Only one week after saying they are "preparing to begin the 2020 fall sports seasons as currently scheduled," the Iowa High School Athletic Association has announced Friday some big changes to the upcoming 2020 football season.

The association has changed several aspects about the upcoming season, including shortening the regular season schedule, expansion of playoff qualifiers, and changes to how forfeited games are handled.

Regular season schedule

The typical nine-week regular season schedule has been knocked down to a seven-week schedule. Within those seven weeks, each team will have the option to schedule five, six, or seven games. Week one, scheduled for August 27th and 28th, remains unchanged. However, weeks one and two will be optional and will be used by teams who choose to play more than the required five-game schedule.

Each team will still play their previously-scheduled district games in the same order and at the same locations. The district schedule now starts at week three.

Playoffs

Every team will qualify for the playoffs, regardless of their regular season record. Brackets will consist of six rounds and the IHSAA will determine the pairings "with geography, quality, and team availablity as primary considerations," says the association's Board of Control. They also stress that this change is intended to only be for the 2020 season. In addition, the RPI formula will not be used for the 2020 season to determine at-large playoff berths or seeding.

Potential Missing Games

Due to the potential of COVID-19 cases forcing players and teams to miss games during the 2020 regular season, the IHSAA's revised plan does not penalize teams with a loss or forfeit that would come at the result of state, county, or local health department restrictions. The association states that a missed game due to COVID-19 will be considered a "no contest" and will not be made up. Teams who have opponents miss or forfeit games may work with the IHSAA and other schools to schedule replacement games during the resulting open date(s).

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How these changes will impact the West Branch schedule are being ironed out this weekend. We anticipate the modified 2020 season schedules for Varsity and Junior Varsity teams to be announced at some point this weekend.

WestBranchFootball.com will be talking with Coach Pedersen about these changes and the new schedule on a new episode of the Talking Bear Football podcast, releasing on Sunday.

UPDATE: The updated schedule has been announced and a new Talking Bear Football podcast episode has been released.