NH High School Football show

I saw GNG's post on here mentioning my new radio show with Marc Thaler of the Union Leader. Thanks for pointing that out GNG! This is something I've been working on ever since I left WGAM last year and I'm very excited about it. The show will debut this Saturday October 8th from 7-9am on WGIR-AM 610 in the Manchester area and on 96.7 "The Wave" on the seacoast. The powerful combo these 2 stations provide will allow us to reach more people across NH than any other local high school sports radio program. You can also listen online at www.wgiram.com and/or www.967thewave.com. So what can you expect? Please don't think I'm being cocky when I say you'll be hearing the best NH high school football talk featuring LIVE interviews from top coaches and players in the state. We will also open up the phone lines so fans can express their opinions...even about the BG coaching situation! And for all you hoop lovers, the show will morph into the "NH High School Basketball Show" after Thanksgiving. Please help spread the word!

Opening the phone lines. LOVE the idea.

Nice. The Forum party is always in full swing when Pete Tarrier is in the house !!!

The show sounds like it will be great. One word of advice to Pete. Have one phone line for all of NH and one phone line for.....


....... GNG

Can't believe I am going to miss Tarrier's new show. GOTTA WORK.

GOOD LUCK Pete and Marc.

Great start for the Tarrier-Thaler Show on WGIR 610 AM this morning. Coach O'Reilly was interviewed and as usual the Astro coach was a good listen. He offered some good insight into his team, the upcoming Brockton game and D1. When asked by T & T about scheduling and playing out of division games O'Reilly gave a very interesting response. He criticized other teams who don't take their out of division games seriously. He made specific mention of the Merrimack - North game last year where the teams played JV players. O'Reilly said, "Something should've been done about that situation." O'Reilly added, "If teams don't want to take their out of division games seriously, then take the week off and don't play a game."

When asked about the upcoming big clash with Brockton, O'Reilly said, "We'll be ready to play the game."

Just hearing Coach O'Reilly talk with his nice "old school" football coach personna gets me jacked up to attend the Brockton at Pinkerton game next weekend.

Agree with him completely - of course the NHIAA doesn't make it easy on teams that have their "bye" week later in the season.... There are teams that have requested certain bye weeks to help the meet schedule obligations with out of state opponents.

Looking at the Brockton schedule - a couple weeks after the PA they play none other than Catholic Memorial (11/4). I know it's not like BG plays Brockton or PA plays CM, but the comparisons are sure to be made based on the results.

I'll tell you one thing Jaf. If I went to one of those non-division games and one or both of the teams put JV players on the field, I would:

A) Demand a refund for admission, my gas and waste of time attending the game.... Or a $50 gift certificate to The Jade would work also.

B) Write a letter to NHIAA voicing my displeasure of the situation.

I believe this is what the majority of NH football fans want. Division One would look something like this
EAST- ALVIRNE, DOVER, EXETER, LONDONDERRY, PINKERTON, TIMBERLANE, SALEM, SPAULDING, WINNIE
WEST- BG,CENTRAL,CONCORD, KEENE, MERRIMACK, MEMORIAL, NORTH, SOUTH, WEST.

FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON- winner of the EAST DIVISION plays the winner of the WEST DIVISION from the previous season, 2nd place from east, plays second place from west, 3rd place east plays 3rd place west, you get the picture. BUT the games would count in the standings. That would make for some great 1st week matchups. Then the teams would play the teams in their divisions.Top 4 from each division still make the playoffs. Then the WINNER of the EAST would play the WINNER of the WEST. Eighteen teams, ONE STATE CHAMPION.

Does anyone see a flaw in this? Am I missing something? It seems pretty cut and dried. The teams that made the playoffs will have played 10 games, the finals of the division would be 11 games, and the state championship game 12 games.

If teams wanted to play a 10 game regular season. Make the second week winner of east plays second from west,winner of west plays second from east. So a struggling club could start the season 2-0 because they are playing other poor clubs, and a good team could start out 0-2 because they are playing other good clubs. I think it would be a ton of fun, for coaches, players, and fans.

I like it, although you listed Timberlane twice - should have been Winnacunnet. I think though that Bedford might soon throw a wrench into the groupings as they are getting fairly large. Also Goffstown by size should be D2, but because BG petitions up, they are D3. See http://www.nhiaa.org/PDFs/3732/2011FootballPolicyandProceduresManual.pdf page 5 for sizes.

If you add them into the mix you get 5 team conferences. Go with a 3 year cycle. Play everyone in your conference once, play each team from one other conference each each of the 3 year cycle, then take the top 2 teams from each conference for an 8 team playoff system. Allow 1 week for bye or out of division game.

DOVER, EXETER, SPAULDING, WINNACUNNET, CONCORD

ALVIRNE, LONDONDERRY, PINKERTON, TIMBERLANE, SALEM

BG, MERRIMACK, NORTH, SOUTH, KEENE

WEST, CENTRAL, MEMORIAL, GOFFSTOWN, BEDFORD

Unfortunately Keene doesn't fit anywhere nicely. Having the Manch schools grouped together and the Nashua schools grouped together eases travel concerns that these larger school districts are now facing.

