The first round of the high school football playoffs will not take place next week as originally planned.

Early Saturday morning, KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett sent out an email notifying member schools that due to climbing COVID-19 cases, the games will be delayed one week.

As of right now, Tackett said in the email the playoffs will now take place on November 19th, 20th, and 21st. He also stated that while no other changes are planned at this time, officials will continue to monitor the situation and stated “substantial changes could be made as needed in future days and weeks.”

“While one week won’t see this virus subside, it will give our senior school administrators and those involved with the programs a chance to review situations and see where positive test numbers go in the next short period of time,” Tackett wrote in the email. “It’s about giving our schools time to deal with the issues around athletics which are not identical to the issues around the school day and as such, may need separate local discussions. Ideally, this will give them time to review their situations, and hopefully see some progress. This will also allow them to further review with their health departments, decide where to play, etc. in time to also see some adjustment in case numbers.”

In the email, Tackett also discussed the following items:

• No games should be scheduled for the weekend of November 11th, 12th, 13th, or 14th.
• Teams can withdraw from the tournament if they so choose without penalty.
• If a seeded team withdraws from the playoffs, teams that would not have qualified will be given an opportunity to enter the bracket.

The delay in the start of the playoffs means the state finals would be rescheduled for Dec. 18-20 at the University of Kentucky’s Kroger Field.

You can find the news release from the KHSAA here.