Additionally, the first three rounds will be hosted by the higher seed instead of just the first two.
In a news release, OHSAA executive director Doug Ute said the change was a result of feedback from schools after four years of 16-team playoff fields.
“For the last few years, we have been pleased that more schools experienced the football playoffs, and there were some lower seeds that won playoff games, but over the last year, we have received feedback from our schools with a slight majority favoring 12 qualifiers per region,” Ute said.
“We had many conversations with stakeholders around the state that led us to make this proposal to our board. We appreciate the feedback we received and will continue to gather comments moving forward. Like we do with all of our sports, we want to make sure the student-athletes are our No. 1 priority.”
This fall, the first round will see No. 12 play at No. 5, No. 11 at No. 6, No. 10 at No. 7 and No. 9 at No. 8 in the first round.
The 12-5 winner will then play at the No. 1 seed, 11-6 at No. 2, 10-7 at No. 3 and 8-9 at No. 4.
Fall practice is set to begin Aug. 1 with the first Friday of the regular season set to be Aug. 22.
The playoffs will begin Oct. 31, and the state championships are set to be in Canton on Dec. 4-6.
The move to 16 teams per region came after eight teams made the playoffs in each region from 1999-2019.
(All teams were able to opt into the playoffs in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Only 12 teams qualified for the playoffs total (four in each of three divisions) when the OHSAA began holding a football postseason in 1972.
That increased to 40 teams overall in five divisions in 1980 and 96 total when Division VI was added in 1994 and four teams made it per region.
Division VII was added in 2013 when Division I was split into two.
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