Basketball? Really? Every team makes the "playoffs" in basketball. Every team has a chance at least. Cost the school money? So if you go to a 9 game schedule, even and 0-8 team has to pay for an extra game? So not only do the 16 teams, that dont deserve to be there, have to pay, but the whole rest of the the class has to pay for an extra game? Makes sense. And this thread was started on 8 man, not class C and above. Is 32 perfect? No, not at all. But there are so many factors in the small schools that change things compared to C and above. For example, an injury, and I mean one. One injury on a tough team, maybe only a week or two, which made them them go 6-2, or 5-3. Then its playoff time, athlete is healthy and now they cant make a run? And its just not injury, so many things can happen when in a small school with so few numbers. What I dont really understand is how does it affect you people? What does it matter to you? Ya, so a 3-5 team makes it and goes to a beating. But that same 3-5 team won the games they could, they won the ones they needed to, beat the other team that will be sitting at home next Thursday. I really wonder if any of you played football at a small school, or football at all. Ive been around enough teams in my day, and I have never heard a player, a senior especially, say "Damn, i wish we wouldn't of made the playoffs and got our butts kicked like that." That is usually us coaches thinking "Aw hell", but never the kids. Its one more time you get to put on the pads, and for about all of us in the small schools, it will be the last time. The last time you get to play defense, hit someone, block someone, gain a yard, score a td even if against JVs. If you dont like to watch a beating, don't go! Take a week off, go watch some 11 man, then your "true" 16 teams will be there on that next Wednesday, and the football world will be right with you. Trust me, there are 15-30 kids on that team taking the beating and loving it, because its the playoffs. They are there and the other haft never got a shot. In 8 man, 32 is the best option.