There will be three classifications in the state high school football tournament this season instead of two after a Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive board voted Monday to approve a one-year pilot program.
An Open division will be added to the Division I and Division II events already in place. The measure was enacted as a way to provide more competitive balance, according to HHSAA executive director Chris Chun, who added that all five leagues in the state worked diligently behind the scenes to make it a reality.
The new, six-team Open division tournament will be made up of the top four Oahu Interscholastic Association teams and the two best Interscholastic League of Honolulu teams. It will mark the first time more than one ILH team makes it to the highest-level tournament.
THREE-TIER STATE FOOTBALL FORMAT
One-year pilot format to go into effect this season
| League |
Open |
D-I |
D-II |
| OIA |
4 |
4 |
2 |
| ILH |
2 |
1 |
1 |
| BIIF |
– |
2 |
1 |
| MIL |
– |
1 |
1 |
| KIF |
– |
– |
1 |
| TOTAL |
6 |
8 |
6 |
Source: HHSAA
In D-I (the eight-team middle tier), four OIA schools will be joined by two from the Big Island Interscholastic Federation and one each from the Maui Interscholastic League and the ILH.
Six teams will form the D-II state tourney — two from the OIA and one each from the ILH, BIIF, MIL and Kauai Interscholastic Federation.
“There are many schools that will benefit from being in that middle division,” Chun said. “It’s the place to be for the power schools on the neighbor islands (like Baldwin and Hilo) and an ILH school like ‘Iolani and most of the OIA schools (that can’t make it past some of the elite league opponents). You look at a game like Kahuku vs. Aiea last week (the Red Raiders won 50-7) and you can see that the middle is where Aiea kind of fits.”
Added former HHSAA executive director Keith Amemiya, who has kept close ties to state high school sports: “The focus will be on the Open division, but it will increase the competition and fan interest at the D-I and D-II levels.”
The leagues have until Friday to declare their classification system for this year. According to Chun and others in the know, the ILH’s three power teams of Saint Louis, Punahou and Kamehameha will compete for two spots in the Open division. That leaves ‘Iolani, which moved up from D-II to D-I in 2015, as the only ILH team classified as D-I, so the Raiders would go straight into the D-I tourney.
Although it has not been 100 percent confirmed, it is likely that the OIA will send its D-I semifinalists to the Open division and its quarterfinal losers to D-I states. The two OIA D-II playoff finalists would go to the state D-II tourney.
The BIIF and MIL have clear-cut paths from their playoffs to the D-I and D-II state tournaments, and the KIF, according to Chun, is comfortable sending its champ to the D-II tourney.
“The KIF’s league philosophy has always been D-II, but moving up to D-I can be explored in the future,” Chun said.
The ‘Iolani and KIF examples underscore that this new format is not the creation of three new divisions and actually is, in effect, the bumping up of the so-called powerhouses to the Open division with the foundation already set in D-I and D-II.
Chun likes the fact that on-field play during the season and not before it — except for the case of ‘Iolani, which for years was kind of caught in its own no-man’s land where it would dominate the D-II tourney but get beat up by ILH D-I teams — will determine which teams go where.
Chun used Waianae last season as an example of the difficulty of knowing before the season starts which teams are going to be contenders at the end of the season.
“No one would have thought that Waianae could have made the Open division, if it existed, before last year started, but they would have ended up there.”
If the three tiers were in effect last year, these teams would have qualified:
>> Open: Kahuku, Mililani, Waianae, Farrington, Saint Louis, Punahou
>> D-I: Moanalua, Kailua, Kapolei, Campbell, ‘Iolani, Baldwin, Hilo, Kealakehe
>> D-II: Radford, Nanakuli, Damien, Lahainaluna, Konawaena, Kapaa
The new format is a compromise of sorts. Earlier in the spring, a three-tiered system was proposed for the regular season on Oahu in which the ILH and OIA would form an alliance for football only. Under that plan, which was not adopted, each school would have received a $35,000-per-year subsidy from the business community for three years as an incentive.
The plan adopted Monday could lead to an eventual regular-season alliance of the ILH and OIA. Chun said a possible alliance was not discussed at Monday’s meeting, but did not rule out that it could happen in time.
“It could be a first step for that,” he said. “That’s not our (the HHSAA’s) end goal.”
The HHSAA runs the state tournaments, and the five leagues have the power to run their regular seasons the way they want.
“We’ve been paying attention, and no matter what people say or write, these leaders want what’s best for the kids,” Chun said. “They understand what the public wants and they’re looking out for what’s best for their leagues and their schools. They’re not sitting in a room trying to develop the worst possible state tournaments. I think we’ve come up with a product that everyone can live with and keeps the league cooperating. This was a total joint venture. We’ve been discussing it for a long time, although most people didn’t know we were talking about it.”
