Nick's Opinion: How the OK Conference Can Schedule to Limit Travel Outside of Gretchen Whitmer's "Regions"

The MHSAA Football season is looming, with the first games set to take place within two months. There are already heavy concerns about playing games in the first place, but if they do go forward with the season, there will be additional concerns about making long road trips. 

The state of Michigan's impact by the COVID-19 pandemic is different within the different "Regions" that Governor Gretchen Whitmer implemented, and they should be handled uniquely. One easy mitigation in the event that they want to play football, would be to limit the zones in which teams could play. 

Michigan's Eight Regions (click on link for county breakdown)

In the OK Conference, the 48 member schools for football are spread amongst several counties that occupy parts of Regions 2 and 3 (see map above). I think that the smartest move by Commissioner Haskins and the OK Conference AD's would be to limit contests to take place only against Region 2 and 3 opponents for the regular season, and to restrict those events to take place within said regions.

This obviously creates a schedule dilemma for select teams that already were scheduled to play games against teams from all over the state. Lucky for them, I have a solution. Below you will see the new proposed pairings of games between OK Conference foes who need to replace their opponents due to this proposed restriction (with additional teams from within Regions 2/3 included when necessary):

Week 1

There are eleven OK Conference teams that have scheduled opponents from outside the Region 2/3 "bubble". They are the following:

Belding (vs North Branch)

Byron Center (vs Birmingham Seaholm)

Caledonia (vs Holt)

Cedar Springs (at Saginaw Swan Valley)

Godwin Heights (vs Whitmore Lake)

Grandville (vs Detroit Cass Tech)

GR Catholic Central (No Opponent Announced)

Hudsonville (at Saline)

Mona Shores (at River Rouge)

Rockford (vs Sterling Heights Stevenson)

Zeeland East (vs Warren Woods Tower)

For enrollment purposes, we looked for a smaller school within Region 2 & 3 who also faces this issue. We decided to include Whitehall (Class B, vs Jackson Parma Western).

We propose the following contests to take place in Week 1:

Belding vs Grand Rapids Catholic Central

Godwin Heights vs Whitehall

Rockford vs Mona Shores

Zeeland East vs Hudsonville

Grandville vs Cedar Springs

Caledonia vs Byron Center

Week 2

We took a similar approach to the second week of the season. This time, there were thirteen schools affected by the out-of-region travel:

East Kentwood (vs Grand Ledge)

Forest Hills Central (vs Grand Blanc)

Fruitport (at Cadillac)

Grand Haven (vs Traverse City West)

Grandville (vs East Lansing)

GR Catholic Central (vs River Rouge)

Hamilton (at Benzie Central)

Hudsonville (vs Detroit Catholic Central)

Kelloggsville (vs Williamston)

Mona Shores (vs Detroit King)

Muskegon (at Detroit Cass Tech)

Reeths-Puffer (at St. Johns)

Union (vs Detroit Osborn)

West Ottawa (vs Mount Pleasant)

Zeeland West (at Detroit Pershing)

Similarly to Week 2, for enrollment consideration, we added Holton (Class C, vs Britton-Deerfield)

We propose the following match-ups take place in Week 2:

Kelloggsville vs Holton

Fruitport vs Reeths-Puffer

Forest Hills Central vs West Ottawa

Grand Haven vs Muskegon

East Kentwood vs Mona Shores

Hudsonville vs Zeeland West

Grandville vs Union

Hamilton vs Grand Rapids Catholic Central