MILTON (Podcast) Milton High School football coach Steve Dembowski, winner of the MIAA D3 Super Bowl, and former Swampscott football coach was a recent guest on msonewsports.com. In the interview he discussed winning his second super bowl (#1 was with Swampscott 2007) and he discussed the proposal being put forward by the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association for the 2025 season to update the football playoff format. In the podcast below you will hear from Dembowski on football playoff proposal. There is a link, below, to the entire proposal. Dembowski is the Bay State League representative to the coach’s association.
Steve Dembowski – Milton Football Coach with Bill Newell
MIAA Football – Committee Working Document Proposed 2025-2026 Football Modifications
Executive Summary – MIAA Football 2025 Modifications
The goal of this proposal is to provide a more equitable experience for the student-athletes in thesport of football and to offer a post-season tournament for the teams who demonstrate a specificlevel of excellence during the regular season. The proposed modifications put more emphasis on theregular season for the 275 MIAA schools participating in football, still reward the top preformingteams, and aim to make the football tournament format align closer to the intended benefits of theMIAA Statewide Tournament Plan.After years of the MIAA offering regional post-season tournaments for football, a statewide playoffplan was adopted. The State Football Playoff was approved, after much debate, by a vote of theMIAA membership in 2013. The State Football Playoff, like other MIAA tournaments at the time,operated under a sectional format. The debate centered on the requirement of starting thetournament before the completion of the regular season since it required four rounds to becompleted before Thanksgiving.
While the 2013 State Football Playoff plan accomplished many of itsstated goals it still had some drawbacks including but not limited to: 1) the inability to place Centraland Western area schools into the correct divisions, 2) different regional qualifying methods, 3) sub-500 teams qualifying and 4) the necessity to establishment of consolation games.In 2021, the MIAA reevaluated all sport tournaments and introduced the Statewide Tournament.The Statewide Tournament addressed all sports, and it did in fact correct some of the flaws of the2013 State Football Playoff plan. The most notable improvements were the creation of statewidedivisions to align teams by enrollment and the development of a proprietary power-rating formulato qualify and seed teams. Nevertheless, several drawbacks remained. The most significant concernis the number of consolation games being played and the effect it is having on football programsacross the state.
This past season, 211 (76.7%) schools were required to play at least oneconsolation game and/or take a bye so an additional 64 teams (8 in each division) could qualify forthe tournament.Using a format that relies on consolation games to complete the regular season continues to have anegative effect on teams who do not qualify and/or are eliminated in the first round of thetournament. Examples include, 27 schools electing to take a bye last November, while one schoolwas forced to take a bye when no opponent could be found. Additionally, several athletic directorsrecently submitted a rule change proposal (#21) to allow the length of consolation games to bereduced.
Some of the reasons stated in the proposal include difficulty finding local matchups, toreduce transportation costs, and “these games are for friendly competition and do not counttowards anything”. Multiple members of this committee, who coach, have expressed concernsabout the mental health of student-athletes once they are subject to consolation games and haveexperienced players leaving the team instead of playing consolation games. Finally, in a 2021MHSFCA survey about possible tournament formats, the head coaches in the state selected theformat without consolation games by an overwhelming percentage.A study of the 2021 and 2022 football tournaments reveals having a 16-team tournament in each
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