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Well they wanted to win those games and they tried really hard. They are also really good at coin flips and in the end that is what matters most.

The problem lies partly with the class they are in which is terrible. Reduce the number of classes by two and this team would not be in the playoffs.

You are correct, Treasure Coast is very big and physical, and neither Vero nor Centennial have the physicality that they do. But Treasure Coast was beaten by both of them this season, so maybe both can matchup with DP also.

Let's think about the kids here, and teaching life lessons, which is the ultimate objective of hs football, right? It's important for kids to learn about "missions" and how their actions clearly impact mission results, right? Missions, ie save enough for retirement, have a successful family life, etc should have clear objectives, and it's important for kids to learn how to set such objectives and measure themselves against those. Am going to use a military example. The really old playoff system, in which only district champs made the playoffs, rewarded a team for "taking the hill" and nothing less. Mission success was very clearly defined...win the district. Anything less=mission failed. Then we said that district runners-up could make it. So you could take part of the hill and still "succeed." Now we are saying that you could take none of the hill, ie achieve a 1-4 district record, but if other companies succeed in taking their hills, your company can still be considered a success. How does that strike you, vets? "Fuzzy" objectives lead to all sorts of problems. We don't use points systems to determine success in life. When the goal was to get an "A" in class and I got a "B," mom never came to me at the end of the school year and said, "You're in luck. The points system has allowed for your "B" to have met your goal and here is your reward, honey" If a team's realistic objective at the beginning of the season is to finish at least 8-2 and win the district, and they finish 6-4 in fourth place, but still make the playoffs, what message do the kids receive? ...you can still "win" even when you don't meet your objectives. In many aspects of life, "close" does not count for much. How many of you ever had a boss come to you at the end of the year and say, "Joe, you didn't meet your personal objectives this year, but because of our point systems here, you're still getting a 10% raise." The sooner kids learn how life really works, the better.

Chamberlain, who did not make the playoffs, finished 8-2 and runner-up to Armwood in 6A-D7, which has 6 teams. Chamberlain was 4-1 in the district and lost to Armwood, who finished the season 9-1. Chamberlain's other loss came to non-district 9-1 Bloomingdale. Chamberlain and Armwood were the only two teams in the district with winning records. So, within its district, Chamberlain had one shot at a Cat 1 or 2 win, and that wasn't likely to happen against Armwood. South Lake, who made the playoffs in the same region, finished the season 6-4 and 2-3 in their district(fourth place). 4 of the 6 teams in their district had winning records. They had to go to OT to beat a 3-7 East Ridge team and only beat one team with a winning record. Chamberlain seems to be in a tough spot. Their only reasonable chance to make the playoffs each year is via a wildcard. They were forced to play 4 Cat 3/4 teams in their district this year. At 8-2, I am not sure how much better the team could have done. If Chamberlain doesn't make the playoffs, it seems odd that a 6-4 team that finishes in 4th place in a district can make it.

Given the new points system, all games should be made up. To have games not played or ending without a result is not acceptable. In fact, it may create a situation where two teams willfully conspire against another team keeping them out by creating just such a situation.