I don't think you'll have the smaller schools very happy though since they're likelihood of winning is diminished greatly, but then again, it's not all about winning, unless you are the Oakland Raiders.

yep, I like your idea to. Anything is better then what we are stuck with.

I can really see the NHIAA implementing this new format......



.....in another lifetime.

I think the idea of less divisions is a good one, but I think it is a lot harder than we may think. I think there are 2 big reasons that throw a wrench in many ideas.

1) Time. In order to avoid starting the season earlier (not sure many coaches would want this), the season needs to be completed in 12 weeks including playoffs in order to get it in before the thanksgiving break. That leaves you with the options of 9 regular season games with 3 weeks of playoff games or 10 regular season games with 2 playoff games.

2) Gap in enrollment. The less amount of divisions (and the bigger each division is), the bigger the gap in enrollment is between the top and bottom. I love the idea just combining 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 but the enrollment sizes would be 1250-3300+, 650-1249, and >650. Thats a pretty big gap for a sport like football.

If I had my way, I would cut down to 4 divisions. The top 3 divisions would have 2, 8 teams conferences (16 teams each for a total of 48 teams) the remaining 9 (57 Total teams in NH) would make up the bottom division....

Division 1- Enrollment of 1350+
Div. I East- BG, Nashua South, Nashua North, Keene, Central, Memorial, Concord, Merrimack
Div. I West- Pinky, Salem, Exeter, Timby, Spaulding, Dover, *Winnie, Londonderry
*Winnie would have to petition up and replace Alvirne. BG would have to petition up to replace West

The season would be 9 weeks long and include 7 "In conference" games. Only these games would count towards the playoffs to maintain a balanced schedule. To start the season, East 1 plays West 1 from last year and so on down the line, but these games would not count towards playoff standings. This would also leave 1 "open" date for teams to schedule another game (PA vs Brockton, CM vs BG etc) or take a bye week.
Playoffs would be 3 weeks long. The first 2 weeks are "conference" playoffs. East 1 vs East 4, East 2 vs East 3 (same for the West) with the winners playing for the Conference championship. The last week the conference champions will play for the Division I Championship at a neutral site

Division II 750-1350
Div II South- Souhegan, Trinity, Goffstown, Bedford, Milford, H/B, West, Alvirne
Div II North- Portsmouth, Laconia, Plymouth, Kingswood, Conval, Pembroke, Hanover*, Merrimack Valley
*Trinity would need to petition up to replace Pelham. John Stark down to DIII

Same set up for the regular season and playoffs as Div I

Division III 550-750
Div III West- Pelham, Windham, Campbell, Sanborn, St. Thomas, Epping-New Market, Somersworth, Monadnock
Div III East- Lebanon, Kearsarge, John Stark, Kennett, Fall Mountain, Stevens, Bow, Bishop Brady,

Same regular season and playoffs as DI/DII

This would leave the final 9 schools in Div. IV. (>550 enrolled). They would play an 8 game regular season schedule with either 2 non league or bye weeks followed by the same playoff format the divisions follow now (4 team playoff).

Div 1, 2, and 3 could all play their championship games on the same day, on the same field back-to-back-to-back... which is something I know we all would love.

I also like that one. Love the idea same field, same day. St. Anselm's or UNH come to mind.

Not sure you'd get Alvirne agreeing to drop down. While they don't compete well with the D1/D2 schools, they have had some decent years. Athletically they've been hurt more by having Litchfield leaving their school than they like to admit. I was listening the other morning to the 9-11A crew interview Nimblett and then talk about the feeder program (Bears). Their take was that Alvirne's problem stems from the feeder program (as opposed to Souhegan, Plymouth, Exeter, PA, etc. who have strong feeder programs). Interesting that Campbell can compete in D5 where they define the minimum size while Alvirne continues to struggle in D2 and for some reason cannot keep senior leadership in the program (only 8 this year).

I agree that the splitting is much more difficult than it seems; hence why I tried smaller groups and other than Keene, all fairly localized. Keene is only close to VT. Concord is another one where you could put them with the Manch schools, but then who goes with those 4 Seacoast teams. One thought there would be to drag Portsmouth into the mix, but their numbers just don't make that possible. When they did play in D2 and were routinely getting thumped, they couldn't attract athletes to come play and dropping into D3 brought out other athletes. BTW: your D1 division names should be swapped - East&West that is...

I'm not a huge D4 follower, but I think you'd find that Kennett would want to follow Laconia & Plymouth. Not only are they larger than them according to the link I provided, it's another one of those rivalries in D4. Not sure who gets swapped out.

Having the finals all in the same place would make for a great day for football fans and especially media. It's done in other major sports. Location could be rotated as long as the "price is right" for the NHIAA - they'd all have to have lights too. Dartmouth could be a 3rd location.

According to a coach on the seacoast NHIAA will be staying with six divisions. The numbers have been released and they are now awaiting petitions. Bedford pre petition is in Div 2

Already posted response on the 6 division thread.