There are many wise, caring people who work for the Iowa High School Athletic Association and serve on the IHSAA Board of Directors, but they'll need the wisdom of Solomon to solve some of the issues facing the football playoffs.

We're not talking about the district assignments that will affect the playoffs, although that's sure to elicit some howling when they are announced Thursday morning. No, we're talking about the high school playoffs themselves.

There's a real conundrum here and no easy solution.

If you follow high school football, you know the regular season ends on a Friday and the playoffs begin five days later on Wednesday. And if you win on Wednesday, you play five days later on Monday. And if you win again, you play four days later on Friday.

That's a total of four games in 15 days, which can be hard on the minds and bodies of teenagers. The IHSAA is looking for a solution, but there do not appear to be any easy answers.

They could start the regular season a week earlier, but that would decrease the amount of "down" time between the end of the high school baseball season and the start of football practice.

They could extend the playoffs an extra week, but that might bump into a Northern Iowa football game in the UNI-Dome, that magnificent facility in Cedar Falls that hosts the semifinals and finals of the playoffs.

They could cut the playoffs in half, trimming the playoff field from 32 teams to 16 per class, but that would deny all those teams a chance to participate in the playoffs and would also dent the IHSAA pocket book, which uses football revenues to help pay for championship events in non-revenue sports.

They could switch from a nine-game regular season to an eight-game regular season, which is one of the proposals the IHSAA Board of Directors will consider Wednesday morning when they meet for their regular monthly meeting in Boone. They could use Week 9 as the first week of the playoffs and give non-playoff teams an opportunity to face each other that night for their ninth game.

None of the proposals seems to have gotten much traction so far. All of the proposals have their critics, and none of the proposals seem to have generated much interest or excitement.

An experienced football official who serves as a crew chief in Class 4A games told me he's noticed no difference in the caliber of play during the playoffs, even when the games are only five days or four days apart. He thinks the players handle things well and continue to play at a high level.

An experienced athletic director at a 4A school agreed with that assessment, but said the real problem comes at school the day after a playoff game that's played on a Wednesday night or a Monday night, especially if it was a road game. There's not a lot of learning for those kids in school the day after a game.

So what are the IHSAA Board of Directors going to do?

Start the season earlier? End the season later? Cut the playoffs in half? Use Week 9 for the start of the playoffs?

We'll find out Wednesday.