Classifications of Other States

[gatorman-uf]

Since this board likes to talk about reclassification and the removal of a classification, I figured it would be good to look at some other states.

Georgia
7A: 48 Schools
6A: 58 Schools
5A: 58 Schools
4A: 53 Schools
3A: 57 Schools
2A: 57 Schools
1A: 88 Schools (Smallest Classification)

New Jersey:
Group 5: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 4: 15+15+15+15 (60) teams
Group 3: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 2: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 1: 16+15+16+16 (63) teams
Non Public Group 4: 10 teams
Non Public Group 3: 10 teams
Non Public Group 2: 15 teams

New Jersey only plays down to what Florida would call 4 regional champions (the first numbers per group). Next year, they are changing to play down to a North/South champion per group with the belief that within 5-7 years they will play down to a single champion. NJ does play down to a single group champion in other sports and than hosts a Tournament of Champions of all group champions. 

Texas: 
Group 6A: ~253***See Note
Group 5A: ~263***See Note
Group 4A (1): ~94
Group 4A (2): ~91
Group 3A (1): ~103
Group 3A (2): ~99
Group 2A (1): ~94
Group 2A (2): ~90

***Texas 5A and 6A take the top 4 from each of their 32 districts, but the top 2 in terms of attendance in a district go to Division 1 and the two lowest go to Division 2. Groups 2A-4A are divided by the UIL before the season starts.  

Texas Private Schools almost exclusively play in their own Classification which is not included in the above.  
5A: 25 Schools
4A: 42 Schools
3A: 48 Schools
2A: 54 Schools
1A: 52 Schools

[DisabledAccount]

5 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

Since this board likes to talk about reclassification and the removal of a classification, I figured it would be good to look at some other states.

Georgia
7A: 48 Schools
6A: 58 Schools
5A: 58 Schools
4A: 53 Schools
3A: 57 Schools
2A: 57 Schools
1A: 88 Schools (Smallest Classification)

New Jersey:
Group 5: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 4: 15+15+15+15 (60) teams
Group 3: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 2: 16+15+15+15 (61) teams
Group 1: 16+15+16+16 (63) teams
Non Public Group 4: 10 teams
Non Public Group 3: 10 teams
Non Public Group 2: 15 teams

New Jersey only plays down to what Florida would call 4 regional champions (the first numbers per group). Next year, they are changing to play down to a North/South champion per group with the belief that within 5-7 years they will play down to a single champion. NJ does play down to a single group champion in other sports and than hosts a Tournament of Champions of all group champions. 

Texas: 
Group 6A: ~253***See Note
Group 5A: ~263***See Note
Group 4A (1): ~94
Group 4A (2): ~91
Group 3A (1): ~103
Group 3A (2): ~99
Group 2A (1): ~94
Group 2A (2): ~90

***Texas 5A and 6A take the top 4 from each of their 32 districts, but the top 2 in terms of attendance in a district go to Division 1 and the two lowest go to Division 2. Groups 2A-4A are divided by the UIL before the season starts.  

Texas Private Schools almost exclusively play in their own Classification which is not included in the above.  
5A: 25 Schools
4A: 42 Schools
3A: 48 Schools
2A: 54 Schools
1A: 52 Schools

The problem and reason privates Cant be seperated is there aren't enough large privates to make a class

 

 

Unless you took some 3a privates and put them with schools like sta it won't work

 

 

Gatorman I'm almost complete with a purposal i just need to do finalizing check on geography and make mild corrections but i should be done this week 

[Terrapin]

We should do a college football playoff/BCS type system where polls, votes, and strength of schedules determines who gets into the championship game. 

[DarterBlue2]

54 minutes ago, Yourbasement said:

We should do a college football playoff/BCS type system where polls, votes, and strength of schedules determines who gets into the championship game. 

No. That would be a step in the wrong direction. Let the kids settle it on the field via the playoffs. You could do a tournament of champions afterwords. 

[DisabledAccount]

1 hour ago, Yourbasement said:

We should do a college football playoff/BCS type system where polls, votes, and strength of schedules determines who gets into the championship game. 

I would never want newspaper and ap voters determining who goes to playoffs or state championships 

 

Those voters for most part are bias and would create a lot of issues 

 

Before the playoff era state champions were determined by newspaper votes

 

Columbia was undefeated 5 times, never once voted state champs 

 

Why?  Because metro media holds more weight then small town media and you would see metro teams always getting the nod in a system like that 

 

As darter said it would be a step in the wrong direction 

[DisabledAccount]

24 minutes ago, DarterBlue2 said:

No. That would be a step in the wrong direction. Let the kids settle it on the field via the playoffs. You could do a tournament of champions afterwords. 

