Is Michigan’s High School Football Playoff System Flawed?

Every year in the fall, thousands of players suit up for hundreds of high school football teams in Michigan. They spend long hours over the summer months training for the season and then they get 9 Friday night games under the lights to prove why they deserve a chance to win the state championship in their division.

Yes, that's correct just a chance, since every team in the state doesn't qualify for the playoffs, football is the only high school sport in Michigan where every team doesn't make the playoffs. This means hundreds of teams and thousands of players seasons are done at the end of October every year, while the top 32 teams from each division continue with their season.

Now, how does one team earn a spot to the playoffs you might ask? Well, you would think they would need to have a winning record in order to advance, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case as the state of Michigan uses a mathematical system to decide which teams qualify for the playoffs in each division. As you can imagine, this system isn't perfect and has started to receive backlash.

Does Michigan Need A Change To It's High School Football Playoff System?

The state of Michigan deplores a playoff points system which is based upon the opponents you schedule. You get more points for higher division schools and less points for lower division schools, but you only earn playoff points for your wins. The playoff points are scaled based on the team's average playoff points for the season (playoff points earned/number of games).

So, what this means is that there can be two teams in the same division where one team plays teams in their division or lower and another plays teams in their division. The team that plays against the higher division teams could have a losing record and get in the playoffs over the team with the winning record because of playoff points. The TikTok video below explains a real life example of this from the 2025 season:

@broadwayonair It’s never happened in high school football history… until now. 😲 #fridaynightlights #delasalle #footballhistory #highschoolfootball ♬ Epic Cinematic Music - StoryTune

After watching that the question on most people's minds is "how does that happen in the first place?" and then many people are asking "Should Michigan go back to 6 wins guarantees a playoff spot with necessary tiebreakers?" There are tons of ways the playoffs could be restructured but at the moment, nothing is going to change.