FHSAA Executive Director to not endorse metro/suburban classification plan for football; endorses changes to playoff ranking system

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The FHSAA Board of Directors which will be tasked in the final steps of either to approve or not approve the Metro/Suburban concept has received some guidance on where the vote could be headed towards at its next meeting on Monday, Feb. 28 in Gainesville.

On Friday, when the FHSAA published the agenda for the Board of Directors meeting, the views of Executive Director George Tomyn, who will be retiring in June of this year at the conclusion of the 2021-2022 school year, did not endorse the Metro/Suburban Classification plan that started with the Football Advisory Committee back in January of 2021.

In his recommendation, Tomyn did not “endorse the proposal as written and does endorse the continued work of the Athletic Directors Advisory Committee to review classification.”

The Metro/Suburban proposal would split the state up into Metro and Suburban Classifications with the highest eight densely populated counties in Florida being declared Metro counties (the eight counties being Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Duval, Orange, Seminole, Pinellas, and Hillsborough), while the remaining 59 counties would be declared Suburban counties. The plan would add a ninth classification for football so that would allow the current Class 1A rural classification to maintain its current structure serving rural schools with enrollments with 600 or less and in a designated rural area as declared by FHSAA policy.

Also, the plan would introduce districts again to all schools and not just those in the highest four classifications as it has been since the 2017-2018 school year.

The recommendation could see the Board of Directors ultimately reject the proposal, but could also end up voting for the proposal to go through.

To read more on the proposal including supporting documents, click here.

PLAYOFF RANKING CHANGE GET ENDORSEMENT

Executive Director Tomyn has given his endorsement to move football from using the Rating Percentage Index also known as RPI to the Florida MaxPreps Power Ranking system which is used currently in all other team sports around the state.

The Florida MaxPreps power ranking system uses the MaxPreps ranking formula that is proprietary to calculate an overall ranking that also includes a strength of schedule to produce a ranking each week and ultimately deciding how district tournaments (outside of football) are seeded as well as the regional playoff brackets will be seeded at the end of each regular season.

However, the Florida MaxPreps power ranking does not include is a margin of victory component which appears to be included on MaxPreps traditional rankings that are used in their own rankings across various sports. The margin of victory component was discussed at length by the Board of Directors in switching all team sports outside of football to the use of power rankings to seed brackets prior to the 2019-2020 school year.

To read more regarding the playoff system ranking changes, click here.

MEETING INFORMATION