Tournament of Champions would be cool but only issue is we likely would then drop from the post season oos bowl if we were to do that

 

Otherwise it may end up with 17 games played plus preseason classic which would have us playing as many games as Texas schools play 

[DarterBlue2]

18 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Tournament of Champions would be cool but only issue is we likely would then drop from the post season oos bowl if we were to do that

 

Otherwise it may end up with 17 games played plus preseason classic which would have us playing as many games as Texas schools play 

True. We would have to decide what is more important. I do think  tournament of champions would be cool, though, and would provide an opportunity to see games that otherwise will never be played.

[DB4]

Having AP voters decide would be an awful idea and I'll explain why:

When I worked as a sports reporter in TX, I was an AP voter for HS football. I wasn't in a major metro (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio). But everyone tries to squeeze some teams from their area in with some votes. But Texas is such a big state that it's guaranteed you haven't seen enough teams to have an informed vote on who the top 10 is in every single class. A lot of times you just end up going with who you see most other ppl are voting for or how the voting went the prior week. You may have the best 10 teams in a class, but you may be missing somebody bc they're 8 hours away in West TX or something.

Florida isn't that big, but to relate it to here, you'd be asking voters from the Panhandle to determine who the best teams in South Florida are, SW Gulf Coast voters to do the same for Jacksonville/Daytona Beach schools. Chances are they haven't even seen YouTube highlights of most of these teams.

There's no perfect system for the playoffs but in my opinion, a BCS style system is way less perfect than what we have now.

[DisabledAccount]

1 minute ago, DB4 said:

Having AP voters decide would be an awful idea and I'll explain why:

When I worked as a sports reporter in TX, I was an AP voter for HS football. I wasn't in a major metro (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio). But everyone tries to squeeze some teams from their area in with some votes. But Texas is such a big state that it's guaranteed you haven't seen enough teams to have an informed vote on who the top 10 is in every single class. A lot of times you just end up going with who you see most other ppl are voting for or how the voting went the prior week. You may have the best 10 teams in a class, but you may be missing somebody bc they're 8 hours away in West TX or something.

Florida isn't that big, but to relate it to here, you'd be asking voters from the Panhandle to determine who the best teams in South Florida are, SW Gulf Coast voters to do the same for Jacksonville/Daytona Beach schools. Chances are they haven't even seen YouTube highlights of most of these teams.

There's no perfect system for the playoffs but in my opinion, a BCS style system is way less perfect than what we have now.

Exactly 

 

That's why i think the polls we do in these fourms are best polls out there 

 

Even though we may not see all the teams we talk with people around the state and get feedback from people who have and as a result we can get good rankings 

[DarterBlue2]

3 minutes ago, DB4 said:

Having AP voters decide would be an awful idea and I'll explain why:

When I worked as a sports reporter in TX, I was an AP voter for HS football. I wasn't in a major metro (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio). But everyone tries to squeeze some teams from their area in with some votes. But Texas is such a big state that it's guaranteed you haven't seen enough teams to have an informed vote on who the top 10 is in every single class. A lot of times you just end up going with who you see most other ppl are voting for or how the voting went the prior week. You may have the best 10 teams in a class, but you may be missing somebody bc they're 8 hours away in West TX or something.

Florida isn't that big, but to relate it to here, you'd be asking voters from the Panhandle to determine who the best teams in South Florida are, SW Gulf Coast voters to do the same for Jacksonville/Daytona Beach schools. Chances are they haven't even seen YouTube highlights of most of these teams.

There's no perfect system for the playoffs but in my opinion, a BCS style system is way less perfect than what we have now.

That goes without saying. I am not sure where he got his idea from, but it's terrible!

[gatorman-uf]

I find the Texas idea interesting, but it would be hard to do in our state right now.
Take 4A-bottom half in terms of size of 6A and make 1 classification.
Take Top half in terms of size of 6A-8A and make 1 classification.
 

It would be about 195 teams per classification in Florida.
Divide each by 32 districts (~6  teams per district).
Top 4 teams get in the playoffs with the largest two teams in the district going to division 1, smallest going to division 2 (district records  determine top 4)

I think it would shrink district traveling as more teams in a smaller condensed area due to having 2.5 classifications in 1 classification. The size difference matters less in higher classifications. Offers to change up the playoffs every year due to the fact that who the top 2 are in terms of size in each district could vary just by having one team have a good/decent season. Size of districts is larger.
Obviously, we are now putting in a 4th place team (out of 6) into playoffs and that could water down our playoffs a little, but this actually adds one round to the playoffs, so in the end you still end up with the best.

