Ohio moves playoff games to Friday night

ohio high school athletic association
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Not wanting to compete with college football, the Ohio High School Athletic Association is moving the first four rounds of its high school football playoff games to Friday nights.

Under the old format, the OHSAA played playoff games on Fridays and Saturdays based-on when the state championship game was played.  For example, Division I, the state’s biggest classification played all of its playoff games on Saturday, because the championship game was played on Saturday.

“For a few years now we have studied the possibility of moving all playoff games to Friday nights for the first four rounds,” OHSAA Assistant Commissioner Beau Rugg said via a news release. “Due to so many more college football games being played on Saturday nights, attendance at our Saturday playoff games has steadily declined, and more potential playoff sites have said they cannot host games on Saturdays. We now have enough playoff sites to handle all the games on one night, and the football coaches association was in support of this change, too, because teams will get to stay on their normal weekly schedule of playing on Friday night.”

Related: Ohio adopts new divisions under competitive balance

The OHSAA has also announced the schedule for the state championship games that will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

Ohio high school football championship schedule

Championship game time assignments will be announced Saturday, Nov. 25
Thursday, Nov. 30 – Division I, II, V or VII, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 1 – Division I, II, V or VII, Game times at 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 2 – Division III, IV or VI, Game times at 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

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About the Author

Jeff Fisher
Jeff is an award-winning journalist and expert in the field of high school sports, underscored with his appearance on CNBC in 2010 to talk about the big business of high school football in America.Jeff turned to his passion for high school football into an entrepreneurial venture called High School Football America, a digital media company focused on producing original high school sports content for radio, television and the internet.Jeff is co-founder and editor-in-chief of High School Football America, a partner with NFL Play Football.