Four takeaways from the Class 5A through 8A regional quarterfinals

Here is a look back at some things that stood out after the first week of playoffs have been officially capped off for the 2021 football season in Classes 5A through 8A.

THE NO. 5 SEEDS DOMINATE THE NO. 4 SEEDS

This seems to be a common theme from the last four years of playoff brackets where they have been seeded by either the points system (2017 and 2018) or the RPI (2019 and 2021), in which it seems the No. 5 seeds have run rough shot over the No. 4 seeds. I look at all the No. 4 vs. No. 5 matchups in the Classes 5A-8A. In fact, of the 16 No. 4 vs. No. 5, 10 of the No. 5 seeds took down the No. 4 seeds.

Let’s breakdown by classification:

Class 8A – All the No. 5 seeds won which include Lake Mary, Vero Beach, Riverview (Sarasota), and Columbus. All those teams won on a combined average of 29 points in those matchups. The closest matchup was No. 5 Lake Mary over No. 4 Timber Creek in a 20-14 contest in Class 8A-Region 1 for a margin of victory of six points.

Class 7A – Only one No. 5 seed managed to pull off the victory with No. 5 University (Orange City) taking down No. 4 Fletcher in Class 7A-Region 1, 35-14 for a margin of victory of 21 points.

Class 6A – Things weren’t as rosy here for the No. 4 seeds as three of the No. 5 seeds crushed the No. 4 seeds by an average margin of 21 points. The closest margin of victories came in two games at 14 points with No. 5 Riverside winning 17-3 over No. 4 Columbia in Class 6A-Region 1 and No. 5 Braden River winning 30-16 over Countryside in Class 6A-Region 3.

Class 5A – All the No. 5 seeds in Class 5A took down the No. 4 seeds by an average margin victory of 19.75 points. However, upon further breakdown, two of those games were under 20 points. The one that was super close was No. 5 Nature Coast sneaking off with a three-point victory over No. 4 Chamberlain, 24-21 in Class 5A-Region 3.

Overall, the No. 5 seeds went 12-4 overall in Classes 5A through 8A. Not really even record which is one pairing you expect things to be sort of even in a lot of ways as traditionally

With all that said, could things be different if the FHSAA had only guaranteed the district champions a playoff spot without guaranteeing them a home seed and instead had seeded the brackets strictly based upon the RPI number?

The answer is very likely.

Here are two good examples of where things could have been different looking at Port St. Lucie in Class 6A and Chamberlain in Class 5A. Both Port St. Lucie and Chamberlain finished No. 10 overall in their respective regions and in that regard would have been given the No. 8 seed overall instead and sending those teams on the road for the first round of the playoffs.

Would they both still have lost? Possibly.

Would the margin of victory be different? Possibly yes, as well.

Overall, the way the seeds are done in Classes 5A-8A may need some reexamining, especially if the FHSAA does decide to keep districts for the foreseeable future.

NO. 1 SEEDS DOMINATED THE NIGHT

The No. 1 seeds were a combined 15-1 overall in Classes 5A through 8A and that is a testament that the No. 1 seed should technically have the easiest matchup in that pairing situation. However, we did have that one exception – No. 8 Plantation defeating No. 1 Dunbar in Class 6A-Region 4 by a score of 44-20, which was completely unexpected by most around the state and goes down as the biggest upset for the regional quarterfinals.

Let’s break this down by classification:

Class 8A – The average margin of victory in the wins by the No. 1 teams over the No. 8 teams was 32.5 points. The closest margin of victory was 14 points with No. 1 Seminole (Sanford) getting a 41-27 win over No. 8 Winter Park in Class 8A-Region 1. For comparison, No. 1 Venice had a 48-point margin of victory over No. 8 Plant City in Class 8A-Region 3 for the highest margin of victory for No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchup.

Class 7A – 29 points was the average margin of victory for the No. 1 teams over the No. 8 teams in this classification. For No. 1 Tampa Bay Tech, their 23-point victory over No. 8 Largo in Class 7A-Region 3 was the closest margin of victory for a No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchup in Class 7A. No. 1 St. Thomas Aquinas’ 36-point margin of victory over No. 8 Atlantic (Delray Beach) in Class 7A-Region 4 was the highest margin of victory for No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchup.

Class 6A – This classification was by far the worst of the four classifications with a margin of victory with the three No. 1 seeds that won over the No. 8 seeds winning by a margin of 35.7 points. For No. 1 Pine Forest, their 19-point victory over No. 8 Rickards in Class 6A-Region 1 was the closest margin of victory in the classification. No. 1 Jesuit’s 50-point margin of victory over No. 8 Boca Ciega in Class 6A-Region 3 was the highest for the No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchups in Class 6A.

Class 5A – We saw a 26-point margin of victory for the No. 1 teams who won against the No. 8 teams with the closest margin of victory being a 16-point margin of victory for No. 1 Baker County over No. 8 Ed White in Class 5A-Region 1. For perspective, the largest margin of victory was 60 points for No. 1, Miami Killian, over No. 8 Cypress Lake in Class 5A-Region 4.

Overall, what this means for the No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchups is that they are playing out as they should, and it is without fail that we have at least one No. 1 seed fall to a No. 8 seed like it has the past two years under the RPI rankings.

PLANTATION UPSET OF DUNBAR THE BIGGEST IN REGIONAL QUARTERFINALS

In Class 6A-Region 4, No. 8 Plantation sed a 22-point first half to take a 22-6 lead into half over No. 1 Dunbar before the Colonels piled on another 22 points in the second half to storm the Tigers 44-20. The expectation was that Dunbar would ride high in the playoffs with having the highest RPI of teams in Class 6A.

However, there were skeptics in the room, including myself that felt that Dunbar had gotten away with a far lighter schedule even though the teams on their schedule were mostly middle of the road this season. That set things up to be a false sense of security for the Tigers. Compared that to Plantation which played teams like Dillard and Coconut Creek who in turn had played teams like Western and St. Thomas Aquinas that bolstered their OWP number up all that in turn likely set things up for a game that no one saw coming except Plantation.

In the end, though, the Colonels now get a chance to exact revenge on No. 4 Coconut Creek who they lost to all the way back in Week 4, 27-7. A win for Plantation would set up another trip on the road for Thanksgiving weekend at either No. 2 Naples or No. 3 Miami Northwestern.

OTHER LOWER SEEDS PERFORMED BETTER THAN EXPECTED

Of teams seeded No. 6, No. 7, or No. 8, 10 teams overall in those seeds across Classes 5A through 8A were able to advance on the regional semifinals.

A couple of the shockers include No. 7 Bishop Moore taking down No. 2 Dunnellon 21-20 in Class 5A-Region 2 and No. 6 Wharton taking down No. 3 Mitchell in Class 7A-Region 3, 15-8, which set up some interesting matchups for this week.

In fact, in Class 5A-Region 2, No. 6 Satellite and No. 7 Bishop Moore will meet up this week in a rare lower seed matchup that gives Satellite a home playoff game, which they were not expecting. With that said, this is going to set up for a very interesting matchup between the Scorpions and the Hornets with a shot of a regional final berth on the line, something that Satellite has never reached before in school history.