The MIAA Football Committee took the first step in hopes of convincing the state it had a better playoff proposal.

Football Committee chairman Jay Costa and Milton football coach Steve Dembowski joined in on the two-hour MIAA Tournament Management Committee meeting Thursday morning and laid out plans for a revamped football structure. Costa said the goal was to open some dialogue and create a sub-committee made up of football committee and TMC members to look at the proposal.

“We are here to propose some modifications,” Costa said of the plan, which would go into effect for the 2025 season if accepted. “We’ve had the statewide system and after a few years of evaluation, we feel there can be some tweaks to it. We feel that, more from a regular season aspect, the sport is hurting a bit during the regular season.”

Among the major modifications are an 11-game regular season, in which the regular season would end and the top eight teams in each division qualify for the postseason. Schools could schedule up to 11 games, including Thanksgiving during the regular season, but must play a minimum of nine to become playoff eligible. The feeling is that power ranking system would be even more effective if there is an 11-game sample size as opposed to the current eight.

The quarterfinals would be on the Tuesday night after Thanksgiving (five days later), with the higher seeded school hosting unless their field does not meet established standards. The semifinals would be played Sunday (five days later) at a neutral site, with the Super Bowls going on the following Saturday at a neutral site.

This would ensure the top 20 percent of schools in each division will qualify for the tournament. The argument being made for limiting the playoff teams from 16 to eight stems in large part from the data showing teams seeded 9-16 have won just 16 of 128 games. It would make it extremely unlikely that teams with a losing record would qualify.

Another motivation for the plan is that it would make Thanksgiving the pinnacle of the season. It would also provide additional motivation for potential playoff teams, opponents of prospective playoff teams, and the communities of these schools. Teams in the state finals would no longer have a reason not to play their best players on Thanksgiving.

Some committee members pushed back on the notion that consolation games didn’t serve a purpose. More than one coach has told the Herald that their programs have benefitted from playing in consolation games since they can actually compete against teams of similar skills.

“We’re talking about teams struggling right now,” said TMC chairman Shaun Hart. “What happens if we go to an 11-game schedule and my team is 0-8, 0-9, 0-10? Isn’t that the same struggle?”

Others were concerned that extending the season an extra week would interfere with winter sports. Dembowski understands this is a potential stumbling block but feels it can minimized.

“We don’t want to impact other seasons, but there needs to be some discussions,” Dembowski said. “We could extend the preseason or start the seasons a week later.”

The other major topic of concern was tinkering with the power rankings, namely trying to find a way to put extra emphasis on wins. MIAA power rankings guru Jim Clark explained a few possible scenarios whereby a wins component could be added to satisfy those who feel that should be a given in any rankings system used.

“We do need to take a step back and look at this,” said Hart, who feels the system is good as is. “We have a system that is working more than 80 percent of the time and I don’t want to compromise that. You could have schools looking to get an extra five wins and that might drive some teams down.”

Hart received some pushback from athletic directors John Brown of Wellesley and Dwayne Early of Springfield. Brown pointed to Everett being 7-1 in football and not making the playoffs, while Early expressed the concerns of Springfield Central.

“Springfield Central started the football season with wins over Xaverian and Central Catholic (sandwiched between a loss to Iona Prep) and were No. 1 in the rankings after the third week,” Early said. “We won the rest of our games and we dropped down to seven and had to play a quarterfinal game at Xaverian against a team we beat. We can’t control who we play in our league.”