Get rid of districts

[VeniceIndianFan]

On 3/26/2022 at 5:14 PM, Hwy17 said:

Hear me out, playing and competing for a district champ as a means of qualifying for the playoffs is something I favor. That said, anything fewer than 4 teams in a district isn't worth having. IMHO 5 to 7 teams is ideal.  Back when I was in high school we had 8 teams in our district on only the district champ got to move on. With this new format I think we should get rid of them all together. If not, perhaps consolidate so there are 3 districts per region, which has been done before but some complained about travel. 

Agree completely. Great post as always, HWY17!

[PinellasFB]

<insert "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme here> It's not exactly easy to simply combine small districts to make 4-team+ districts.  You would probably create 1-3 hr bus rides for a lot of kids for their district games.  Thats just not a tenable solution for most schools.

[DisabledAccount]

1 minute ago, PinellasFB said:

<insert "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme here> It's not exactly easy to simply combine small districts to make 4-team+ districts.  You would probably create 1-3 hr bus rides for a lot of kids for their district games.  Thats just not a tenable solution for most schools.

Late 90s had St Augustine, Lincoln and Columbia (among others) in same district and it was fine then

 

 

What changed?

[Hwy17]

3 hours ago, PinellasFB said:

<insert "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme here> It's not exactly easy to simply combine small districts to make 4-team+ districts.  You would probably create 1-3 hr bus rides for a lot of kids for their district games.  Thats just not a tenable solution for most schools.

 

3 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Late 90s had St Augustine, Lincoln and Columbia (among others) in same district and it was fine then

 

 

What changed?

Maybe but something has to give.  Hardee was one time in a district with Cocoa Beach so long trips for district play isn't unprecedented. Any district with Key West means a long bus ride.

[Coach]

4 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Late 90s had St Augustine, Lincoln and Columbia (among others) in same district and it was fine then

 

 

What changed?

I’m not familiar with that area as far as high schools go, but I’d assume the big changes would be the sheer number of schools in Florida. How many high schools were there in the 90’s compared to the number playing in the FHSAA today (not to mention independent schools). Most schools are much closer.
 

Obviously 2 and three team districts aren’t ideal, but limiting classes doesn’t help. The best solution right now is to abolish districts altogether and make everything based on a regional record. Top 8 teams make the playoffs. No “1-9 district champs”, and teams can schedule who they want. Make a requirement of like 6 region games and then let teams play new opponents each year. 

[DisabledAccount]

9 minutes ago, Coach said:

I’m not familiar with that area as far as high schools go, but I’d assume the big changes would be the sheer number of schools in Florida. How many high schools were there in the 90’s compared to the number playing in the FHSAA today (not to mention independent schools). Most schools are much closer.
 

Obviously 2 and three team districts aren’t ideal, but limiting classes doesn’t help. The best solution right now is to abolish districts altogether and make everything based on a regional record. Top 8 teams make the playoffs. No “1-9 district champs”, and teams can schedule who they want. Make a requirement of like 6 region games and then let teams play new opponents each year. 

The only problem is how will the FHSAA enforce that 

 

Say your Madison County (I would also use Columbia but I wanted to use a different team as I know this applies to them even more in this case) and the teams in the region fill up their 6 with others and won't play Madison

 

Does Madison get disqualified from postseason play because they are unable to get those 6 games if the teams refuse to play them? 

 

That's the biggest issue with the "play an unspecified group of teams in the region idea" is that unless the FHSAA has a way to force teams in the region to play each other and ensure everyone reaches 6 games it will be a headache and even then you basically have made defacto districts If the FHSAA has to assign the teams which defeats the entire purpose of abolishing districts to begin with 

[Coach]

8 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

The only problem is how will the FHSAA enforce that 

 

Say your Madison County (I would also use Columbia but I wanted to use a different team as I know this applies to them even more in this case) and the teams in the region fill up their 6 with others and won't play Madison

 

Does Madison get disqualified from postseason play because they are unable to get those 6 games if the teams refuse to play them? 

 

That's the biggest issue with the "play an unspecified group of teams in the region idea" is that unless the FHSAA has a way to force teams in the region to play each other and ensure everyone reaches 6 games it will be a headache and even then you basically have made defacto districts If the FHSAA has to assign the teams which defeats the entire purpose of abolishing districts to begin with 

Yeah…I see your point. I’m just sure there are ways to do it. Maybe the teams could submit their schedules to the state or a regional point of contact to get approval or something. I’m not positive but I think the bigger counties make teams drop games if they don’t have enough county teams on their schedule (I think Orange County does that, and Hillsborough County schedules go through the county AD). I’m sure that could happen, at the very least, at a regional level. Just spitballing ideas haha

[Tigerskin]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:21 PM, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

The only problem is how will the FHSAA enforce that 

 

Say your Madison County (I would also use Columbia but I wanted to use a different team as I know this applies to them even more in this case) and the teams in the region fill up their 6 with others and won't play Madison

 

Does Madison get disqualified from postseason play because they are unable to get those 6 games if the teams refuse to play them? 

