No more FE in Illinois...

Was at the clinic, but didn't go to Gannaway's meeting. I've never felt both that both FE and multiplier are necessary. In terms of the other issue, personally, i've never had a problem with scrimmaging in only uppers during the summer if it is a college or unversity camp--plenty of supervision and a pretty controlled environment. It seems to me that something could be done other than doing away with summer scrimmaging totally.

nydc -

"Football Enrollment" is calculated based on the size of the schools your school plays. So, if your school is the smallest school in the conference, you will probably get bumped up a playoff class once the playoffs roll around. If, on the other hand, your school is bigger than the other schools in your conference, your football enrollment won't be effected.

For instance, the school I am going to coach at next year has about 1400 students. If the school's actual enrollment was used, that would place us in the 5A playoffs. However, this is the smallest team in the conference, so they typically have been bumped up to the 6A playoffs.

Basically, you get "penalized" in Illinois for playing schools with larger enrollments by getting bumped up to a higher playoff case. If the "football enrollment" method is discontinued, playoff classification would be determined by the actual enrollment (or the "multiplied" enrollment for open-enrollment schools) of the school only.

Please excuse us non-Illinoisans (is that the right word?) but some of this stuff is totally foreign to us. You've explained the FE, a concept that I found strange. It seems like it's meant to penalize private schools, true?
By summer scrimmages do you mean pre-season scrimmages during 2-a-days in the weeks before your opener?

Sorry Coaches. IHSA Board has NOT done away with the football enrollment. FE and the multiplier will both be in full effect again next season.

Phantom, football enrollment was put in place to prevent schools from playing larger teams all season and then feasting upon small teams come playoff time. I believe Bloomington Central Catholic was a big reason for this. As I heard it, they used to be an independent and played a regular season schedule filled with teams from much bigger schools. They would always win enough games to get in, and since their enrollment was small, they would dominate class 2A and 3A. It may be targeted toward private schools, but it effects everybody. This really hurts my team. Our enrollment would put us in 1A but after the FE and the multiplier we are now on the 3A/4A bubble.

Also, note to other Illinois guys - I read on Edgytim that there are indeed some new rules regarding summer contact. Haven't found anything solid but I will post it if I find it. I don't know the specifics but it was something to the effect that "Summer Camps" in which you wear uppers and comete against other teams is now against the rules. Also, no more than two players from the same team may attend the same speed camp, QB camp, Lineman Camp, etc... Like I said, just the rumor mill at this point but I will see what I can find out.

i think the summer rule states that you canot coach anyone on your team against another team other than 7on7. your kids can go to a camp and compete against other schools but they will be coached by the instructors/coaches at the camp.

Almost everyone runs a scrimmage the week before Game 1, but it is intrasquad. No scrimmages against other schools.