Metro teams could make good run in playoffs
Paul James was chatting about the high school football playoffs on KGYM last Friday afternoon when he was asked about the field being reduced from 32 to 16 teams next season by the IHSAA.
James, the football coach and athletic director at Cedar Rapids Washington, said he agrees with the move, partly because it will eliminate some of the mismatches that have occurred in first-round games between powerful No. 1 seeds and weak No. 4 seeds.
As a case in point, James mentioned that his team scored 78 points against Clinton in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs last year in a game that quickly got out of hand. Washington was undefeated at the time and headed to the championship game a few weeks later, whereas Clinton made the playoffs with a 2-7 mark from a weak district.
Things are quite a bit different for Washington this year. The Warriors are still a strong club with an 8-1 record and another No. 1 seed, but this time they've drawn a dangerous first-round assignment against the Cedar Falls Tigers Wednesday night.
Cedar Falls is not a state power this year, but the Tigers posted a 6-3 record during the regular season and were ranked in the Top 10 earlier in the year before losing a few games. Cedar Falls actually tied for second place in District 5 with Jefferson and Linn-Mar with 3-2 district marks, but the Tigers lost all the tiebreakers and ended up with the No. 4 seed.
