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Not wanting to compete with college football, the Ohio High School Athletic Association is moving the first four rounds of its high school football playoff games to Friday nights.

Under the old format, the OHSAA played playoff games on Fridays and Saturdays based-on when the state championship game was played.  For example, Division I, the state’s biggest classification played all of its playoff games on Saturday, because the championship game was played on Saturday.

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“For a few years now we have studied the possibility of moving all playoff games to Friday nights for the first four rounds,” OHSAA Assistant Commissioner Beau Rugg said via a news release. “Due to so many more college football games being played on Saturday nights, attendance at our Saturday playoff games has steadily declined, and more potential playoff sites have said they cannot host games on Saturdays. We now have enough playoff sites to handle all the games on one night, and the football coaches association was in support of this change, too, because teams will get to stay on their normal weekly schedule of playing on Friday night.”

The OHSAA has also announced the schedule for the state championship games that will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

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