Protime’s Pigskin Ponderings – Christmas Lights and PA Should Go to Regions

Tagged under: News, pfn, Protime Predictions

Phil Myers | November 12, 2026

Protime was the first in his neighborhood to put up his outdoor festive yuletide Christmas lights.  That is an honor Protime has experienced only once before.  Of course Protime tested each strand of lights before carefully placing them on bushes and trees and around the doors and around the windows and placing the lighted snowmen in strategic places.

Then, on the final test, Protime threw the switch and voila, one snowman did not light up, nor did about half the lights on the bushes.  Protime painstakingly fought back and put new lights up and plugged in extension cords that were forgotten.  Then he called out the lovely Mrs. P and did a drumroll, a la Clark Griswald, and flipped the switch that brought life and light to those inanimate objects.  Mrs. P was so proud.  The neighborhood now has a threshold to reach as Protime just raised the bar so to speak.  Now on with something the PIAA and districts should thoughtfully consider. 

Protime has been doing some deep pondering about this.  Pennsylvania, at least for football, should seriously consider going to regional playoffs and forget about the districts.  No one, absolutely no one will get a bye.  There will be 64 teams in each of the 6 classes at the start of the 6 weeks of playoffs.  If the PIAA wants to shorten the playoffs to 5 weeks, then 32 teams make the playoffs in each of the 6 classifications.  This is not rocket science sports fans.  Protime firmly believes this is the answer to districts with fewer teams in one or two classifications.  And playoff football teams should not have byes, and definitely should not have double byes.  

Protime says to the neanderthals who want to go back to 4 classes or even less because of certain districts not having enough in 6 classes, ‘go back to your cave and draw pictures on the wall.’  With 4 classes there were still byes and at least one district could only schedule 9 regular season games for teams because playoffs had to start a week earlier than everyone else.

The regions would have to vary in area slightly from class to class.  Each region would have 16 teams or 8 teams depending on the length of the playoffs.  Yes, here and there, a bit more travel will be involved.  Come on, it’s the playoffs.  Protime ponders, ‘is that all some people do,’  whine about classifications or travel or who they have to play or whatever.  Goodness gracious, it is the playoffs, folks!!  Pennsylvania is in a minority of states that have ‘district’ champs, but IS THE ONLY STATE, where the districts are autonomous and have their own tournament before a team can advance in football.  In only 5 other states are districts involved, from what Protime can tell, but the state athletic association is the overseer or the district is actually a region.  An example of that would be Michigan where there are only 4 districts and 8 teams make the playoffs in each district from each class (32 teams per classification).

Back to Pennsylvania, these teams would be seeded and so, just like baseball or basketball, two teams from the same district could meet in the championship of the regional.  And shouldn’t it be that way, the two best teams meeting down the line instead of the first or second round of a district playoff?

But the main problem is with the districts because they wield so much power and they, like politicians, will not give up that power in most cases even if it benefits the sport, the teams, and the kids.  If the PIAA can initiate that narrative and the district powers that be will be sensible and not say, ‘we’ve always done it this way,’ then some real playoff progress will be made.  And along that note, why is there a District 5 and a District 8?  Why?  One has 11 football teams and the other has 6.  District 7 has over 120 football teams, District 3 over 90 teams and District 1 over 70, with most of those in the higher classifications.  No wonder there are byes and unbalances.  Regions make a whole lot more sense, even if they have to be altered a bit area wise from class to class.

Protime has much more to say and much more proof that regions are the answer to the football dilemma of byes.  But, he’ll save that for another time.  Have a good weekend and may every team play to the best of their ability and have zero injuries.  Protime over and out.