Who Controls the Scheduling Where You Coach?

I am the AD and HFB Coach. I handle the scheduling, but I also handled it when I was just the HFB coach.

Our AD coached at the school before Jesus walked the earth. Can barely use a cell phone let alone fill out stuff on a computer. Great guy though and is a buffer for crazy parents

Our Head Coach does the scheduling of out of region games with suggestions from admin... our region schedule is set by governing body and a draw at region meeting

In SC, regions/classification are determined by the League Office.

Then the regions will decide how the region games are set up. Most of the time each region opponents will play each other once and then the schools will set up their own non-region games. Sometimes if similar region (size/classification wise) have an odd number of members, 2 regions will agree to cross bracket with each other for the team that doesn't have a region game that week during region time (last half or so of season depending on the size of the regions) that doesn't count as region game.  

Some of our smaller schools that have geographically isolated regions will all play each other twice during the season; once as a non-region game and once as a game that counts towards the playoffs.  But that would be a region/school agreement.

ADs might have some input in terms of presenting the simple economics of needing a certain gate game to help float the athletic budget, but mostly it is HCs the determine the schedule.

I don't know of any school that has booster club influence other that maybe somebody saying, "You know what Coach?  We ought to play so-and-so, that would be a good game..."

The league schedule is put together by the state association, which I'm sure is the same for everyone... but any game that is not part of our conference I have 100% control over. Home/Away which opponent, everything.

Our Section dictates who we play and when. The head coach/AD has no say who we play. Head coach/AD can only change a game from say a Friday night to a Saturday afternoon/night if both teams agree for homecoming or Senior Night.

A group of AD's sits down and lays it out for the entire state, conference and non-conference.  If 2 schools agree not to play for some reason as long as it is a non-conference game they are allowed to do so.

When y'all say league, do y'all mean the STATE association? and by games the WHOLE season? So there are schools that have NO control over game that don't even matter for qualifying for the playoffs?

In FL 5A and above sets the districts and regions. Districts will give you anywhere from 3-8 games. The remaining are up to the school how they choose to schedule. 4A and below schedule at random with no districts.

At the school I'm at now the AD does a bulk of the scheduling with little input from the head coach and a LOT of input from both the admin and the school board. Seems assanine to me that the head football coach has little control over his schedule. Very similar to the Bill Parcells grocery shopping comment from years ago.

The simple answer is that our AD does with input from the HC. But it's not that simple. The state athletic association establishes our districts. That establishes 5 of our 8 regular season games. The other 3 games are almost always league games. The league has a matrix that determines which teams will play each other. In the event we have to find a non league game in the first 3 weeks, the HC and AD try to find a game. In 20 seasons I don't remember playing a non league opponent in the first part of the season though.

Ours is more complicated to explain than it is to do.

In Virginia our districts are established by the state but as far as I know pretty much every school is in the district that they want to be in. Our district has almost the same schools now as it did when I got there in 1977. The district's administrator who handles each sport sets the district schedule but only as far as scheduling what week we play.

There are ten schools in the district so that only leaves one out of district game. The HC generally sets up that game and the school AD finalizes the deal.

Actual times and dates are set by the city ADs. Only one school in the district has it's own field. Four of the schools share one city stadium and five share another. After the games are slotted by week the city ADs assign the dates and times.

I’m more confused now than ever before.

Do some of you not have out of conference/league/region games

I’m also not sure why anyone besides the head coach would decide who you play in the out of conference. Yes, works with the AD on logistics, but I’m assuming most ADs don’t know your personnel, the other team, or what your needs are for the season. Ours shoots ideas all the time, most times w zero comprehension of why his suggestions are real bad ideas outside of having the same opening. (Ex. Sending us a state power when we are replacing everyone, sending us a team that is multiple divisions lower, etc).

In NC the state sets the conferences-anywhere between 5-10 teams in a conference. The conference then meets to set the conference schedule for each sport. Then it is up to the schools to arrange non conference games. Usually the HC finds the non conference games and the AD puts the rubber stamp on them.

In my stops in Ohio and Michigan it has been the AD and Head Coach working together for non conference games. The conference games are on a rotating basis every 2 years.