This idea would still need fleshing out as there is the problem of
an extra round of playoffs,
how big would the size gap be in each classification?
Are we willing to accept a size difference that big?
The shape and density of our state still means there are potentially awkward or weird districts to get to 6 teams per district.

[blackmagic]

17 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

Since this board likes to talk about reclassification and the removal of a classification, I figured it would be good to look at some other states.

Georgia
7A: 48 Schools
6A: 58 Schools
5A: 58 Schools
4A: 53 Schools
3A: 57 Schools
2A: 57 Schools
1A: 88 Schools (Smallest Classification)

 

1A 88 schools with one over 500

2A 57 schools with 2 over 900 but the 2 opted to come down to their 2A

3A 67 schools between 900 and 1100 and the school in the class not between these numbers opted to move up

4A 100-1300    5A 1300-1600 6A 1600-2000

7A 2000-3000 which is their class with the biggest gap. But probably once you get over a certain number it doesnt matter

So from  what I see. Georgia has more schools around the same number. 88 schools under 500... then 57 schools between 500 and 900... then to have 67 schools within 200 students in 3A. Florida numbers are more spread out. Maybe their school board zone better than ours.

 https://www.ghsa.net/sites/default/files/documents/executive-committee/Classes_with_Regions_for_2015-17.pdf

[DisabledAccount]

50 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

I find the Texas idea interesting, but it would be hard to do in our state right now.
Take 4A-bottom half in terms of size of 6A and make 1 classification.
Take Top half in terms of size of 6A-8A and make 1 classification.
 

It would be about 195 teams per classification in Florida.
Divide each by 32 districts (~6  teams per district).
Top 4 teams get in the playoffs with the largest two teams in the district going to division 1, smallest going to division 2 (district records  determine top 4)

I think it would shrink district traveling as more teams in a smaller condensed area due to having 2.5 classifications in 1 classification. The size difference matters less in higher classifications. Offers to change up the playoffs every year due to the fact that who the top 2 are in terms of size in each district could vary just by having one team have a good/decent season. Size of districts is larger.
Obviously, we are now putting in a 4th place team (out of 6) into playoffs and that could water down our playoffs a little, but this actually adds one round to the playoffs, so in the end you still end up with the best.

This idea would still need fleshing out as there is the problem of
an extra round of playoffs,
how big would the size gap be in each classification?
Are we willing to accept a size difference that big?
The shape and density of our state still means there are potentially awkward or weird districts to get to 6 teams per district.

Check messages 

[MuckCityChamp]

14 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

I would never want newspaper and ap voters determining who goes to playoffs or state championships 

 

Those voters for most part are bias and would create a lot of issues 

 

Before the playoff era state champions were determined by newspaper votes

 

Columbia was undefeated 5 times, never once voted state champs 

 

Why?  Because metro media holds more weight then small town media and you would see metro teams always getting the nod in a system like that 

 

As darter said it would be a step in the wrong direction 

Florida and voting is not good together on any level. LOL

[Terrapin]

So you get coaches/athletic directors that are retired to represent each section of Florida

 

The Panhandle gets 3, stretching from Escambia all the way to Liberty maybe? And Leon to Clay gets 3 etc. But Florida has 27 congressional districts, so the number will be smaller than that with the voters covering a bigger area. Maybe 14 coaches/AD??

 

So you have an X amount of a committee who decides to vote on the teams. Their job is to watch highlights and game footage and the games to determine who gets voted into the playoff system in Florida. 

 

I still have to hash the idea out, but this is off the top of my head. 

[DisabledAccount]

3 minutes ago, Yourbasement said:

So you get coaches/athletic directors that are retired to represent each section of Florida

 

The Panhandle gets 3, stretching from Escambia all the way to Liberty maybe? And Leon to Clay gets 3 etc. But Florida has 27 congressional districts, so the number will be smaller than that with the voters covering a bigger area. Maybe 14 coaches/AD??

 

So you have an X amount of a committee who decides to vote on the teams. Their job is to watch highlights and game footage and the games to determine who gets voted into the playoff system in Florida. 

 

I still have to hash the idea out, but this is off the top of my head. 

It's a creative idea but i still feel it would be very prone to bias