Toby Peer is the head football coach at Cambridge-South Dorchester who will visit Fort Hill Friday night. Coach Peer used to be the South Hagerstown head coach, then became their Athletic Director before heading to Cambridge. He has ties to Cumberland - his parents live on the WV side of the Potomac.
I have had the pleasure to hang out with Coach Peer both in pleasure and business situations. There is a local connection story that had great implications with MPSSAA policy not many would know.
In 2018 myself, Todd Appel (who was the FH head coach at the time), Toby Peer and then FH Athletic Director Amber Waltz all got in a car and drove to BWI Airport that winter for the annual MPSSAA football meeting. We appeared at the winter meeting in an effort to convince the MPSSAA to change the playoff system.
At that 2018 meeting, after many discussions and debates with Coach Appel, I drafted a formal new playoff system that kept regional play but extended the amount of teams that made the playoffs from 16 teams to 32 teams. This would reduce the number of regular season games from 10 down to 9. The reason for it was because no one in respective regions were playing each other and only the top 4 teams in each region were making the playoffs. Although Coach Appel was adamant about breaking up the regions totally and just going to a 1-16 seed format like WV has always used. The problem was the MPSSAA was never going to break up regional alignment post-season. People involved had fought and argued about breaking up regions since its inception in 1974. You just wound up beating your head against a brick wall. The only way we were going to implement playoff changes was by keeping regional play.
Toby Peer got on board because he was upset about his South Hagerstown teams having to play the likes of Linganore and Damascus while other teams in his region were not. Yet they were all trying to outpoint him by not having to actually play him on the field. The system was horrible. So he went to that meeting as we presented our official request and documentation for playoff change. Luck had it that most other schools all through Maryland, including Baltimore and Montgomery County, did not like the current structure either. The timing was just right.
The draft I put together got pushed through the proper MPSSAA channels with the backing of FH principal Steve Lewis and Regional Football Director Kurt Stein (currently still the head coach at Oakdale). It passed. And in 2019 was fully implemented and was beautiful.
2019 NEW MPSSAA PLAYOFF FORMAT
- Kept the 4 classifications
- kept the same 4 regions per class (North, South, East, West)
- but now 8 teams from each region made the playoffs instead of only 4
- there were roughly 12-14 teams in each region. So the lesser teams that could not make at least an 8th seed were left out.
- the regular season was pushed back to 9 games instead of 10 to accommodate the extra playoff game
* HOWEVER, the original playoff proposal asked to move the season up one week and let everyone play 10 regular season games, the MPSSAA dumped that option.
I felt the new system was perfect (assuming you had to keep regions). It kept teams like Southern and Hancock out - who didn't even want in the playoffs after bad seasons - and it allowed two teams from each region to move into a Top 8 seeded round robin after the first two weeks of regional play. It would allow teams like FH and Mtn Ridge to play in Annapolis if they both were truly the best teams.
Unfortunately COVID hit in 2020. In 2021 the MPSSAA kept the format but moved to 6 classifications instead of 4, which in my mind watered down the system way too much. It also forced everyone to make the playoffs, even the teams who wanted to opt out after a bad season.
But I wanted it noted that Toby Peer was instrumental in helping Coach Appel and myself to get a new playoff format implemented. The time I got to spend with Coach Peer made me realize what a really good guy he is and what a solid football mind he maintains. This guy produces teams that are very sound and very well prepared. Very logical, fundamental approach.
I look forward again to shaking the hand of Coach Peer Friday night.
I have had the pleasure to hang out with Coach Peer both in pleasure and business situations. There is a local connection story that had great implications with MPSSAA policy not many would know.
In 2018 myself, Todd Appel (who was the FH head coach at the time), Toby Peer and then FH Athletic Director Amber Waltz all got in a car and drove to BWI Airport that winter for the annual MPSSAA football meeting. We appeared at the winter meeting in an effort to convince the MPSSAA to change the playoff system.
At that 2018 meeting, after many discussions and debates with Coach Appel, I drafted a formal new playoff system that kept regional play but extended the amount of teams that made the playoffs from 16 teams to 32 teams. This would reduce the number of regular season games from 10 down to 9. The reason for it was because no one in respective regions were playing each other and only the top 4 teams in each region were making the playoffs. Although Coach Appel was adamant about breaking up the regions totally and just going to a 1-16 seed format like WV has always used. The problem was the MPSSAA was never going to break up regional alignment post-season. People involved had fought and argued about breaking up regions since its inception in 1974. You just wound up beating your head against a brick wall. The only way we were going to implement playoff changes was by keeping regional play.
Toby Peer got on board because he was upset about his South Hagerstown teams having to play the likes of Linganore and Damascus while other teams in his region were not. Yet they were all trying to outpoint him by not having to actually play him on the field. The system was horrible. So he went to that meeting as we presented our official request and documentation for playoff change. Luck had it that most other schools all through Maryland, including Baltimore and Montgomery County, did not like the current structure either. The timing was just right.
The draft I put together got pushed through the proper MPSSAA channels with the backing of FH principal Steve Lewis and Regional Football Director Kurt Stein (currently still the head coach at Oakdale). It passed. And in 2019 was fully implemented and was beautiful.
2019 NEW MPSSAA PLAYOFF FORMAT
- Kept the 4 classifications
- kept the same 4 regions per class (North, South, East, West)
- but now 8 teams from each region made the playoffs instead of only 4
- there were roughly 12-14 teams in each region. So the lesser teams that could not make at least an 8th seed were left out.
- the regular season was pushed back to 9 games instead of 10 to accommodate the extra playoff game
* HOWEVER, the original playoff proposal asked to move the season up one week and let everyone play 10 regular season games, the MPSSAA dumped that option.
I felt the new system was perfect (assuming you had to keep regions). It kept teams like Southern and Hancock out - who didn't even want in the playoffs after bad seasons - and it allowed two teams from each region to move into a Top 8 seeded round robin after the first two weeks of regional play. It would allow teams like FH and Mtn Ridge to play in Annapolis if they both were truly the best teams.
Unfortunately COVID hit in 2020. In 2021 the MPSSAA kept the format but moved to 6 classifications instead of 4, which in my mind watered down the system way too much. It also forced everyone to make the playoffs, even the teams who wanted to opt out after a bad season.
But I wanted it noted that Toby Peer was instrumental in helping Coach Appel and myself to get a new playoff format implemented. The time I got to spend with Coach Peer made me realize what a really good guy he is and what a solid football mind he maintains. This guy produces teams that are very sound and very well prepared. Very logical, fundamental approach.
I look forward again to shaking the hand of Coach Peer Friday night.
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