FHSAA’s football playoff proposal earns endorsement vote from Athletic Directors Advisory Committee

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Another step forward has been taken in the advancement of the Florida High School Athletic Association’s football playoff proposal to become reality.

At the first Athletic Directors Advisory Committee meeting of the 2016-17 school year inside the FHSAA’s offices in Gainesville, the committee voted 11-2 to endorse the proposal as is which was prepared by FHSAA football administrator Frank Beasley.

That proposal, however, eliminates the biggest sticking point that had been an issue with coaches since the proposal first came public back at June’s FHSAA Board of Directors meeting – bonus points.

In the first draft of the initial proposal, bonus points were included to give teams playing a team in higher classifications extra points if they defeated that team on the schedule. However, coaches argued that would give an excuse to higher classification teams a reason not to schedule lower classification teams since there was no incentive to do so.

“We feel that [bonus points] is not a good indicator [for team success] and why a team should get not them [for winning against a team in a larger classification],” Beasley said. “The first two weeks of this high school football season there has been a great indicator that just because you are playing a larger school doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not going to be successful.”

With the bonus points removed, now all teams will be on the same leveled playing field on how to earn points under the proposal with points being earned for each team played based upon that team’s end of regular season record and what the result was of the game against that team.

The proposal also keeps districts for Classes 5A through 8A, while eliminating districts in Classes 1A through 4A, a change of the current set up where all classifications have districts.

With Classes 5A through 8A proposed to keep districts, district runner-ups will no longer be guaranteed a playoff spot which has currently been the case since the FHSAA started allowing runner-ups into the football playoffs dating back in 1993.

Some small schools have continued to express concerns about how the proposal will impact their teams. That included John Gerdes, Athletic Director at Clearwater Central Catholic, who was one of two to vote against endorsing the proposal. Gerdes said while his school’s football team could move to Class 5A to keep a district, there is also concern that if they stayed in Class 3A with no district mandate, that some of the larger school teams might not be able to schedule as they can now for their non-district games as schools look to get points.

“Some schools in my region were under the impression that they were keeping districts under the proposal,” Gerdes told the rest of the committee.

However, that persuaded little movement from the committee to make a move to make changes or reject endorsing the proposal to be sent to the Board of Directors.

As for now the proposal being endorsed by the Athletic Directors Advisory Committee is certainly good news for proponents of the proposal as it is very rare for items endorsed by a committee to be rejected by the Board of Directors.

However, Beasley is moving forward as cautiously optimistic with the last, but major, final vote standing in the way of seeing the proposal becoming reality.

“Ultimately it’s going to be up to them [Board of Directors]. Some of the board members have been deeply involved with understanding why we are doing some of the things that we are doing. They are going to voice their opinions and concerns. It is our job to come up with ideas. The AD Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors jobs to implement those things and decide if that’s what’s best for our member schools. We’ll see what happens at the Board of Directors meeting,” Beasley said.

The final vote in regards to the football playoff proposal will be included as an agenda item for the first Board of Directors meeting on Monday, Sept. 26 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time at the FHSAA’s offices in Gainesville.

Details On How The Playoff Proposal Will Work
Origins: Modeled after the points system used by the Nebraska School Activities Association with modifications to points.

Who Will Advance: Teams in Classes 1A through 4A teams will be placed in one of four regions and will earn points from all games which will then be determined to seed 16 teams in each bracket with four teams from each region in each class advancing. In Classes 5A to 8A team will be placed in one of 16 districts in each of those four classes with district champions getting a guaranteed playoff berth which will be seed No. 1 to No. 4 their assigned region based using total points accumulated. Wildcards will then be selected to fill out seeds No. 5 to No. 8 in each region which open the door for several teams from one district to make the playoffs based upon total points earned.

How Teams Earn Points: Teams will earn points based upon each of their opponents final regular season record and will be given the following points based on four different category levels.

What About Cancellations, Forfeitures, and Postponements: The FHSAA has laid out details in the proposal that will handle all the scenarios. Details on that can be found on the FHSAA’s football page under the PDF here.

Details on Final Vote for the Football Playoff Proposal
When: Monday, Sept. 26, 9:00 AM ET
Where: FHSAA Offices, 1801 NW 80^th Blvd., Gainesville, FL 32606
When The Vote Will Come: TBD – It will depend on where the placement is at in the agenda which has not been released at this time.