The Legislative Council of the AHSAA met on April 21st and passes several proposals made by the member schools. There were two proposals that will have a direct and immediate impact on the scheduling of football games.
The first deals with the forfeiting of games, some of which occurred last fall due to the Covid 19 pandemic. If the visiting school forfeits in year one of a two-year contract period, the school that forfeited should travel in year two. The money from ticket sales during year two should then be split between the two schools. This proposal helps the school that lost the game last season due to forfeit by giving them the opportunity not only to play at home, but to receive the financial benefits of parking, program sales and concession sales associated with home contests. If a school forfeited it's own home game last year, the other school keeps all the gate receipts from its 2021 home game.
The other rule passed by the AHSAA Legislative Council allows all schools to play a preseason jamboree one week prior to their first varsity contest regardless of whether they begin the season Week 0 or Week 1. Before this change, schools had the option to play a fall jamboree or a regular season game on Week 0, but not prior to that date. This rule still allows for that possibility, but expands the opportunity to play that jamboree on the week prior to Week 0 if they have a regular season game scheduled for that week. This means that teams may play a fall jamboree one week, then play a regular season game Week 0, and then have an open date sometime during the regular season.