Programs roll with the punches in changing OIA

Change is good?

Don’t mention it to everyone in prep football, particularly coaches. The Oahu Interscholastic Association made a sweeping change in its divisional alignment in the offseason, dropping the traditional East and West divisions in favor of a synthetic design.

Gone are the regular-season rivalry games between Mililani and Leilehua — they met in a preseason exhibition last week — as well as Kailua-Castle, Farrington-Kahuku, Aiea-Radford, Campbell-Kapolei and the annual Cane Knife game between Waipahu and Campbell.

The overhaul will, in theory, make it easier for the reshuffling of Division I and II (Red Conference, White Conference) teams every two years.

"The main reason for the format change was we’re having a harder and harder time finding four teams (two in each geographical division) to move up to Division I," OIA executive director Raymond Fujino said. "The new format will mandate that only two teams move up. After the first two years, we’ll re-rank them. It’ll create more excitement every two years. That’s the plus side."

Castle coach Nelson Maeda was less than thrilled with the decision to make the change, which he says was made by administrators, not coaches. Maeda sent his thoughts via email.

» Travel time. Castle will travel to Waianae, Leilehua and Waipahu through Friday rush-hour traffic. "I do not look forward to traveling westbound on a Friday afternoon in pau hana traffic moving at a snail’s pace," Maeda wrote. "To have to do so in the playoffs is one thing, but to have to do so as a seasonal game is entirely different and avoidable. It’s mind-boggling what the OIA has moved to. It definitely impacts game preparedness on the traveling team."

» Cancellations with ILH. The change was recent, which means no crossover games with ILH programs in preseason. "It would’ve been nice and courteous that if this realignment was going to happen, be phased in two seasons from now to allow the ILH to find suitable opponents. The ILH’s only recourse is to schedule an outer island team in the void or move up their schedule to start league play (by) one week. Why would anyone want to do this to another team, in this case, another league?"

The league says there was a push for one more game with meaning. Some coaches may have had their fill of 3-3 league records leading to obscure tiebreaker formulas.

"The coaches and ADs wanted seven regular-season games instead of six," Fujino said.

Realignment in this synthetic version means the weakening East side and the powerful West have merged. Though the East was the stronger division many times over the past 44 years since the modern OIA was formed, there was no actual realignment until this season.

This means Kahuku is now in the newly christened "Red" division with Waipahu, Leilehua and Waianae, as well as former East division foes McKinley, Castle and Kaiser.

The other new division, the "Blue," is where Farrington is now pegged. That division includes Kapolei, Aiea, Mililani, Campbell and former East teams Moanalua and Kailua.

There’s also this: All teams in the Red Conference will play a single "crossover" game against a foe from the other division. That means Kapolei will face Kahuku — at the Red Raiders’ field. A road game with Farrington follows, and then a home game against defending OIA champ Mililani.

"It is what it is. We can’t make the schedule. Our schedule is extremely front-loaded, more so than any other team. Those three teams may be the best three early in the OIA," Kapolei coach Darren Hernandez said.

Coaches are focused on the gridiron now, but digesting the changes hasn’t been easy.

"This is not the alignment we wanted," said Hernandez, who has helped author many proposals over the years. "We want more than an extra (seventh) game. We’d love to play a 10-game regular season and shorten the playoffs. All the work that these young men do year round, then only six or seven games, it’s tough."

The idea is that more equitable divisions will create more competitive games, especially since the population shift to the Leeward and Central regions has also empowered football programs there. The East won nine OIA Red (Division I) championships from 1998 to 2006. Since then, the West has won three of the past seven title games and has dominated the playoffs with the rise of Leilehua, Campbell and Kapolei. Enrollments and victory totals have shrunk in the East and its dwindling communities.

Another big change is game times. Junior varsity football games are now slated for 6 p.m., one hour later than before. Varsity games are set for 8:30 p.m. A big part of this change is because of new school hours in the DOE. Schools will get out at 3 p.m. on Fridays, when most football games are scheduled.

A byproduct of the lateness is that JV games will have a tweak. The game clock will not stop on first downs, which could save 15 to 20 minutes per game.

It’s all come a long, long way for fans. It wasn’t so long ago that August was about two- and three-a-day workouts, and regular-season games didn’t start until after Labor Day. Of course, the school year didn’t start until September back then.