EAST LANGSING, Mich. – The Michigan High School Athletic Association has announced a change in their format for football games this fall. This new format takes the shortened season into consideration.

The new format being presented is for 11 and 8-player playoffs with less games than other years.

All teams will be able to play up to six regular-season games before the MHSAA Playoffs begin, which is down from the normal of nine games.

The playoff fields will be doubled this year which gives almost every team a guaranteed seventh game to look forward to.

11-PLAYER

Field: 512 teams. There are currently 507 playing 11-player football this season, so five teams are scheduled to receive first-round byes at this time.

Schedule: 3 District Rounds, Regional Finals, Semifinals, Finals. The host sites for the Semifinals and Finals will be pre-arranged and announced at a later time. Finals will be played the weekend of Dec. 4-6.

Brackets: Teams have been placed in pre-arranged divisions based on enrollment. Teams in Districts will be seeded 1-8 based on playoff-point average, with the teams with highest averages hosting at the District and Regional levels. Because of a small number of teams opting to not play this fall, division lines were adjusted from what was released during the spring classification announcement, moving 20 teams to different divisions than previously published – those changes will be reflected next week on the playoff points page of the MHSAA Website, and District groupings are viewable here.

8-PLAYER

Field: 64 teams. There are currently 78 teams playing 8-player this season. Those teams that finish the season but do not qualify for the playoffs will be allowed to schedule one more game against other non-qualifiers.

Schedule: 3 Regional Rounds, Semifinals, Finals. Finals will be played the weekend of Nov. 27-28 at site(s) to be determined.

Brackets: Teams were placed in pre-arranged divisions based on enrollment during the classification process this spring. The top 32 teams in each division based on playoff-point average will qualify for the playoffs. Brackets will be drawn and announced Oct. 25. Teams with higher playoff-point averages will host Regional and Semifinal games. Additionally, there are six 8-player teams too large by enrollment to qualify for the playoffs; they will be allowed to schedule their own non-MHSAA playoff if they choose to do so after the regular season.