 

That's the biggest issue with the "play an unspecified group of teams in the region idea" is that unless the FHSAA has a way to force teams in the region to play each other and ensure everyone reaches 6 games it will be a headache and even then you basically have made defacto districts If the FHSAA has to assign the teams which defeats the entire purpose of abolishing districts to begin with 

I can tell you no rural 1A is going to be forced to play Madison , that would cause a mass exodus in rural 1A

[Hwy17]

Why are we making this so hard? For the last few years the smaller classes haven't had districts and used RPI to determine playoffs. So either (A) use that system in all classes, or (B) keep districts but consolidated into 3 districts per region so as to have bigger districts. Which this has been done before.

[DisabledAccount]

1 hour ago, Hwy17 said:

Why are we making this so hard? For the last few years the smaller classes haven't had districts and used RPI to determine playoffs. So either (A) use that system in all classes, or (B) keep districts but consolidated into 3 districts per region so as to have bigger districts. Which this has been done before.

They changed it because teams were going independent if they didn't get Put in a district they were capable of winning 

[DisabledAccount]

It was an issue that was more common in lower classifications than upper classifications and many upper classification schools fought to keep districts while smaller classification schools didn't

[Dr. D]

How would you feel about this for the classifications that “want” to have districts?  Since all of the larger classifications have roughly 64 teams, why not 8 districts of 8 teams each (some may have 7 teams, some may have 9 teams), 2 districts per region.  That pretty much solves the scheduling problem since you are generally guaranteed 7 games.  You could take the top 4 teams from each district into region playoffs or take the top 3 teams from each district with 2 wild cards per region based on FHSAA Power Rankings.  Head-to-head results ensure the most deserving teams make the playoffs, and commonality of opponents makes the power rankings more accurate for playoff seeding and wild card selection.  Not sure this would create any more travel issues than already exist.

[Ray Icaza]

1 hour ago, Dr. D said:

How would you feel about this for the classifications that “want” to have districts?  Since all of the larger classifications have roughly 64 teams, why not 8 districts of 8 teams each (some may have 7 teams, some may have 9 teams), 2 districts per region.  That pretty much solves the scheduling problem since you are generally guaranteed 7 games.  You could take the top 4 teams from each district into region playoffs or take the top 3 teams from each district with 2 wild cards per region based on FHSAA Power Rankings.  Head-to-head results ensure the most deserving teams make the playoffs, and commonality of opponents makes the power rankings more accurate for playoff seeding and wild card selection.  Not sure this would create any more travel issues than already exist.

Teams that have 8 or 9 teams per district have little leeway in structuring the schedule to benefit the team they are fielding that particular year.  My feeling aligns more with (I think Hwy17) the idea of 3 districts per region so you have approximately half your schedule filled with the flexibility of a team with a strong returning cast to schedule "UP" to prepare for a potential playoff run while those in the rebuild can schedule the balance of games "DOWN" to ensure some success. 

[DisabledAccount]

4 hours ago, Dr. D said:

How would you feel about this for the classifications that “want” to have districts?  Since all of the larger classifications have roughly 64 teams, why not 8 districts of 8 teams each (some may have 7 teams, some may have 9 teams), 2 districts per region.  That pretty much solves the scheduling problem since you are generally guaranteed 7 games.  You could take the top 4 teams from each district into region playoffs or take the top 3 teams from each district with 2 wild cards per region based on FHSAA Power Rankings.  Head-to-head results ensure the most deserving teams make the playoffs, and commonality of opponents makes the power rankings more accurate for playoff seeding and wild card selection.  Not sure this would create any more travel issues than already exist.

It would in areas that teams are more spread out 

 

Though personally I'm fine with smaller districts from a Columbia perspective as we play better teams in non conference play than we usually ever do in districts

[Dr. D]

I realize that scheduling philosophies differ for schools in different situations; flexibility is certainly beneficial.  As far as 3 districts per region, the numbers currently support 12 districts of 5-6 teams each.  I would prefer more head-to-head district games to identify the most deserving playoff teams, rather than trusting computer algorithms.  As a side note, the districts in the larger classifications in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee generally have 6-8 teams.   

[Floridaatlantic1]

Four team districts have a built in advantage of not have extra guaranteed losses to the teams you play which lowers your ranking. It may be tough to schedule for them but still easier path to playoffs. Less teams to beat and a higher state playoff ranking. Plus, not having districts in upper divisions would make scheduling practically impossible for the recruiting cheater teams so they will never get rid of the districts or it would make all the football factory teams play each other instead of pummeling the regular teams. 

[badbird]

Winning a district title use to mean something.  Now with lots of 2 and 3 team districts I would be in favor of getting rid of them also if we can't increase the number of teams in the districts.  

 

[Floridaatlantic1]

reduce number of divisions and the 2-3 team districts disappear.

[Dr. D]

Being a proponent of fewer districts, as opposed to totally getting rid of them, I arranged the 66 teams in Suburban-4 into 8 districts just to see what was possible.  Round-robin district play would take place, and the top 4 teams in each district would qualify for the playoffs, matched against teams from their adjacent district 1 vs. 4, 2 vs 3, etc. in the first round.  This set-up largely eliminates the problem of teams being unable to schedule 10 games, leaves several opportunities for non-district games, and identifies the most deserving teams through head-to-head play, as opposed to relying on computers to do the same.  Local rivalries are maintained, and the ridiculous 2- and 3-team districts are eliminated.  Individual school objections would likely exist, but I think this would be an improvement on the current arrangement.