The pairings for the upcoming high school football playoffs will have a much different look this season. Gone is the format from the past few years where the entire bracket is released for all six classes and instead the pairings will be put together after each round. Todd Tharp of the Iowa High School Athletic Association says the new format is designed to limit travel.

He says school administrators have shared their concerns with schools traveling over three-hours to a ball game that their patrons have a hard time traveling to. The IHSAA visited with its Football Advisory Committee and Board and discussed putting in place the 125-mile travel limitation for the 8-Player through 3-A games.

Tharp says the new system won’t change the pairings when it comes to seeding but there could be district rematches in the first two rounds. He says “There’ll still be the District Champion. We’ll still play the 4th place team. The district runner-up will still play the 3rd place team. Unfortunately in some areas of the State, there might be some district rematches that will take place where the District 1 champion will still have to play the District 1st 4th place team on that first Wednesday night.”

Tharp says they will no longer be automatically matching teams from neighboring districts. “The number one team might be in the southern part of one district, and the number four is in the northern parts of another district. They might get matched-up, and maybe the number two is one the east side and the number three is one the west side from another district. You could combine maybe three different districts together to get those games in the first round,” according to Tharp.

He says they should have all 192 qualifiers and their seeding on the association website before midnight. It will then take a couple of hours to complete the pairings. Tharp says he’s “Hoping between two and two-thirty on Saturday morning, that we will have all 96 games on the website (at http://www.iahsaa.org/). The home team, visiting team, and their seed [will be there] for fans to see, at that particular time.”

The first round for all six classes is Wednesday night.

(Radio Iowa)