(WVSSAC Executive Director Bernie Dolan High School Sportsline interview)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Barring a last-minute change of plans and policy, several high school football teams could see their respective seasons end at 5 p.m. Saturday night despite being ticketed for the postseason by their regular season resumes.
The WVSSAC will release their 16-team playoff brackets in all three classes shortly after the weekly COVID protocols map is posted on the West Virginia Department of Education website. Teams that are listed in orange or red on that map will be excluded from the playoff fields. Their seasons will end and replacement teams will be added starting with the No. 17 team and so on until the field of 16 is complete.
“Clearly, you could say it is a legitimate champion, said WVSSAC Executive Director Bernie Dolan on Wednesday’s edition of High School Sportsline. “But I think we all know if you don’t have Martinsburg and you don’t have Spring Valley and you don’t have Wheeling Park and you don’t have somebody else and somebody else, it does tarnish a little bit. Right now, we just have to play with who is available because waiting is not going to make it any better.
“And we don’t want to punish the teams who have done the right things or the community that has just been lucky and their color is good. I do think we are just going to have to move forward and we’ll have to see where it ends up.”
On Wednesday’s map release, half of the top sixteen teams in Class AAA would not be eligible to compete. That group includes four-time defending state champion Martinsburg, Musselman, Wheeling Park and Parkersburg. Three teams in Class AA and three more in Class A would be ineligible.
The opening round of the WVSSAC football playoffs is set to begin on November 13 & 14. The Super Six Championships are slated for the first weekend in December. Dolan said delays are unlikely, citing an advantage to one team at one point could cause another team to slip into another bad color designation at another point.
“You might be good today but you are not good next week,” Dolan said.
“I don’t know if it is going to be better in a month. I don’t know if it is going to be any better in six months. You just don’t know at this point.”
In a new accommodation for this fall season, teams have been allowed to schedule games on Sundays. A pair of regular season football games and a regional soccer game were played on Sundays in the past month. Dolan says the possibility of a similar accommodation may be considered for football but not in the opening week.
“We have discussed it. I am not sure how far out you can go. Especially in the first week, if you are not eligible by your map and we don’t put it out until Saturday night, that is a whole weeks worth of map. Therefore, we would have to bring somebody in to fill that spot. So you couldn’t hold them out and let them play through, sit a whole week, the person you are ready to play, they are sitting there not knowing if we are playing until Monday of the following week.
“I think it puts a lot of people at a disadvantage to have to wait. We have looked at it. But right now, that is not the direction our board and our office is looking at.”
The COVID metrics map has has seen ebbs and flows with most counties statewide being adversely affected for a week or more. Dolan says it is unlikely that the full 45-game playoff format over the span of a month will be unaffected by cancellations.
“We’ll be shocked if there aren’t any interruptions with the bracket at that point. If a school can’t compete because of color code once we are into the bracket and beyond the first round, it would end up having to be a forfeit and we’ll move on.”
Athletes from orange counties in golf and cross country have been allowed to compete in state playoff events after testing negative for COVID. Those sports are designated as lower risk than football. As of now, a ‘test-and-play’ option is not yet available for football but could be considered.
“If there was the desire to get tested, I think they can all find a way to get to one of these places that are testing.”
Several counties (Boone, Cabell, Monroe, Summers, Wetzel and Wyoming on Wednesday’s map) have infection rates in the red category. But their percent positivity puts them in the green, yellow or gold categories due to more community testing. Berkeley County, home to football playoff hopeful teams Martinsburg, Musselman and Spring Mills, is orange on both metrics.
“When you look at the Eastern Panhandle, that is a huge community over there and it was not overwhelmed with testing,” Dolan said. “I talked to General Hoyer (Major General James A. Hoyer) and the person who was in charge of testing, I said, ‘Did you turn anybody away? Were you overwhelmed with the number?’ It was pretty much that they were underwhelmed with the amount of people who came out to get tested. I think we can make all the options we want. But until the people make a commitment to go get tested, I am not sure there is anything we can do to force them to go get tested.”
On Tuesday, the WVSSAC lowered their requirement on the minimum number of games played to become playoff eligible from four to three. That potentially opens the door for Tug Valley. The Panthers are the No. 1 team in the Class A playoff ratings with a 3-0 record. Mingo County however has the highest COVID numbers in the state. Dolan says the team would not necessarily need a 14-day acclimation period if they become eligible for postseason play. Tug Valley has not played in four weeks.
“They’ll have to bring them back in a quicker fashion than they normally would. They could be with helmets for a couple days, then wear pads and kind of progress into that. But it is going to be a difficult challenge for the amount of time they have been off to be able to prepare and to play football.”