Daily Dose: Oct. 28 - What is old should be new again

It seems like an annual tradition, ripping the IHSA playoff football pairings, but 2009 proves yet again that the current system of geographic pairings is ridiculous.

Just look at Classes 6A and 7A....

The "upper" bracket of 6A is a who's who of the best in the state, with championship-caliber games happening as soon as the second round.

Same can be said for the subdivided "upper" bracket of 7A.

Back in the day the IHSA used to seed 1-32 (gasp!) but decided the travel times were too long for certain schools. But after covering volleyball in the west suburbs for years where the best teams always beat each other up just to get to a sectional final, and in football where the state title games are usually blowouts, most coaches and athletic directors would prefer to seed 1-32, travel be damned.

Said Oswego head coach Dave Keely:
"(Travel) is not all its cracked up to be. Take Edwardsville - they're coming all the way up to Minooka (in 7A). You have Richards going all the way to Rock Island. There's someone in the St. Louis area coming up this way in 7A also. I don't think it's that much of a problem.

I think most schools, if you did a straight 1-32 seed, the travel, in the long run, equals out because proximity is going to draw you back together again anyway."

Providence Catholic coach Mark Coglianese agreed:
"You need to kind of reward some of these teams that went 8-1 and even things out a little bit. I don't know all the (IHSA's) philosophies and theories, but I don't think this is real good division (of teams). I think going 1 to 32 would be better."