8 man substate approved 7-1. Here is the summary from the NSAA.
Summary: Beginning with the school located the farthest west; schools to the east will be added until the pre-determined number of schools for each district is reached. North and South distance will also be considered. The 10 (D1) and 9(D2) district champions and the 22(D1) and 23(D2) teams with the highest regular season point average that did not finish as district champions will qualify for SUB-STATE, making a total of 32 teams. The 32 qualifying teams will be placed on two 16 team brackets. Beginning with the school located the farthest west; schools to the east will be added until the pre-determined number of schools (16) for each bracket is reached. North and South distance will not be considered.
The 16 teams on each bracket will be seeded 1 through 16 by the point system and the point system tiebreaker (1 vs 16, 9 vs 8, 5 vs 12, 13 vs 4, 3 vs 14, 11 vs 6, 7 vs 10, 15 vs 2).
THE 16 SUB-STATE ROUND WINNING TEAMS WILL QUALIFY FOR THE PLAY-OFFS AND BE RE-SEEDED 1 THROUGH 16 BY THE REGULAR SEASON POINT SYSTEM AND THE POINT SYSTEM TIEBREAKER (1 vs 16, 9 vs 8, 5 vs 12, 13 vs 4, 3 vs 14, 11 vs 6, 7 vs 10, 15 vs 2).
Rationale: With a Sub-state formatted round it will allow all teams an equal opportunity to qualify for the playoffs. The only difference will be they will have to win to get into the playoffs much like we do in volleyball and basketball. With this format teams that do not have great records due to a hard schedule or an injury can still have the opportunity to make the playoffs by winning their Sub-State contest. Using the west to east format will keep the Sub-State games geographically based, then once the playoffs begin teams will play each other based off of points not demographics. Eliminating the west to east format for the playoffs would provide an opportunity for the best teams to play each other in the state championship contest, not a west vs. east contest. With the new playoff schedule coming into play for the 2020-2021 season the Sub-State contest could be played on Thursday of NSAA Week 16 and the playoff games would be played on Friday so students athletes would not have school the following day to accommodate travel times. This proposal would make it so classes D1 and D2 mirror all the other classes in the NSAA with their football playoff format and qualifying 16 teams rather than