I've noticed there are not many Jacket fans happy about the prospect of playing at Mesquite's Hanby Stadium for the next two weeks.
The gripes have been numerous, particularly about the stadium itself and the distance to travel.
Personally, outside of the track ringing the field I think it's a pretty nice stadium. Yes it is true that Denison has to travel nearly 80 miles and Dallas Conrad has to go only 16.5. But the quirky process of scheduling means things don't always go as every one would like.
The main problem is that with more teams in the playoffs now, teams can't wait until they win to set up the following site. Once the bi-district pairings were finalized, all four schools -- Denison, Pearce, Conrad and Pinkston -- agreed on Hanby. Sometimes not everyone can agree right off the bat and if you snooze, you lose a prime location.
In other instances there are things beyond the decision-makers' control. The Denison players wanted to play next week at SMU but the cost was viewed as too prohibitive for either potential opponent. You are also battling other schools for the same location when everyone wants to play -- on a Friday night at 7:30 p.m. to stick with the routine that has worked for more than three months. The demise of Texas Stadium has really put a crunch on area teams, which can no longer rely on triple and quadruple headers. The new Cowboys Stadium is a bit more limited these days than its predecessor.
That is what happened with the region semifinals and concessions were made. Denison is playing on Saturday but at 2 p.m. because the Jackets didn't want to play later that night at 7:30 p.m. And concessions are almost always better than forcing coin flips.
Getting everyone to agree on everything is near impossible and in some cases it is not worth the fight. There is no rule that a game be played an the exact midway point, although most places use that as a guideline. All I'm pointing out is that the process is a lot harder and convoluted than you might think.
Knowing Denison fans and seeing the turnout from last week, I don't think it will matter were the Jackets play. And it might not make a difference to on the field play regardless.