7A-R1 #8Fletcher(7-3) @ #1Columbia(9-1) These two teams are District 2 foes and have never met in the playoffs. Columbia has won their last 4 regular season meetings. Columbia has impressive wins this season over Fletcher, Lee, Buchholz, Madison County and Bolles and were a 2-point conversion away from an undefeated season. The Tigers have an explosive offense that averages 40 points per game. Only one team has held them under 30 points this year...Fletcher. Columbia won that game 21-20, when Fletcher went for 2 points instead of the tie in the fourth quarter. Columbia's defense has been allowing 19 points per game, which may be a concern at some point. They have given up 19 or more points in 7 of their games. The Tigers are a regular in the playoffs. They lost in the first round last year to Lincoln. Fletcher is one of the tougher #8 seeds in the playoffs and could be as big a threat to Columbia as any team in the region. After a rough loss to Raines early in the season, their last 3 games of the season were against Columbia, Lee and Mandarin, and all were tight games. Fletcher's last playoff win was in 2014. #7Edgewater(9-1) @ #2Buchholz(7-3) These two teams have met twice in the playoffs, Edgewater knocked Buchholz out of the playoffs last year with a 31-21 win in Orlando. Buchholz did the same to Edgewater in Gainesville in 2015. The Bobcats won their last playoff game in 2016, one of only 3 such victories since 2001. The Bobcats put up big points this year, but lost their games against tougher competition, ie Columbia, Vanguard and Bartram Trail. They did defeat Santa Fe and Oakleaf. Edgewater played a rather weak schedule this year. They slipped by Bishop Moore and lost to Hagerty, both playoff-bound teams. Its big offensive outputs might be deceiving because of the schedule. Hagerty held them to 15 points. #6Oakleaf(5-5) @ #3Lincoln(6-4) Oakleaf's only playoff experience was in 2014, when they managed to reach the regional final. Lincoln has appeared in 3 title games over the past 10 years, winning the 4A title in 2010. They lost to Bartram Trail in the second round last year. Oakleaf did not beat any playoff teams this year, but did play a number of them tough, including Glades Central, Vanguard, Raines and Buccholz. They averaged 40 points per game,including 69 points against Bartram Trail. But they gave up an embarrassing 38 points per game on average. Lincoln ended the season with 3 tough games against Raines, Godby and Escambia, losing to Raines and Godby. They had to forfeit a win over Niceville. Their defense gave up big points to tougher competition. #5Lee(8-1) @ #4Hagerty(6-4) Of all 5A-8A playoff teams, Hagerty made it into the playoffs with the lowest power ranking average of any team. They have played in playoff games in 2015 and 2016 and lost in the first round each time. The Huskies beat Edgewater 31-15 to win the district title. Overall, they have played a weak schedule. Lee has impressive wins over Raines, Mandarin and Fletcher, and lost a shootout with Columbia. Since 1996, Lee has gotten past the first round only once. The Generals made it to the state semifinals in 2016. Their offense can put points on the board, ie they put up 37 points on Columbia. *Fletcher was a benefactor the new points system.

They are a huge favorite and with them having home field it will be tough I do think the winner of viera vs Plant can test them and maybe pull a upset but that will probably be their only true test before the final 4 game and if Columbia can do their part they would host Lakeland

great. they stink at 0-9 and should be home. There are 8-2 squads sitting home. This is a statewide embarassment.

Its worse than that. Imagine taking someone who can't pass basic math, putting them in an advance class like college algebra, then when they get an F saying that because they were in a more difficult class, their F is better than an A in basic math. That is the logic being used here.

Chamberlain was a playoff caliber team but there are teams up there that probably should not have made it despite record IE (River Ridge, springstead, George Jenkins, Liberty).

I hate any system where only a few select games matter and i hate having some pretend and non existent seeding where i have to dig for what side i am on some stupid bracket to find out if we home or away the next round The new system insures every game counts and that alone makes it better for me so i don't have to hear bullshit about it just being a "tuneup game that means nothing" I like knowing we could be responsible for our rivals missing the playoffs by beating them in the beginning of the season, it makes those games matter more

Seminole, who did not make the playoffs, finished 8-2. They are in District 2, which has 7 teams. From their district, Oviedo was a Cat 1, Lake Mary and Lake Brantley were Cat 3, and the remaining 3 teams in the district were Cat 4. In a manner of speaking, Seminole was locked into half of its games against teams that offered minimal reward for beating, but a big loss in points if lost to. 3 teams from District 4 made it: Apopka, Wekiva and West Orange. Those are Cat 1/2 teams. Let's use West Orange as an example. (And FYI, my point here is not to debate the playoff worthiness of West Orange.) West Orange played Evans(Cat 4). Their other two games were against Cat 1/2 Apopka and Wekiva, which guaranteed them 30-35 points even with a loss. Those games had, in a manner of speaking, low risk with a potential for big reward if West Orange beat them. This puts a team like Seminole at a distinct disadvantage when fighting for a wlidcard berth. Even with competing districts of the exact same size, there is a bias for teams from stronger districts, ie more Cat1/2 teams to play. With the current situation, ie districts of varying size and strength, the bias is even greater. This situation forces a team like Seminole in a big district with numerous weak teams to take a gamble and schedule a very aggressive non-district schedule to make up for the handicap. Add yet another variable, ie Hillsborough scheduling constraints, and it potentially creates even more of a bias against certain teams. In summary, there are too many variables at play here to allow the points system to work most effectively. I don't have a dog in this fight and am open to the new system. Just trying to point out some of its inherent flaws.

