Welp, it's here. High school football scrimmages start Friday night.

[RockmartDawg]

Rockmart hosts Bremen for this Friday's scrimmage, and then hosts Rome on Thursday of next week for their 2nd and final scrimmage. The season officially kicks off on Friday, August 16th, when Rockmart hosts cross-county rival Cedartown.

[JC-DAWG83]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.

[GriffWoody]

Dunwoody Jr. Wildcats started practice last week. Jamboree on the 10th and 1st game of the season will be Aug. 17th. Love hearing the pads thump at practice this week. Foosball is back, baby!

[RockmartDawg]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.
[/quote]

Yep. We're about 2 weeks ahead of traditional schedule. One thing they do is have 2 off weeks during the season, whereas in days past there was always 1 off week. They're doing something different this year in inserting a 3rd off week on (I think?) Thanksgiving weekend. That will impact only teams that make it to the semi-finals (I believe that is correct). That additional off week has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving holiday, but allegedly it has to do with the Georgia-Georgia Tech game being played on Friday (Nov. 29th) of that same weekend. But someone else has mentioned that the week of the state championships would conflict with something at the dome, thus they moved the high school playoffs out a week, pushing the state championships out a week, thus avoiding the conflict at the dome.

If that 3rd off week situation wasn't happening, I think we'd probably be 1 week ahead of the traditional timetable, with the opening game being at the very end of August or very beginning of September.

[JC-DAWG83]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.
[/quote]

Yep. We're about 2 weeks ahead of traditional schedule. One thing they do is have 2 off weeks during the season, whereas in days past there was always 1 off week. They're doing something different this year in inserting a 3rd off week on (I think?) Thanksgiving weekend. That will impact only teams that make it to the semi-finals (I believe that is correct). That additional off week has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving holiday, but allegedly it has to do with the Georgia-Georgia Tech game being played on Friday (Nov. 29th) of that same weekend. But someone else has mentioned that the week of the state championships would conflict with something at the dome, thus they moved the high school playoffs out a week, pushing the state championships out a week, thus avoiding the conflict at the dome.

If that 3rd off week situation wasn't happening, I think we'd probably be 1 week ahead of the traditional timetable, with the opening game being at the very end of August or very beginning of September.
[/quote]

IIRC; bitd the first game was usually the Friday after Labor Day so call it September 5th or so.  Seasons were 10 games with one week off and the last games were generally played around mid November.  Playoffs were started the Friday before Thanksgiving week and were usually wrapped up the first or second weekend in December.  I remember going to some HS playoff games the day after Thanksgiving and then going to Athens to watch the Georgia/tech game the next morning.  Maybe there was one fewer playoff round back then?  It sure seems like a lot more teams are in the playoffs now.  There are five rounds in the playoffs now in GHSA.  I don't think there have always been that many.  The teams in the final game of the playoffs will play 15 games in a season.  I guess there are more schools now so they have to have more regions. 

It looks to me like they are starting about 3 weeks early compared to the old days.  The season ends about the same time in December so I guess your thought about the weeks off is right.  I guess having two bye weeks during the season is nice but mid August is way too early to be playing football in full pads.  Kickoffs will be in sunshine, it won't be dark until halftime or later.

[RockmartDawg]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.
[/quote]

Yep. We're about 2 weeks ahead of traditional schedule. One thing they do is have 2 off weeks during the season, whereas in days past there was always 1 off week. They're doing something different this year in inserting a 3rd off week on (I think?) Thanksgiving weekend. That will impact only teams that make it to the semi-finals (I believe that is correct). That additional off week has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving holiday, but allegedly it has to do with the Georgia-Georgia Tech game being played on Friday (Nov. 29th) of that same weekend. But someone else has mentioned that the week of the state championships would conflict with something at the dome, thus they moved the high school playoffs out a week, pushing the state championships out a week, thus avoiding the conflict at the dome.

