Greg Hansen: AIA's 'Open 8' playoff format should help long-forgotten Tucson teams

High school football in Arizona has become so acutely lopsided that the average score in last season’s state football playoffs — 45 upper-division games over a full month — was 45-17.

Something had to be done to change the uninspiring, all-Phoenix-all-the-time process.

“When you see the best teams in Phoenix, oh my God, the talent level is incredible,” Salpointe Catholic coach Dennis Bene said.

The Class 6A champion, Chandler High School, outscored its playoff opponents 214-98. In 5A, champion Peoria Centennial won by a ridiculously easy 212-37 margin. In 4A, champion Scottsdale Saguaro won four blowouts, 221-28.

The competitive imbalance between Phoenix superpowers and the rest of the state is so pronounced that unbeaten Salpointe Catholic, one of the most talented Tucson teams of the last 50 years, lost the 4A state title game 42-16 to Saguaro.

“Something had to change,” said Cienega coach Pat Nugent. “Some of those Phoenix teams are so superior that it isn’t right.”

Cienega, which has gone 33-5 the last three seasons, was twice eliminated in playoff waxings by Centennial, 55-7 and 56-21.

There’s much more. A Tucson football team has not won the big-schools state championship since 1979. That can’t be a good system.

Finally, after years of irregular football competition, the state’s governing body for high school sports has created a Super Playoff. It will surely be known as the “Open 8” — an eight-team playoff bracket culled from 6A, 5A and 4A conferences to be chosen in much the same way as the College Football Playoff.

Hallelujah.

“I think it’s the right way to go,” Nugent said. “It’s hard watching Saguaro hold up six fingers (for six state championships in a row) but I get it. I like competitiveness better.”

Cienega and Salpointe are Tucson’s ranking football powers. They have superior facilities, support of their administrations and participation numbers that struggling TUSD football teams haven’t seen since the 1980s.

They do not apologize for being the best Tucson has to offer.

Neither Nugent nor Bene are cowed by the possibility of being one of the Open 8. Indeed, if the same power-points/computer formula of 2018 had been used to select an initial eight-team super playoff, Salpointe would’ve been the No. 5 seed.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“This may not be attainable for everybody,” said Bene, who coached Salpointe to the 2013 Class 4A state championship and is 35-6 in the last three seasons. “But it also gives the (non-Open 8) schools a better chance to compete for titles. I like that and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having one undisputed state champion.”

The AIA insists it will refer to champions of the 1A through 6A playoffs as “conference champions,” and use the term “state champion” only for the Open 8 winner. But that’s never going to happen.

Just as Palo Verde won the Class 4A-II title in 2005, and just as Pusch Ridge Christian won the 2015 Division IV title, the six 2019 “conference champions” will forever consider themselves state champs.

That’s what matters most, not the inscription on an AIA trophy.

“With what’s going on in Phoenix, with open enrollment and all of the transfers, Tucson teams weren’t likely to win a state championship,” said Nugent, whose powerful 2007 Canyon del Oro team lost to — you guessed — undefeated Saguaro in the state championship game. “This change in playoff formats finally gives those so-called lesser schools a chance to be champions.”

This isn’t a singular problem in Arizona high school sports. Class 4A mega basketball power Phoenix Shadow Mountain, coached by former UA star Mike Bibby, isn’t any different than the Saguaro, Centennial and Chandler football programs. Bibby’s teams draw elite prospects from out of state, and typically toy with in-state competition. It should be in Class 7A, if Arizona had one.

But basketball doesn’t have the overwhelming competitive balance problem of football.

Bene’s Salpointe teams of 2016, 2017 and 2018 each were eliminated by Saguaro. No game was closer than 21 points. It was maddening that such excellence wasn’t rewarded with a championship.

But the Salpointe coach has a different approach than most coaches.

“I’m not going to worry about, ‘Hey, we’re missing out on the (4A championship),’” he said. “I don’t think anyone should hang their head if they come up short in the Open 8.”

High school football in Tucson is at a crisis point. Seven of the 24 schools had coaching vacancies after the 2018 season. Cienega, Marana, Ironwood Ridge and Mountain View, which is expected to announce that former Ironwood Ridge coach Matt Johnson will be its new coach, benefit from suburban growth.

Most of the TUSD schools and even 2016 Class 4A state title game runner-up Catalina Foothills struggle to suit up even 30 players per game. There are some exceptions, notably Sahuaro and Sabino, but it isn’t realistic to think a TUSD school will be in the Open 8 conversation in the near future.

“The rich continue to get richer, and trust me, in a football sense, I’m one of the rich guys,” Nugent said. “But it’s time that not everybody has to deal with the Big Dogs.”