Football changes may be coming

State championship weekend would be earlier in December.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The PIAA's football steering committee has rejected a proposal by executive director Brad Cashman to expand football playoff classifications from four to eight and to reduce the football season from 16 weeks to 14 weeks.
But the committee did suggest changes in the football calendar for 2008 that will be passed along to the PIAA Board of Directors in January.
Items
The committee voted 10-1 this week to move the following proposal to the PIAA Board of Directors, beginning in 2008-2009:
Retain the current four classifications;
Give schools the option of replacing their second scrimmage with a game;
Provide for at least a three-day heat acclimation period with no pads or contact the week prior to the official start of fall sports practice;
Maintain a 16-week season (assuming a school opts for its first game instead of a second scrimmage;
Play the state championship games on Dec. 5 and 6 instead of Dec. 12 and 13 as currently scheduled;
Recommend that the winter sports season start one week later than its current starting date to reduce football's two-week overlap into basketball and wrestling to one week.
Cashman proposed that PIAA cut the football season from 16 weeks to 14 by doubling the number of classifications and retaining the current number of playoff qualifiers. He also wanted to eliminate the overlap of football into the early portion of winter sports schedules.
Praised for thinking
"The football steering committee came up with a great idea," Cashman said. "It did some good thinking outside the box and came up with a way to eliminate that two-week overlap. That was the primary reason for my proposal to begin with.
"You have to weigh whether schools are willing to accept that overlap," Cashman said. "It doesn't just affect those teams involved, but it affects their opponents as well. Those teams had to cancel or reschedule their games as well."
The proposal must pass three readings before it becomes official PIAA policy. It could be amended or rejected at any point in the process.
If the PIAA rejects the proposal, the football season will be the same in 2008 as it was this year with a 16-week season and four classifications without any changes in the start of fall and winter sports seasons.
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