If that 3rd off week situation wasn't happening, I think we'd probably be 1 week ahead of the traditional timetable, with the opening game being at the very end of August or very beginning of September.
[/quote]

IIRC; bitd the first game was usually the Friday after Labor Day so call it September 5th or so.  Seasons were 10 games with one week off and the last games were generally played around mid November.  Playoffs were started the Friday before Thanksgiving week and were usually wrapped up the first or second weekend in December.  I remember going to some HS playoff games the day after Thanksgiving and then going to Athens to watch the Georgia/tech game the next morning.  Maybe there was one fewer playoff round back then?  It sure seems like a lot more teams are in the playoffs now.  There are five rounds in the playoffs now in GHSA.  I don't think there have always been that many.  The teams in the final game of the playoffs will play 15 games in a season.  I guess there are more schools now so they have to have more regions. 

It looks to me like they are starting about 3 weeks early compared to the old days.  The season ends about the same time in December so I guess your thought about the weeks off is right.  I guess having two bye weeks during the season is nice but mid August is way too early to be playing football in full pads.  Kickoffs will be in sunshine, it won't be dark until halftime or later.
[/quote]

You are right in that there are probably more playoff games than there used to be. In fact, I had to go have a look. In the early-1970s Carrollton won the state championship a couple of times. Looks like they played 13 games during those championship runs. Today, teams that go to the state championship will typically play 15 games. That is one significant factor, adding 2 games. Then, there is the additional off week. That's 3 additional weeks tacked onto the season.

The season starting on Friday, August 16th, puts them 2 weeks ahead of August 30th. That could be an additional week starting. I looked at Carrollton's 1971 schedule. Their opening game was on September 3rd. Their 1979 season, on the other hand, started on August 24th. Redan won the Class AAA state championship that year, and they played 15 games. So, sometime between 1971 and 1979 they added playoff games. Part of that, I can remember what happened. In the 1971 season they only played a region championship game, and then you were straight into the semi-finals (per what I see in their schedule). In the 1979 season there were 2 region playoffs, and then when you won your region you went to the quarter-finals.

I guess the biggest difference, today, from the 1979 season is the 2nd off week added to the season. This year is an anomaly because of the added 3rd week off during the week of the semi-finals/Thanksgiving weekend.

[McDonoughDawg]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.
[/quote]
Agree, it’s stupid to start so early..

Much of it has to do with each region getting 4 teams into the playoff, that adds two weeks to the season..

[RockmartDawg]

Supposed to be 98 degrees here on Friday.  It will probably be no lower than 94 in Rockmart.  It is crazy to start football this early.

HS football should have its first game the Friday after Labor Day AGI.
[/quote]
Agree, it’s stupid to start so early..

Much of it has to do with each region getting 4 teams into the playoff, that adds two weeks to the season..
[/quote]

Actually, with the current format of 4 teams from each region going into the state playoffs, they just restructured from what used to be the same number of teams, but they played for a region title. I remember the 1988 and 1989 seasons there were two weeks to determine a region champion. In fact, the 1978 and 1979 seasons were the same, although in 1978 and 1979 only 3 teams were involved. Once you determined your region champion, they went into the state quarterfinals.

Now they have 4 teams still playing in the playoffs, but there are no longer any region playoffs. They all go straight into the state playoffs. So, that actually didn't add any games. It just restructured how those first 2 games would be played, pitting teams against teams from other regions rather than being against region opponents.

The reasoning behind the current format of multiple teams from the same region going to the state playoffs was the argument that sometimes the best teams were in the same region, and one (or more) of them would be eliminated from even the opportunity to play in the state playoffs because only 1 team could come out of a region. The very first year they changed the playoff format they actually had 1 week of region playoffs to determine what 2 teams from the region would go to the state playoffs. The argument was proven true the very first year when the 2 teams from region 1-AAA met for the AAA state championship. Cairo defeated Worth County for the AAA state championship that year, 37-28.

I think they did that format for 2 years (1990 and 1991 seasons) and then 4 teams from each region started going straight to the state playoffs beginning with the 1992 season.