This year, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) football playoffs featured a bye, with the top-four seeds in each region taking off the first round.

When the bye was announced in June as part of the OHSAA’s change from a 16-team postseason to 12, coaches were mixed on the idea. And nearly five months later and after experiencing it for themselves, coaches remain iffy on a Week 11 bye.

“I don’t know [what to think of it],” Girard head coach Pat Pearson said. “I mean, I was always a big proponent of eight teams making the playoffs. I didn’t like when it went to 16 to begin with. It is what it is. I guess we don’t have much control over things. We kind of just take it as it is. But I think that the top eight was the right recipe in terms of postseason.”

For Pearson’s Indians,

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