[16thregioner]

As a former player I agree.  As I said in an earlier post, I played in the old 4 class system and we only won 1 playoff game in my high school career.  This was way before Raceland was how we know them now and the Rams usually always lost in the playoffs.  This was when we went against the NKY schools when their district was loaded and in some years they swept our whole district in the first round.  

My sophomore season we barely made the playoffs after a team we had beaten won against a team we lost to.  Our reward for that was a trip to play NCC and they would eventually be the state runner up after losing to Danville by 1 point.  That game would have been on par with our team this year playing Betsy Layne.  We were outmatched and got our butts kicked.  But guess what? No one came out injured, the seniors got one last game, and I have a story 20 years later to talk about the first time I visited the Cincinnati area.  Sometimes it’s just more about the game being played and the memories you made matter more.

Raceland still always loses in the playoffs.  Only 6 teams in the state go home champions each year.  And MANY of those 6 teams are watered down versions of "champion" teams.  Just because Raceland has 3 rounds of playoff cupcakes to go through now doesn't mean they're significantly better as a program than your old Ram teams used to be. 

As for our local teams, the past couple state champion teams, Russell in 2005 and Ashland in 2020, benefited from only having to get through a couple of Belfry's historically weaker teams to get there.  Look at Russell's terrible 2A district that year.  Credit to both that they did it, but there have been better Russell and Ashland teams that didn't win a state title.  As there have been better Raceland teams through the years.  The fact that I can actually see a path for this year's 2-8 Russell team or 6-4 Ashland team to be in the state semis this season tells me something is wrong.

As all of us on here realized, 1A could have skipped the entire season and had their state title game at the start of the season.  There was never any doubt it was going to be Raceland and Pikeville in the title game.  A couple of the other classes have similar situations.  I think less classes and 2 teams per district making the playoffs is the way to go.  As you said, the memories are what matter in the end.  I suppose the counterargument would be that the banners still hang at Henry R. Evans and Putnam Stadiums so no one will realize years from now that those state titles weren't as difficult to achieve as they might seem.