Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — The Wyoming Valley Conference has new football schedules for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
The WVC athletic directors voted 16-1 Thursday afternoon to approve schedules that differ quite a bit in some cases from the past two years as the PIAA moves from four to six classifications for football. Lake-Lehman cast the only vote against.
“Of all the schools, they have it the toughest,” District 2 football chairman Mike Ognosky said of the Black Knights. “They have the traditional game with Dallas (Week 10). Then in Week 9, they just happen to have Berwick. I looked at the two or three teams Berwick could fill with a game. To me, (it was) the most competitive game and the game that was best for both programs based on their history.”
The 2016 season will kick off Friday, Aug. 26, and every team will maintain a 10-game regular-season schedule. The PIAA wanted to slice a week off the football schedule starting in 2016. That gave leagues throughout the state the option of eliminating one scrimmage and playing 10 games or keeping two scrimmages and playing nine games.
Ognosky said the schools from two leagues that make up District 2 — the WVC and Lackawanna Football Conference — voted 36-1 to use the one-scrimmage, 10-game format.
Ognosky said the process of creating schedule for conferences began in October.
“We built it with a couple things in mind,” Ognosky said. “We tried to give teams the best opportunities based on their classification and based on the others in their classification to earn points to be involved in the playoffs.
“Both leagues, quite honestly, have schools whose programs are quite fragile and need to be protected a little bit. You can’t really play them in their classification because if you do, you’re going to have the risk of that program disappearing, that program having trouble. I think that’s a responsibility to help those programs.”
The WVC worked with the Northern Tier League, which is comprised of schools in north central Pennsylvania, to fill in non-conference gaps the LFC couldn’t. It also searched elsewhere for non-conference opponents.
“We met with the Northern Tier in October,” WVC football commissioner Sandy Mackay said. “On Dec. 23, Mike and I got Mahanoy Area for Redeemer and Donegal for Hazleton.”
Some of those games were locked into specific weeks, so the football committee had to work around those dates in putting together a conference schedule. Some WVC teams also requested their annual rivalry games remain on Week 10. That was accomplished.
“The problem is you have an odd number of teams (in the WVC), so they went and found games,” Ognosky said. “I had to put to those in the schedule. Then they said, ‘These teams have to play each other on Week 10.’ So I had to put them in. Once I had those pieces, then I had to try to put it together.”
Several other topics were also covered regarding football.
District playoffs
District 2 has from one to three weeks to complete playoffs depending on when the champions have to enter the state tournaments in their classifications.
Class A has one week before it plays the District 1 champion. So District 2 will hold only a championship game between its top-two teams based on state points.
Class 2A and 3A have two weeks, so four teams in each will qualify for the district playoffs. The D2-2A champion opens states against the D3-2A champion. The D2-3A champion plays the D4-3A champion.
The WVC has no teams in the D2-2A bracket.
Class 4A has three weeks before the champion plays the District 12 champion. There are two proposals on the table.
The first is an eight-team playoffs with quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. The other is a six-team playoff with the top-two teams in the D2-4A standings receiving first-round byes. The district used that format in Class 2A in 2008.
“I’m going to defer to the schools when it comes to setting up brackets,” Ognosky said. “But there’s room for it to be either.”
The playoffs for Class 5A haven’t been set.
District 2 is in a subregional with District 11. The two districts combined have seven teams, so there has been discussions of having a seven-team playoffs.
Also under consideration is District 2 and District 11 holding their own playoffs for two weeks with the champions of both districts then playing before entering the state playoffs against the District 12 champion.
Under that format, the District 2 second- and third-place teams would play in a semifinal. The winner would then play the top seed for the district title.
In Class 6A, District 2 is in a subregional with District 4, whose only 6A team is the WVC’s Williamsport. There are a total of four teams, so the plan is for all to make the playoffs and play semifinals and a championship game. The champion would then play the champion of the District 6-8-10 subregional in the first round of states.
State points system
The PIAA tweaked its state points system due to moving from four to six classifications.
A victory over an opponent in the same classification will continue to earn 100 state points towards the postseason. However, a victory over an opponent one class higher will be only 110 points, not 120 like in the past. A victory against an opponent one class lower will be worth 90 points instead of 80.
The class differences will be in increments of 10 points rather than 20. So a Class 3A school defeating a Class 5A school would get 120 points. A Class 5A school defeating a Class 3A school would get 80.
Teams will continue to receive 10 bonus points for every victory by an opponent it defeated.
Eastern Conference
Eastern Conference officer Bob Gimble said due to the PIAA going to six classifications that the Eastern Conference will hold only championship games in 2016. Class 5A and 6A will be combined due to the lack of teams once district playoffs are set. Districts 2, 3, 4 and 11 form the Eastern Conference.
The Eastern Conference could go back to semifinals and championship games in 2017 based on how things play out in 2016.
“I think (classes) 4, 3 and 2 after we see how everything falls out will be able to go to the regular two-game playoff after this year,” Gimble said. “Right now, we can’t predict what will happen.”
WVC divisions
The WVC will maintain a three-division format as in recent years. All teams will remain in the same divisions.
Division 1 will have the three biggest schools – Hazleton Area, Williamsport and Wyoming Valley West.
Division 2 will be comprised off all Class 4A schools – Berwick, Coughlin, Crestwood, Dallas, Pittston Area, Tunkhannock and Wyoming Area.
Division 3 will have Class A Northwest and Class 3A schools GAR, Hanover Area, Holy Redeemer, Lake-Lehman, Meyers and Nanticoke.
Single scrimmage
The PIAA requires all schools to have five days of practice before a scrimmage. With the elimination of one week of double sessions in order to play a 10-game schedule, scrimmages can’t be held on the Friday of the first week of practice.
“That scrimmage has to be on a Saturday. It can’t be on a Friday,” Ognosky said. “They have to have five full days of practice. That was a question that came to me that I took to the state office.”