New football season brings some significant changes

It will take some getting used to, but ready or not, the two-year pilot program that changes how Massachusetts crowns state football champions is upon us.The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association?s principals and athletic directors signed off last October after favorable votes by the MIAA Football Committee (15-2) and the MIAA Tournament Management Committee (10-4). St. John?s Prep AD and head football coach Jim O?Leary sits on both committees.As a result, six of the MIAA?s 292 football-playing members will be crowned true divisional State Champions at Gillette Stadium. A year ago, 19 regional champions took home hardware — 11 in Eastern Massachusetts alone.Playoff participants will be determined at the conclusion of the qualifying period on Sunday, Oct. 27 and the 12 Super Bowl participants will be decided the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The new system eliminates Tuesday night semifinals after Thanksgiving, reducing both the number of teams playing after the holiday and the impact on winter sports, which begin practice the Monday after Thanksgiving.Leagues with five or more teams qualify two teams for post-season while leagues with less than five qualify one. Leagues have the option to use their own standings and tie-breaking procedures or defer to the MIAA?s power rating system to determine playoff representatives. Additional teams may qualify as wild-cards.The power rating system awards 12 points for a win over a team in a higher division, 10 points for a win within the division, and eight points for defeating teams in a lower division. A team receives three points for each win by a team it has beaten, and one point for each win by a team it has lost to. Ties yield half the value (1.5 or .5 points).Fifty-six North teams will qualify for the tournament, which begins the weekend of Nov. 1-2. Meanwhile, 40 non-qualifiers will keep playing in November as well, seeded by power rankings to schedule games via a pre-determined chart.Reaction among area coaches seems mixed.One of the most strident arguments against the system concerned whether leagues should also play their Thanksgiving Day rival as part of the league schedule during the qualifying period, thereby lessening the integrity of the holiday games.In fact, area rivals Marblehead and Swampscott (at Swampscott, Sept. 28; at Marblehead on Thanksgiving) and Revere and Winthrop (at Revere, Sept. 27; at Winthrop on Thanksgiving) will play twice, with the first game counting toward league standings.