IHSA schools vote 'no' on change to football district scheduling. What coaches are saying

Illinois High School Association football scheduling will not change for 2024.

IHSA member schools voted down a transition to football districts, according to a Tuesday release from the organization. So-called Proposal 18 was an amendment to adopt a district format for the football schedule. Instead, current conference play will remain for this upcoming season.

“I’m disappointed that it didn’t pass," Peoria Notre Dame coach Pat Armstrong said ".… It was a yes (vote) the whole way for us. It seems like every two years there’s a push for (districts). About 45 percent of the state wants it, so I don’t know where it’s going to go."

PND was one of 272 schools that was in favor of Proposal 18, while 379 schools voted no to the proposal and 76 had no opinion. Voting closed Monday after two weeks to let the IHSA predetermine the schools within the eight enrollment classes and place them in eight "districts."

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Nearly 90 percent of schools participated in the annual vote on proposals, the highest in more than a decade. Proposal 18 was one of 14 on the ballot and only one of two to fail, along with Proposal 11, which reduced the number of summer contact days from 25 to 18. The 12 passed proposals can be found at ihsa.org.

“I think there were lots of unanswered questions from people,” Farmington coach Toby Vallas said of districts not passing, “so it did not surprise me that it didn’t pass. … I don’t think it was a terrible idea, but I think it’s so drastic it’s hard to get something like to pass when it’s such a drastic change.”

Vallas says he went back and forth on Proposal 18, deciding ultimately to align himself with Farmers athletics director Jeff Otto, who backed the change.

“It could have benefited us for now,” Vallas said, “but I do not know in the long run if it’s the right thing for the sport.”

If district football was put into action, programs would no longer have set their own schedules or played within a conference. Instead, teams would have been be placed in one of 64 districts and played a round-robin schedule of seven opponents with similar enrollments. The multiplier and success factor both would be applied. The top half of teams, four in each district, would have made the playoffs, which would be seeded similarly to how they are now. Games in the first two weeks of the season would be non-district games set by each school, leaving room for geographic or traditional rivalries.

This is not the first time district football was on an IHSA ballot. A move to districts originally passed in 2018 and was rescinded a year later. When the original proposal passed in 2018, just 17 votes separated the final verdict, 324-307 with 69 voting "no opinion." The 2019 overturned vote came in at 374-241 with 87 voting "no opinion."

Cody Myers was one of the Peoria-area coaches in favor of districts four years ago. He was the Canton head coach at the time of the 2019 vote, and he told the Journal Star then that districts provided the Little Giants an opportunity to get away from the difficulty of playing in the Mid-Illini Conference against larger schools and face schools similar in size.

Now as the Deer Creek-Mackinaw head coach, Myers knows there are still too many unanswered questions regarding Proposal 18 despite Dee-Mack voting yes.

“We were looking forward to seeing where this would go,” Myers said, “and if maybe there would be a better plan out there, but when they unrolled exactly what the vote was for, there really wasn’t a solid plan behind it, so it was hard for our conference — the Heart of Illinois — to get too excited for something when you weren’t really sure what we you were signing up for.”

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IHSA executive director Craig Anderson said the IHSA board now will form a special committee to address "issues that are at the root of different football proposals."

"(The board) recognizes the myriad issues in IHSA football are unique and can be based on geography, school size, conference affiliation, and the traditional success of a program, which is why no recent proposals have garnered enough support to pass," Anderson said. "There is likely no singular answer to these issues, but the board wants to explore the idea that a large and diverse group from around the state might be able to find some solutions that the high school football community in the state would support."

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

Past coverage of the IHSA football district vote

What are districts? IHSA schools could vote to change the football scheduling process. Here’s what it means

What coaches are saying: Peoria-area coaches on the potential change to districts

What would districts look like? How one high school football expert projects districts involving Peoria-area teams

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: IHSA football districts: Schools vote no on scheduling changes, coach reactions