Tim Cronin has a good piece...

...in the Sun-Times, "Should the playoff system change?," which has inspired me to go on my annual rant about the IHSA post-season format a little earlier than usual.

Cronin argues that there are too many classes: 1A and 2A should be combined, 3A and 4A, and so on until you have only four classes and four championship games. I couldn't agree more.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the IHSA is the split at the top -- 7A and 8A. Why are there two classes at the top when 7A Schaumburg and 7A finalist Wheaton Warrenville South both beat 8A finalist Maine South, and 7A teams Simeon and St. Rita beat the other 8A finalist, Mount Carmel? Put 'em all together and let 'em play! I want to see the best teams in the championship.

(And by the way, what's with all these A's anyway? If there are no B's or C's, how is that descriptive? Just call them Class 1, Class 2, etc.)

Where Cronin and I part company is on the number of teams in the playoffs. He maintains that 256 schools out of a possible 544 is fine. I think that's too many. Cut out most of the 5-4 teams. Sorry, but teams like Evanston and Glenbrook South should have been watching the post-season from the stands. I can see admitting a few 5-4 teams. For example, if someone's quarterback was out for the first few games and they began the year 0-4 and then came roaring back to win their last five games, fine -- let them in. But, generally, let's try to draw the line for post-season play at 6-3.

Cronin also says:

The change would add one week to the playoffs, turning each class into a six-week test, with the championship games played on the first Saturday of December rather than the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Again, too many. Keep the current format: five games ending this weekend.

I do like Cronin's final suggestion:

Here's one more thing the IHSA could fix. Rather than play the title games at Memorial Stadium, where most of the 70,904 seats go unused for the high school finals, play the two smaller-class championship games at the original site of the playoffs: Illinois State in Normal. Hancock Stadium, while antiquated by modern fan standards, is at least a 15,000-seat antique. Get 12,000 people in there and it looks like a crowd.

Play the two larger-class games closer to Chicago. Huskie Stadium, on the campus of Northern Illinois in DeKalb, would be a perfect spot. It has 30,076 seats, FieldTurf, and is just far enough from Chicago to make the trip an occasion, though without the need to stay overnight.

Given that most of the participants would be from the Chicago area - of this year's eight finalists from 5A to 8A, only one, Chatham-Glenwood, is from downstate, and another is from nearby Rockford - playing an hour away rather than two hours away makes perfect sense. And the capacity of the stadium likely would handle any crowd. The largest attendances in state finals history, a shade over 20,000 fans each year, came in 1981 and 1982, the first two years the 5A and 6A title games were held at Northwestern.

By the way, I sat next to John Sheridan at the Loyola game on Saturday. He played for the Rambler teams that won the 1965 and '66 Prep Bowls. He told me it wasn't at all unusual in those days for the contests to draw 65,000 fans in Soldier Field!