This is the product of Frank Beasley and the Fhsaa and it has proven to be terribly flawed. The former system as mentioned above was better. The fact you had bad teams in the playoffs were because of 3 team districts. If you say the minimum number of teams in a district are 6, that guarantees 5 games then you still have schedule flexibility. You will NEVER make everyone happy but I don't know anyone that can honestly say that a winless team belongs in the playoffs. On top of that it was decided by a coin flip. We need a math degree to figure out the standings but we can't get teams together to play 1 qtr to decide a playoff spot. Let's just flip a coin and here we go. I would like to believe that the Fhsaa is embarrassed by these results but I really don't think they care.

thought some of you might appreciate this

Columbia fan, take a step back take a deep breath. This is a very fixable situation. Just like gator man said, all we have to do is go back to larger districts. If you whine about the travel then you don't have to participate in the FHSAA playoffs, it's that easy. And there are enough teams in every geographic region to fill out districts very easily. We just need to be slightly more flexible with the classes. And for the folks that like points, what I suggested above works. You award points based on strength of schedule for that year. Based on wins and losses. Not past accomplishments. That's the fairest and most equable way to solve this stupid mess that the FHSAA has single-handedly caused.

The new system can be fixed in a easy way. Make all districts at least 6 teams instead of some with 4 and some with 7. This will stop hurting teams in large districts who have a certain number of guaranteed losses compared to 4 team districts. Next, make losing to a tier four team back to 30 instead of 35 to stop teams who lose a game from gaining more points than beating a team form lower tier.

We have had this conversation before, but the old system was fixable with small changes. Increasing district size solves that problem, no need for an over complicated system. If there had been 7-8 teams in a district, boom, solved.

Much better because it was decided on wins and losses. No bonus points for scheduling a team that may have been OK in 2016 and snuck into the playoffs back then but is now hot garbage (Brandon and dozens of other examples). The only way to fix this mess is to get out of the business of small districts. Go to large districts. Even with an 8 team district, you are left with 3 non-district games and K.O. classic. That's enough. You can award the top two in the district with the playoffs and you aren't going to have many teams with bad records making it in. On top of that, bonus points to seed the playoff qualifiers by Section, not region. 1 point per win, no points for losses, a schedule bonus of 1-4 based on the overall record of the teams you played that year. That is the only fair way. Forget the playoff nonsense because a team that qualified a year or two before may have lost everyone to graduation or transfer and you are still getting points for a team that could wind up 3-7 or 2-8. The only flaw to that is fofreit losses when figuring out current schedule strength of the teams you played. I would perhaps only go with on field results or give 1/2 a win to a team that had to forfeit when figuring out the strength of a schedule. I'm not advocating giving the team that had to forfeit any points in their own compilation, only for the teams that had to play the team that had the forfeit loss. A little bit of thought can fix this mess, but I'm not counting on it from the bozos upstairs.

Funny because before both systems were implemented the schools voted FOR the systems If the fhsaa lacks common sense for these ideas then the schools lack it for voting in favor of it

Chamberlain for sure got screwed. They were one of the better teams in the Tampa area. They lost to 9-1 Armwood and 9-1 Bloomingdale. When they played B-Dale, Chamberlain's all county QB was hurt. This system is complete shit. Gadsden County got in at 0-9. That's all you need to know about the FHSAA and why it should be disbanded..

we might even be able to make money off it. Guarantee a school a win over a category 1 team for $1k

DP is down. They were down last year and won a state title. They have very little depth on defense this year and offensively they have no QB. However if healthy they can be dangerous. I wouldn't write them off. They have moved Powell to wildcat QB and are scoring more lately granted against lesser teams. They did beat Oak Ridge 35-18. Apopka just beat Oak Ridge 26-10. I don't think they match up vs physical teams this year because they are young in the lines. if Vero is physical they will win. If not DP is dangerous. DP must get past a good Centennial team first.

I currently live in western CO right now in a place called Montrose. Watch them a couple times a year usually including a few years ago when they were state runner ups as well as the better teams in Grand Junction. Most competitive teams in FL would destroy most CO teams I’m certain. A guy I work with played for Cherry Creek HS out here I believe and played at one of the Disney games. He told me they pretty much know they’re going to be given easy win teams from FL and play them for the trip to Disney, football is secondary. It was pretty sad to hear that.

