5 Big Storylines for the 2022 IHSA season

With the 2022 IHSA Football season almost upon us, here are my Top 5 storylines to follow this coming season.

1. Will a return to "normal" mean a return to better overall football?

Normal? This has been the first true off-season that IHSA football has seen since the end of the 2019 season, compliments of the State of Illinois/IHSA deciding to shelve the 2020 Fall IHSA Football season because of the COVID19 pandemic. Instead of playing football in the Fall of 2020 (Illinois was the only upper Midwest state to NOT play high school football in the Fall of 2020) we pushed the season back to the Spring of 2021, and in theory we had a limited season (6 games and many schools played less than 6 games) with no post-season whatsoever. IHSA football went from no Fall 2020 season to playing and preparing for an extended 2021 season which included the COVID 19 makeup spring season (6 possible games) then right into preparing for a full Fall 2021 season (14 potential games) with full playoffs with very little if any recovery time.

The overall impact of the cancelled IHSA Fall 2020 season was monumental in my opinion and we are still feeling the impact). Teams were in most cases locked out campus weight rooms for months, was not allowed to gather or workout in large groups and only Zoom like meetings were allowed. Access to weights was almost non existent in many cases, and the sport was for the most part on hold for almost a year. In my opinion the overall quality of football has been declining here in the State of Illinois and the before the COVID 19 ordeal, which did nothing but impact even more the overall quality of IHSA football. .

The quality of football for the Spring 2021 IHSA Football season was not good. While everyone was thrilled to at least give the graduating seniors a shortened season to finish their high school career on the field, the excitement level without having a post-season to play for was muted to say the least for the shortened season. After the 6 weeks season, many IHSA football programs had a handful of weeks away before going into summer camp and prepping for another season. Several teams suffered various injuries along with just not having the proper time to rest, recuperate and then build up physically for another season. Players and coaches alike talked pretty openly about the wear and tear from the 2021 double season. I felt overall the quality of football also suffered. The traditional IHSA power programs won games as expected in the Fall 2021 season, but the large majority of schools stumbled in several ways especially later in the regular season.

Yet the hope for the 2022 season being a turning point is there across the state this summer.

High School football programs in the State of Illinois have now had a full off-season to rest and recover. IHSA football coaches in many ways needed an off-season just as much as the players, and while year round football sounds like a great thing to most IHSA football fanatics, having to deal with the grind and the wear and tear was much harder than expected. Teams are more rested, they have also had an entire season to get back into the weight room and just get bigger, stronger and better this off season. The overall football participation numbers at many schools state-wide have at least settled down after years of declining numbers, and in some cases have risen, especially at the lower levels. In the words of one IHSA head coach, "Parents are sick of kids sitting at home and doing nothing, so they are getting more on board with having those kids play football again." Hopefully this is a sign of better things to come for IHSA football in general and that will including improving the overall quality of football in this state. Time will tell and I'll be watching.....closely.

2. Help Needed: IHSA Ref Shortage hits a new high-

We've been hearing for years about just how smaller and smaller the overall field of available refs has shrunk.....yet instead of taking the issue more seriously and getting much more involved with coming up with a solution....we instead followed a long standing tradition here in the State of Illinois of kicking the proverbial can down the road and then let someone else deal with the issue. As long as the refs showed up on Friday nights...what issue right? Well guess what? IHSA refs are in high demand and the pool of available refs is at an all time low. The job of becoming a ref has no question become harder and harder, refs make very little pay for the work/travel and the overall flat out personal abuse has chased away more candidates by the day. A solution? This issue will not be a one fix repair and this will not get fixed quickly. Current refs point towards low pay, having to deal with more and more parental and coach abuse, threats and more. Some IHSA football conferences across the state have decided to play some games this season on Thursday nights instead of Friday night, thus making the pool of ref more easily available. Yet the issues of playing games on days other than Friday nights does nothing but spread out an already razor thin amount of working and available refs. This is no solution, but instead a band aid on a bigger and much more complicated issue. The IHSA, IHSFCA and various ref organizations need to sit down, come up with a truly workable plan and more sooner rather than later.

3. Are we equipped to start the season?

Good question and a question that seems to be getting resolved just in time to start the IHSA football season, yet several programs went weeks without having helmets. A combination of logistic issues, lack of parts from third party vendors for helmet refurbishing and flat out timing miscalculation on part of the equipment manufactures have all played a role in making more than a few coaches across the state more than a bit nervous. In typical IHSA football coaches fashion, the market for trading and acquiring helmets in particular has been very active. Several coaches with have stepped up in many ways to help out those without.

4. Back to the Map for the IHSA State Playoffs this fall-

We had a plan in place for this coming IHSA football season that would FINALLY have the entire Class 8A thru 1A state playoff field seeded 1-32 in what would be the first true seeding state-wide for all classes. Then the economy and $5 plus gallon of gas struck and the IHSA has since decided to hold off on implementing this move for Classes 6A-1A (Class 8A and Class 7A will retain 1-32 seeding) for "now" with no time table provided yet to reinstall a true seeding system. So what does this mean for the Class 6A thru 1A schools? The Class 6A thru 1A schools will continue to play in more geographically friendly playoff brackets, so expect in many cases to see the same power programs in each class to again face off against several of the same opponents based off location and not off a true merit/seeding. The best of the south plays the south and the best of the north plays north until the IHSA state title game when the two geographically balanced teams face off for a state championship. Here is fingers crossed that this will be the last year we get to see in too many cases lopsided state title games. Worse of all, having to witnessing conference opponents playing against other conference opponents early in the post-season is as far from fair as it can be in my opinion.

5. Who will host the IHSA State Championship Games starting in 2023?

The 2022 IHSA state championship games will be held at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois this season, then the contract will be up. According to the IHSA, a winning bid will be announced most likely at the IHSA Board December meeting. The IHSA has been playing it's IHSA State Finals games on a rotational basis between Illinois and NIU after Illinois needed to back out of hosting the IHSA games every other year after the Big Ten decided to add an additional game to it's schedule a handful of years ago.

So who will be bidding and who will host the games after 2022? I can say with pretty good confidence that Illinois State will be putting in a bid for the state final games. ISU was host of the IHSA state football championship for years, then decided to back out of the IHSA games when Illinois State instead wanted the ability to host potential FCS playoff games. I'm also very confident that NIU will also present a bid. NIU, while not having the updated facilities and overall curb appeal of say Illinois, has been a very good host for the IHSA and a DeKalb community that has embraced IHSA football weekend, plus the close location to the Chicagoland market along with several smaller schools is a real positive. Illinois? If the feedback from the IHSFCA clinic in January is any indication, look for the Fighting Illini to do everything within it's power to keep the games in Champaign. Unfortunately, the Big Ten schedule (hell...the Big Ten in general these days) is still pretty much an unknown, and the IHSA has also indicated that they expect this contract will run from 2023 thru the 2027 season with no exceptions....so will overall timing and schedule question marks potentially eliminate Illinois?

My best guess? I personally like the rotating host sites. It allows more than one town to host the games, spreads the wealth across the state to other colleges and also keeps towns a bit more on their toes when it comes to putting forward it's best efforts.

In the end.....I have said for a while now that I can see the IHSA games going back home to Illinois State. ISU has done several renovations to Hancock Stadium, they are in the middle of adding a brand new indoor practice facility which should be ready for 2023 and the IHSA offices are located within minutes of Illinois State. This is a pretty hard home field advantage to beat in my opinion for the IHSA.....but time will tell.