Super 7 in Mobile gets five days; Class 6A playoffs expand to 24 teams

 

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Class 6A football playoffs will expand to 24 teams this year and the Super 7 in Mobile will be conducted over five days in December, the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Central Board voted on Friday.

The Super 7 — which will be played in Mobile at Hancock Whitney Stadium for the first time this year —  has always been played over three days. The five-day pilot program was brought on by the recent separation of public and private schools for the playoffs, which will now end with four flag football finals, two private school finals and six public-school finals.

The Super 7 will likely be played Tuesday through Saturday, according to Mobile Sports Authority Executive Director Danny Corte, although the schedule has not been finalized.

“I went from bidding on a three-day event for nine games and we ended up with a five-day event for 12 games,” Corte said. “I am in.”

Corte said it’s possible the flag football championship games could be played on Tuesday and the two private school finals on Wednesday, leaving two public-school championship games each day Thursday, Friday and Saturday instead of three games a day.

“It’d be two, two and two,” Corte said of the Class 1A through Class 6A state championship games. “The good thing about it is it helps us spreading out the games with the locker rooms, helps us with traffic, helps us with parking. To me, this is almost a best-case scenario for us. And when it was the 11 (a.m.), 3 (p.m.) and 7 (p.m.), if your 11 o’clock game ran a little long, they got you on the field, gave you your trophy and said get off the field. Now, they can kind of take it all in on the field and not rush off.”

Corte suggested the private school playoff schedule could be amended to avoid a short week of preparation for any team in the Super 7.

“They could adjust the private school schedule where they do not play on that previous Friday or if they play the semis, it’d have to be Thursday because there has to be at least six days between the time these schools play,” he said.

Class 6A is the old Class 7A and formerly had 16 teams in the playoffs. The new bracket will include six extra teams and eliminate the idle week the former Class 7A teams had between their semifinals and the finals and give the top two teams in each region a first-round bye before they host a second-round game.

The new bracket is also designed to minimize travel as much as possible in the first two rounds and keep teams from the same region on separate ends of the bracket.

The 32 Class 7A coaches showed an unusual amount of togetherness in backing the proposal, according to Central Board President Terry Curtis and Alabama High School Athletic Directors and Coaches Association Director J.T. Lawrence, who is also the AHSAA’s assistant director.

“It’s something that was pretty much unanimous among them that they wanted to try,” Curtis said. “If the coaches want it and it looks like a good plan, I’m willing to try it. It came out of the committee and they were worried about seedings and stuff like that and they put a lot of work into it. It wasn’t done overnight. If it’ll help our game and be better for our game like they think it will be, hey, let’s go with it.”

Lawrence said the format will likely be tweaked as needed.

“There may be some kinks to work out along the way that you don’t realize yet,” he said.

Mary G. Montgomery coach Zach Golson likes the expanded playoff field.

“I am excited for the kids,” he said. “Six more teams in the playoffs I think is a positive thing. Definitely some of the central (Alabama) teams, the fives and sixes that have been left out, I think that’s a great thing for those programs. It’s still going to be highly competitive and I think more teams being in only makes it that much more competitive.”

Using last year’s Class 7A playoff field as an example, the Vikings would have had a first-round bye, then hosted Opelika or Foley. They would have likely played eventual state champion Thompson in the third round and possibly faced Hoover or Auburn in the semifinals.

MGM, Thompson, Sparkman, Auburn, Central Phenix City, James Clemens, Baker and Hewitt-Trussville would have gotten first-round byes under the new bracket.

Lawrence said the new bracket should lead to better games in later rounds.

“You’ve got to stay healthy and win but I think the opportunity is there for some really strong matchups, especially later in the playoffs,” he said. “I think the opportunity is there for some teams who may have never hosted a first-round playoff game or have the opportunity to showcase their community, their school, their stadium in a home playoff game, so that will be exciting for those schools and communities.”

Curtis said while the Class 6A coaches support the expanded field, some grumbling will likely result over the matchups.

“I am sure once you get into it, according to matchups, there’s going to be some people not happy about it,” he said. “But you don’t even know who the matchups are going to be yet. Any time you try something different. you’re gonna have people who say, ‘Let’s go’ and other ones who say, ‘Whoa, I don’t know about this’ but it seemed like there was a lot of unity among the 7A coaches. I saw them all in Montgomery last week and I don’t think I talked to a one that said, ‘I don’t know about this.’ We’re trying something different. You keep trying to get it right. I looked at it pretty close once they worked the kinks out and I looked to see if anybody was getting an advantage and I couldn’t see one — it seemed to be fair play across the board.”

In other decisions Friday, the Central Board:

• Approved an independent school committee.

• Approved using the 1.35 multiplier for tiebreakers in the private school playoffs.

• Approved adding a sub-regional round to the volleyball playoffs, as is the case in basketball.