Fixing the WPIAL Football Scheduling Problem

The WPIAL has come under fire recently for their scheduling methodology, particularly in football. The current system uses a computer to generate the schedule based on team grids, arranged alphabetically by conference. From there, the teams with non-conference slots in the same week get slated to play against each other. The WPIAL prefers to have an even number of teams overall, so that during the regular season teams don’t have to match up with non-WPIAL opponents. Due to an odd number of teams in certain classifications, inter-classification games were necessary throughout the schedule. Last year, I wrote an article about potential strategies to fix the alignment problems the move to six classifications has created. While some of my realignment suggestions were admittedly a bit radical, fixing the scheduling issues could have much more tangible benefit in the short term while the WPIAL works towards a long-term alignment solution.

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