WARREN — The Ohio High School Athletic Association was excited on Thursday to announce the expansion of the high school football playoffs from eight to 16 teams in each region.

Some area coaches weren’t so enthused.

The OHSAA expanded the number of playoff qualifiers to 16 schools per region and will allow higher-seeded teams to host the first two rounds of the postseason. There will not be byes for any teams, so the No. 16 team in a region will play the No. 1 team in the first round, and No. 15 will play No. 2, and so on. The OHSAA said this allows more teams to “experience” the postseason.

“Last fall, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback when we allowed every team to enter the football playoffs due to the shortened season because of COVID-19,” Doug Ute, OHSAA executive director, said in the news release. “We know there are some who want to keep the football postseason to a smaller number of schools, but the postseason tournament gives such a positive experience for our student-athletes, the schools and their communities that we felt strongly about giving that opportunity to more schools to make the playoffs.

“And football remains the only OHSAA sport in which not every team automatically qualifies for the postseason.”

A couple local coaches think the OHSAA has other motives behind the changes and that the expansion “waters down” the playoff field.

Springfield coach Sean Guerriero said he believes money was a major factor in this decision. The OHSAA receives the gate fee for tickets to all postseason games, so raising the number of teams to 448 from 224 will drastically increase its revenue.

Prior to 2020, the OHSAA gave schools a small percentage of the revenue from presale tickets for playoff games. Last year, the association did not allot any presale funds to the schools and also cut funding for travel and meals.

“For our school, football is the main source of income for athletics,” Guerriero said. “We did not have that opportunity last year (because of COVID-19), but when it came down to playoffs, the OHSAA didn’t give us a cut of it. They did nothing of the sort, and they cut all funding through our playoff run this past season. They didn’t care about that. They didn’t care that the schools were suffering. All they cared about was getting their money.

“When we went through COVID, and the OHSAA had to make decisions on where we were playing, who we were playing, what was going to happen, they totally just did away with every decision,” he later added, “It was up to the school system. So, they want to make every decision when it’s about money, but when it has to be about the kids or problems of any sort, they want to wash their hands of it. And I don’t think it should be just about money.”

Guerriero also insinuated that a No. 1 seed vs. a No. 16 seed would not be a very enjoyable “experience” for a No. 16 seed.

He wasn’t alone in his disappointment with the decision.

LaBrae coach John Armeni said he didn’t think the change was necessary. He said eight qualifiers was “the magic number” because it let enough schools in but also made earning a spot competitive. He added that the OHSAA is taking away from what makes the postseason unique by expanding to such a large number.

“I’m not a fan, to be honest,” Armeni said. “One of the most special things about high school football, what kind of separates football from other high school sports, is that you’ve got to earn your way into the postseason. That’s certainly our number-one goal every year is to earn our way into the postseason and compete for a state championship. As you expand, you kind of water down that special aspect of high school football.

“I can imagine that offering more opportunities to some schools that maybe haven’t seen the postseason is an attractive quality,” he added, “and in the middle of that bracket, you might get some pretty good first-round games, but it negates the most special thing about high school football — earning your way in.”

He also wondered about the motive for the changes and wondered if that was the best way to evaluate the system.

“The motivations behind it, which would be maybe more revenue, more playoff gates, I don’t necessarily think that should outweigh some of the great things that exist with the system as it is,” Armeni said.

That wasn’t the only reason some coaches were opposed to the expansion.

The Ohio High School Football Coaches Association sent out a release Thursday evening expressing its displeasure with the decision. The OHSFCA said the state did not work with the coaches association in any way when deliberating this ruling. The two parties came to an agreement to expand the playoffs to 12 teams, including first-round byes for the top four seeds, and that compromise was announced in May of 2020. The OHSAA scrapped that plan and implemented the 16-team format after the OHSAA board of directors met earlier this week.

“The decision by the OHSAA to expand to a 16-team playoff format is met with complete dismay by the OHSFCA,” the coaches association stated in its release. “The OHSAA failed to work in good faith with our association. The OHSFCA worked for over two years to create a viable expansion of the playoff system. The OHSFCA proposed the playoff expansion to 12 teams in January of 2020. The OHSAA approved this expansion in the spring of 2020 for the 2021 season. We are extremely disappointed in (Thursday’s) vote by the OHSAA without consulting the OHSFCA. It is abundantly clear that this decision is financially motivated.”

The decision could affect other sports as well, Guerriero said.

The postseason will now be six weeks long instead of five, and the longer season means more wear and tear on the student-athletes. Guerriero said his Tigers, who reached the state championship last year, only had a few days to recuperate before joining basketball for its season. He worries that lengthening the amount of games will discourage players from participating in multiple sports.

“They’re putting the grind on these kids that are 15, 16, 17 years old, and I don’t know if their bodies can take that yet,” Guerriero said. “I don’t think they’re looking into anything about the kids. … They don’t take kids or high schools into consideration of, ‘How can our schools benefit from this? How can we help out the schools in this case?’ Whether that’s financially or any other reason.”

The OHSAA also is exploring adding a strength of schedule component to the Harbin computer ratings, which are used to determine the playoff qualifiers. This could be factored in during the 2022 season.

The site of the state championship games has not yet been determined, but the format will include one game on Thursday, Dec. 2, and two games each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 3-5.