2021 Season

[DFOLDMAN]

I hope the COVID 19 vaccine works. I suspect another modified season. Honestly, wasn't horrible, all things considered. Region games, then a few other rival games...Dutch Fork vs Irmo not happening was a bummer, but I know several teams didn't get to play rival games. To tell the truth, having the region winner and runner up as the only teams going to the playoffs makes sense. Playoffs should be about the cream of the crop and not participation trophies.

New cases keep on the rise, but hopefully come down when warm weather gets here and the vaccine is widely in use...have to wait and see. Teams did a good job handling this. Hats off to the schools and the high school league in general....uncharted territory.

[SF Band dad]

....having the region winner and runner up as the only teams going to the playoffs makes sense. Playoffs should be about the cream of the crop and not participation trophies.

It did produce some competitive games but I'm sure that most schools will want those extra playoff games restored. Some want to fly the "We made the playoffs!" banner, others will be motivated by the extra gate and concessions money provided by a home playoff game. Almost all runner-ups had to travel in the first round this year.

Regardless of the number of teams I would like to see them do away with the "bracket selected" home/away. We all can point to examples where better teams had to travel in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with a reasonably simple tie-breaker system to seed the teams with the same region position to determine home field advantage.

How important is home field? In the 2nd round, the bracket-selected home teams won 60% of the time. In the 3rd round only TL Hanna was able to pull-off a road win (28-24), the bracket-selected home teams won 90% of the time.

[Deputy]

They got through it, albeit without much foresight, or plan, by the SCHSL who I think assumed all along that a higher authority would shut all sports down at some point and relieve them of having to do anything. But it was still a mess. A totally uneven playing field because they didn't have the stones to set a blanket set of procedures in place to deal with Covid issues. Instead, they kicked it to individual districts. Some teams never missed a second during the season, while others were severely handicapped by lack of practice time. Hopefully, by next season either the vaccine works, or folks put on their big boy pants, and realize that folks have to go about living. And as far as football, hopefully the SCHSL will provide at least a little bit of leadership if any issues are still at hand.

[Penguin]

Surprise, I am going to disagree with both of you. Given the unknowns, and the necessity to react on the fly, I thought that the SCHSL did as well as they could have. Sure, using hindsite, there could have been some better decisions made, but they were flying blind for the biggest part of the season.

As for the playoffs, the 16 team brackets proved to be a very good choice, and it is my opinion that this model should be what they use moving forward. This allows for EVERY team to have an extra game and because it cannot be scheduled ahead of time, allows for natural rivalry games to be played wherever possible.

I understand the frustrations that you are expressing, but overall, our season was a success, which is more than some states can say. Happy Holidays to all and hope that we all will be here to share next season. A

[stretch]

So next season, what are they going to do about the schedules if the world returns to being mostly normal? Will they revert to the original 10 game schedules teams had before the pandemic or what?

[DFOLDMAN]

I don't know...I think they will ease back into it; maybe a 8 game regular season and keep the playoffs the region winner and runner up. SCHSL took some lumps with this season, but hopefully learned some lessons. All new to everyone. I think travel will be limited, keep the games close- no out of state trips. The UK is experiencing a mutation of the covid virus that seems more contagious, so I think caution will be the watchword for 2021. Hopefully the vaccine works.

[cavaliereagle]

I'm kinda doubtful about the vaccine. They say you can be get the virus again after already having had the virus. If that's the case, I don't really see how the vaccine would be effective.

[stretch]

I’m all good with the condensed playoffs but I would rather them play more regular season games than 7 or 8 if it is safe to do so.