Laz, I respect your work, but the system put in both Rutherford and Gadsden in above Jackson who you have ranked higher. How is that a good system? Yes, i might be looking at one tree instead of the forest, but damn it is an ugly tree.

Pahokee's offense lacks any real production, very vanilla!! GC played them 0 coverage for 90 percent of the game and the coach didn't make adjustments to counter that! Would've been easy to stack your receivers or run a lot of bunch sets, but that didn't occur! Oh well, another loss to an inferior team, GC executed a great game plan and PK didn't....

One thing is for sure. Whoever comes out of this region will be as battle-tested as they come. It doesn't get much better than Region 4 this year. 8A-R4 #8CoralGables(6-4) @ #1Columbus(10-0) These two teams are District 14 foes and are regulars on the playoff scene. They have met 4 times in the playoffs over the past 6 years, with each team winning twice. Columbus has made numerous deep playoff runs this decade, including a 2014 8A title game appearance. Columbus lost one game on the field this year to Carol City, who ultimately had to forfeit that win. Including that result, Columbus' stingy defense has given up only about 10 points per game on average. Their defensive line is big and can really shut down the run. Their offense can light up the scoreboard with a very balanced attack. They have played a tough schedule this year that included Northwestern, Booker T, and Belen Jesuit, so they have been tested. Don't be deceived by CG's record. 3 of their losses came against Palmetto, South Dade and Booker T, all by a TD or less. Columbus won their regular season matchup by a score of 36-21. Columbus jumped out early 14-0 in the first quarter, which was the difference. The last three quarters were very tight. I watched the game and Coral Gables is definitely talented, although Columbus has the edge. In addition to its talented players, Columbus has one of the most experienced coaches in the state, Chris Merritt. #7North Miami(6-4) @ #2Southridge(8-2) North Miami has won only 3 playoff games in its history. The last win came in 1991. Interestingly, Southridge knocked them out of the playoffs that year. They did the same in 1983. North Miami made the playoffs last year, losing to South Dade in the first round. These two teams played during the regular season, with Southridge winning 15-6. N Miami played one other playoff-bound team this year, losing to Palmetto 21-7. Southridge is a regular on the playoff scene and won the 8A title in 2016. They were knocked out of the playoffs last year in the second round by Miami High. They played a brutal schedule this year including Palmetto, South Dade, Homestead, Booker T, Carol City and Rockledge. The Spartans have a stout defense. With the exception of Carol City, nobody scored more than 16 points against the Ridge in 4 quarters of play. #6South Dade(8-2) @ #3Hialeah(9-1) Although Hialeah is the lower seed, it is clearly the underdog. These two teams have never met in the playoffs and have not met recently in the regular season. Hialeah has won only one playoff game in its history, back in 1981. The T-Breds played a weak schedule this year. The only playoff-bound team they met was N Miami, who they beat 30-21. Their defense has been tough against opponents, but they have yet to face anyone like South Dade. The Bucs are a regular on the playoff scene and won the 8A title in 2014. Coming out of one of the deepest districts in the state, the Bucs have played a tough schedule that included district foes Palmetto, Southridge and Homestead, as well as non-district opponents Northwestern, Coral Gables and Jackson. To say they have been tested is an understatement. Despite their tough schedule, they have held opponents to an average of 11 points per game. And with a talented qb and one of the top WR's in the country, Frank Ladson, they can light up the scoreboard when their offense is clicking. #5Palmetto(9-1) @ #4Belen Jesuit(8-2) Belen is a regular on the playoff scene, but has struggled to advance past the first round since moving up to 8A. They met Palmetto once in the playoffs, when Palmetto knocked them out in 2016. Outside Columbus, Belen played only 2 playoff-bound teams. They lost to 3A American Heritage Delray and defeated 4A Monsignor Pace. Coming out of District 16, you know Palmetto has been tested. They have impressive wins over Naples, Coral Gables,North Miami, Homestead and South Dade. They put up 33 points on a tough South Dade defense, so you know the Panthers can score points. Their only loss was a hard-fought one against district champion Southridge. As #5 seeds go, Palmetto is as tough as they come. *South Dade was a benefactor the new points system.

Glades Central lol

will never know because system sucks. Go Gadsden

Bartram Trail should have been in. I would like to see shootouts come back if there is a tie for champ. Settle it on the field

Never a perfect system. Always going to be upsets and factors that play into it. Computers have a better track record than humans in picking games.