Welcome to the Second Half
January 27, 2012
More than 750 high schools are members of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. And every team in every community has a story.
“Second Half” is our place to tell them.
Combined with our parent site MHSAA.com, and our broadcast home MHSAA.tv, “Second Half” completes our picture of the best Michigan high school sports have to offer.
With MHSAA.com, “Second Half” is the home of a growing number of schedules, scores, league standings and tournament information for our sports – but also much more. Now, we’ll look to provide visitors with the stories behind the scores.
You’ll find the report of a rare feat or the achievement that rallied the town. Behind-the-scenes looks at what we do at the MHSAA and what goes into 28 Finals tournaments each school year. We tell the inspiring tales of overcoming large obstacles, and the simple ones of lessons learned just by being a part of school sports. They’re the kind of stories all of us can relate to and enjoy, no matter where we live and which teams we support.
Michigan is the 10th-largest state in the nation. There are more than 58,000 square miles of land, and by vehicle it’s 625 miles from Calumet High School near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula to Bedford High on the southeastern border with Ohio. Nearly 10 million people live, work and play here. MHSAA tournament events alone attract 1.6 million spectators each year.
With “Second Half”, we aim to make our state a little smaller.
If you like something we’re doing, let us know. If you’d like to see something else, I’d love to hear about it. My contact information is at the right of this screen, and my e-mail address is [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you – and telling the entire state about the great things you’re doing.
--Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA Reveals Football Playoff Format
September 25, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association has approved an adjusted format for this season’s 11 and 8-Player Football Playoffs to accommodate the shortened regular season that began late due to COVID-19-related restrictions earlier this fall.
All teams this season are able to play up to six regular-season games before the start of the MHSAA Playoffs – down from the usual nine games because the first games this season weren’t played until the traditional Week 4. However, the playoff fields for both 11 and 8-player will be doubled this season, giving nearly every team in Michigan a guaranteed seventh game.
Changes to the football postseason are for the 2020 season only. Following are brief descriptions of the adjusted MHSAA Football Playoffs in each format:
11-PLAYER
· Field: 512 teams. (There are currently 507 playing 11-player football this season, so five teams are scheduled to receive first-round byes at this time.)
· Schedule: 3 District Rounds, Regional Finals, Semifinals, Finals. The host sites for the Semifinals and Finals will be pre-arranged and announced at a later time. Finals will be played the weekend of Dec. 4-6.
· Brackets: Teams have been placed in pre-arranged divisions based on enrollment. Teams in Districts will be seeded 1-8 based on playoff-point average, with the teams with highest averages hosting at the District and Regional levels. Because of a small number of teams opting to not play this fall, division lines were adjusted from what was released during the spring classification announcement, moving 20 teams to different divisions than previously published – those changes will be reflected next week on the playoff points page of the MHSAA Website. Click for District groupings.
8-PLAYER
· Field: 64 teams. (There are currently 78 teams playing 8-player this season. Those teams that finish the season but do not qualify for the playoffs will be allowed to schedule one more game against other non-qualifiers.)
· Schedule: 3 Regional Rounds, Semifinals, Finals. Finals will be played the weekend of Nov. 27-28 at site(s) to be determined.
· Brackets: Teams were placed in pre-arranged divisions based on enrollment during the classification process this spring. The top 32 teams in each division based on playoff-point average will qualify for the playoffs. Brackets will be drawn and announced Oct. 25. Teams with higher playoff-point averages will host Regional and Semifinal games. Additionally, there are six 8-player teams too large by enrollment to qualify for the playoffs; they will be allowed to schedule their own non-MHSAA playoff if they choose to do so after the regular season.
Further details will be provided soon on the Football page of the MHSAA Website.
The Representative Council is the 19-member legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five are elected by member schools. Four members are appointed by the Council to facilitate representation of females and minorities, and the 19th position is occupied by the Superintendent of Public Instruction or designee.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.