, the second-highest percentage (75.7 percent) since 1997.</span>
<span>With only six proposals on the table, that is the fewest amount since 2009. At least 11 were available to be voted on in each of the previous four years.</span>
<span>The IHSA is crediting a new email voting procedure for the high number of schools participating.</span><span><br class="kix-line-break" /><br class="kix-line-break" /></span>