Give the WIAA An "E" For Effort

 The abbreviated high school football playoffs start in Wisconsin this week.

The WIAA, the governing board for high school sports in the state, released that schedule last weekend. A schedule that, for this Covid-19 season, was limited to just two games. No sectional games, no state championship games.

I'll give the WIAA an "E" for effort on this, although I did think long and hard about giving an incomplete. Why? Well, looking over the playoff pairings, I saw several teams with 0-5 and 0-6 records. My own alma mater, Wautoma, qualified with a 2-2 mark. Okay, I'll admit, I'm a real nerd who still looks over the agate type on the Wisconsin State Journal sports pages. Blame my years as a sportswriter and sports editor for that.

But I digress. I get the move to have a post-season, even though many state high schools (pretty much all of the Dane County schools) didn't play this season. It's one thing to put winless teams in a playoff. It's another to adjust that schedule on Friday (game day, that's Friday The 13th) to reflect that 25 (that's right, 25) games have already been determined by forfeit. That's nearly a quarter of the games NOT being played.

High school sports isn't the only area to be C-19'ed this year. Look at the Wisconsin Badgers, who had their last two games cancelled. Or this weekend's Alabama-LSU tilt in the SEC has been postponed, along with three other SEC contests. 

Give 'em all an "E" for effort. And keep your fingers crossed that all these teams, plus the NFL, can get their games in.