High school football teams across Illinois have been battling it out for division supremacy in this year's Illinois High School Association playoff games. Assistant Executive Director Sam Knox sat down with Local Edition to share more about what running this season is like and answer questions fans may have about it.
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Steve Michaels
I'm Steve Michaels and this is Local Edition on 91.9 UIS, NPR, Illinois. Sam Knox, Assistant Executive Director with IHSA, I'm so glad you're here. I know you're busy. It's playoff season. Thanks for joining us.
Sam Knox
My pleasure. Glad to be here.
There's so many sports, but football, high school football is always top of mind. What's happening during the playoff season that keeps you the most busy?
Sam Knox
Our main goal is to make sure we get all the final scores from all of the games around the state because once we get those final scores, it makes putting our brackets together so much easier.
Steve Michaels
When these scores come in either Friday or Saturday games, there's fewer Friday games, but there are some. That happens pretty quickly after those games, doesn't it?
Sam Knox
sure does. And as I said before, the key is that we get all the final scores and the correct final scores from all around the state. And we literally have to wait until the very last game is finished on Saturday afternoon because even though that game might feature two teams with records that they're not going to qualify for the playoffs, the way we factor in our playoff points, that game matters to other teams on their schedule. So we have to get every last game and every score in. And then I'll give so much credit to our previous tech director, Scott Johnson, who created our playoff bracket program many, many years ago. And then our current tech director, Matt Jensen, who has made it even better and modernized it. works so well when we get all the scores in. It says click a few buttons and it knows how to produce a bracket. It knows how to create the north bracket and the south bracket in 1A through 6A. And it really makes our job pretty simple. I think people sometimes envision our office on that Saturday is a lot of activity, a lot of people on the phone and getting scores and people shouting out kind of like the old fashioned busy newsroom we see in movies and television shows. Trust me, it's not like that at all. It's actually Two people here in the office, very quiet situation. We've got a college football game on one TV watching area games, and then we're waiting for those scores to come in so we can create our brackets. It's a pretty laid back day, but it does get stressful when we get up against the deadline and they'll, where's that last score? How come we don't have that one yet? And then when it finally comes in, everything comes together pretty quickly. I remember the old days when I was in AD of having to come in on a Saturday and look in the newspaper and get all the scores and then the IHSA had a form. We would hand write the scores on there and fax them into the IHSA office over the weekend. I'm glad we don't do that anymore.
Steve Michaels
One thing that I think confuses most fans, and it took me a while to pick up on this each week, is determining which team for the following playoff weekend is the home team. "We've won two. They've only won one. How come we're going there?"
Sam Knox
Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm glad to clarify that. We get those questions quite often, too, throughout the playoffs of people who just don't understand how it works. But our football terms and conditions govern our state series tournament, not only in football, then in every sport. And this is a language approved by our board of directors many, many years ago. So, in football, in the opening round, it's pretty easy. The higher seed earns the home game. And then in subsequent rounds after that, we look at the two schools, and whichever school has hosted the fewer number of home games in this year's playoff system gets to host the game. If both teams have hosted the same number of playoff games this year, then the home game goes to the higher or better seat.
Steve Michaels
Even though "our team," quote unquote, whoever your team is, at home, It's still a neutral field.
Sam Knox
That's a good question too. We want our schools to conduct the game as neutrally as possible, but we also want the high school football atmosphere to be there. So, cowbells are allowed, band is certainly allowed, music between quarters and halftime, dance team, cheerleaders, all the normal home game stuff is certainly allowed and in fact encouraged to add some excitement to the home game. But there are certain things that we want home schools to be somewhat neutral in certain regards of PA announcements and things like that where the visiting team doesn't feel like, gosh, we drove 2 1/2 hours to get here and we're a lower seed and we're already climbing a big hill here because this team's really good and boy, they're really sticking it to us because they're the home team and making us do all these things. So, we want it to be as neutral as possible, but with as much high school football excitement as possible.
Steve Michaels
How many of these games then actually fall on a Friday?
Sam Knox
Yeah, we're seeing more and more games on a Friday, but the way our language is written is for the game to be played on Friday, both teams have to agree to play on Friday. If team A says, hey, we're hosting the game, we really want to play on Friday, but team B says, no, we don't want to play on Friday for whatever reason, then the game is going to automatically be on Saturday. But I will credit our schools. They are leaning toward playing on Friday in more recent years. And here's one of the reasons why I help assign all the officials for the games. And we have a lot of our officials who not only referee high school football, but they referee small college football on Saturdays. And of course, our playoffs overlaps with college football on Saturdays for at least the first few weeks. And many of our officials tell me our crew was selected for the playoffs, but two of us have a college game on Saturday. So could we please get a Friday game? And here's what I tell our schools. Some of you have had to move games in the regular season to maybe a Thursday or a Saturday afternoon when you didn't want to because of the official shortage. But if you play on Friday night in the playoffs, I guarantee that I can get you a highly qualified crew for your game. So I think more and more schools are listening to that and hearing that because they like the Friday night atmosphere of a playoff game if they can get it.
Steve Michaels
Sam, I appreciate your time today. Sam Knox, IHSA Assistant Executive Director.
Sam Knox
You bet, Steve. Great to talk to you. Thanks.
