CHSAA Announces Details For Fall, Spring Football Seasons

DENVER (CBS4) - The Colorado High School Activities Association has announced details for the newly-approved fall high school football season, and for the spring football season coming in 2021. The administration gave districts the choice of which season to compete in in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Districts must announce which season they intend to play in by Monday, September 21st at 8:00 a.m. Schools can only play in one season, and there  will be champions named in each season.

For Season A, or the fall season, practices start on September 24th. The first game will kick off on October 8th, with the first round of the playoffs starting on November 21st. Semifinals will happen one week later, and the championship game will take place on December 5th.

For Season B, or the spring season, practices will start on February 25th. The season begins on March 11th. Playoffs begin on March 24th with semifinals taking place on May 1st. The championship game for the spring season will happen on May 8th.

The structure of each season will be identical.

Teams will play a "6+1 season," meaning all teams will play a six-game regular season. Teams that miss the playoffs can then schedule a seventh game against another team that missed the playoffs in Week 1 or Week 2 of the postseason, in order to ensure fairness with playoff teams that will play at least seven games.

In order to be eligible for the playoffs, teams must play at least four of the six regular season games. The playoffs will consist of eight teams, seeded by the CHSAA Seeding Index. That index consists of rankings by RPI, MaxPreps, the CHSAANow coaches poll, and Packard Rankings.

Leagues will be kept intact as long as 50% of a league remains playing in either given season. Leagues will be redrawn as needed to allow for six regular season games. CHSAA will build the schedule for all schools due to the short amount of time before the start of the season.