A decision was rendered by the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association Board of Governors on Thursday that allows for the implementation of an A Conference football playoff system without adversely affecting the Turkey Bowl — the annual Thanksgiving Day game between Calvert Hall and Loyola.
As was the MIAA's original plan, the A Conference will have playoffs for the first time next season. The top four teams in the league — as determined by a point system — will qualify for the postseason.
However, a proposed regular-season meeting between Calvert Hall and Loyola on Sept. 30 — a game that both schools opposed — has been eliminated from the schedule. Since the Cardinals and the Dons will each play one fewer game than the rest of the teams in the conference, their total points will be divided by five, while the other teams are divided by six.
During the regular season, a team will receive three points for each conference win and one additional point for each conference win earned by any school it has previously defeated.
If Calvert Hall and Loyola both earn playoff berths, the seedings will be determined in such a way that they would not meet in the semifinals.
The A Conference championship will be played during the second week of November unless Calvert Hall and Loyola both win in the semifinals. If that happens, the Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving would also be the championship game.
"There was a great deal of compromise, both on Loyola and Calvert Hall's part and the MIAA, to respect the Thanksgiving Day tradition and make things as equal as possible for all seven schools," MIAA executive director Rick Diggs said.
When the point system was initially approved by the MIAA last month, a joint statement from the presidents of Calvert Hall and Loyola opposing it created a firestorm of protests on message boards and social media websites from the schools' alumni, who were worried that the 91-year tradition of their teams meeting on Thanksgiving was in jeopardy.
In response to the protests, Diggs told The Sun that moving the game from Thanksgiving was never under consideration.
Both schools filed appeals, which the MIAA Board of Governors heard Wednesday.
"I believe the proposed point system to determine playoff teams, and the sensitive way in which it respects the tradition of the Turkey Bowl, is a vast improvement over the original proposal," Loyola's president, the Rev. Thomas A. Pesci, wrote in an e-newsletter.
Representatives for Calvert Hall could not be reached for comment.