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At Wednesday's Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) Board of Control meeting, the group gave final approval for a plan that makes significant changes to the high school football playoff structure, plus voted to expand the 8-player football postseason.

The Board of Control voted 10-1 in favor of instituting the Wisconsin Football Playoff Matrix for qualification and seeding. The vote was 8-3 to utilize the Matrix for assigning regional groupings as well.

Also at today's meeting, the Board voted 11-0 to expand the 8-player football playoffs from 16 qualifiers to 32 qualifiers, which would also slightly adjust the dates for the 8-player season. More on that later.

The Wisconsin Football Playoff Matrix changes how the WIAA football playoffs work for qualification, division assignment, regional groupings, and seeding, beginning in the 2025 season.

The proposal comes in response to increased frustrations and concerns from coaches regarding playoff-related matters in recent seasons, including controversies around this year's playoff qualifiers, how the regional groupings are determined, and what many feel were inconsistent or incorrect seeds for several teams.

The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) proposal, dubbed the Wisconsin Football Playoff Matrix, is modeled after the system that has been utilized in Ohio for many years.

It is important to note that the plan does NOT make changes to conferences, the realignment process, season length or start date, game maximums, the number of qualifiers, or the number of divisions for 11-player football. The WIAA's Tournament Performance Factor points system would still apply.

Developed by Andy LaVoy and Jesse Norris of Edgewood High School in collaboration with the WFCA Executive Board, the system, "introduces what we feel to be a fair, data-driven approach to high school football playoffs, designed to ensure transparency, limits travel impacts, and provides consistency."

Among the key components of the plan is the identification of playoff division assignments before the postseason begins, similar to other sports. The teams competing in 11-player football would be equally distributed across the seven divisions, with any remaining teams added to the larger divisions on down.

Playoff qualifying would be done within each division, instead of first determining 224 qualifiers and then assigning to divisions.

A points system would be used for each win a team accumulates during the season. More points would be assigned for wins against higher-division opponents (see methodology below). This is considered the Tier 1 Points. In addition, the points for each opponent that a team defeats would be added up to determine the Tier 2 Points. 

The Tier 2 Points total would then be divided by the total games played for a team's opponents, and multiplied by 9. The Tier 1 Point total and adjusted Tier 2 Point total would then be added together to determine a team's Total Points.

The Total Points would be used for both playoff qualification and seeding within each region.

The WFCA has developed a video outlining the plan in additional detail, and can be viewed here.

A website has been created to show the results of this proposal on the 2024 playoffs, including the revised divisions, qualifiers, groups, and seeds. Information is also available for application to the 2023 and 2022 seasons, for additional data and understanding. Please click here for that information.

The 11-0 vote in favor of 8-player football expansion moves the number of qualifiers from 16 teams to 32 teams, beginning in 2025. With more than 70 total 8-player teams and more than 50 that are eligible for the playoffs, it brings the ratio of qualifiers-to-teams in line with the 11-player divisions.

In the 2024 season, there were numerous teams with winning records that did not qualify for the playoffs, including teams that went 6-2 overall. 

The 8-player football playoffs would expand to five levels of competition, though the state championship game would continue to be played at the Saturday of 11-player state semi-finals at Wisconsin Rapids.

The start of practices and the first week of games would be moved up one week in 8-player football to accommodate the expanded playoff schedule. Both would move in line with 11-player football.

The enrollment cap for playoff eligibility would remain in place, as only those teams with a trailing three-year enrollment number of less than 200 students would be eligible for the 8-player postseason.

Travis Wilson serves as the WisSports.net General Manager, Football Editor, and contributing writer for other parts of the site. Wilson was selected as part of the Sports 40 Under 40 list by Coach & AD Magazine and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association for 2019. The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) named Travis the 2015 recipient of the Dave McClain Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves on the WFCA Executive Board and is a member of the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association. A graduate of Richland Center High School and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Travis was a three-sport athlete in high school (football, baseball, basketball), inducted to the Richland Center High School Hall of Fame in 2023, and currently resides in Reedsburg. You can follow him on Twitter at @travisWSN.

For the latest and most up to date football news and recruiting information, follow Travis on Twitter @travisWSN. Email story ideas, recruiting info, etc. to Travis at travis(at)wissports.net.