FHSAA Playoff system is very flawed

[181pl]

Here are two homer examples, but they are two of MANY, MANY such examples based on the "playoff brackets"

1.  Jefferson gets in over Robinson? Both 5-5. Robinson beats them straight up at their place. Robinson ahead of Jefferson in the district. Robinson had 9-1 Plant, Jesuit, and Bloomingdale on their schedule. Jefferson had 9-1 Armwood and Plant City. Neither team had a victory over their 9-1 foes. Jefferson beat Steinbrenner, Brandon, Middleton, Wharton, and Spoto. Robinson beat JEFFERSON, Leto, Spoto, Blake, and Brandon. Neither team was on a victory tour this year, but they both had similar mediocre results. I'm not even saying a 5-5 team really deserves to be in, but when there are two of them in the same district and the team that won head to head and finished higher in the district on almost identical schedules, the results are complete garbage. Is this what the FHSAA intended? Take away head to head results when otherwise everything else is the same, with a "razor thin" schedule advantage to Jefferson, and only based on the bonus points nonsense, not from actual results of the schedule this year? 

2.   How is 7-3  Viera, who lost to everyone they played that had a pulse (except Cocoa), the #2 seed over 9-1 Plant, the #3 seed? Plant played several playoff teams this year, including Armwood (their only L in a super close game), Sickles, Gaither, and Wiregrass. They also played a very tough Hillsborough team that missed the playoffs because it played the hardest schedules in the area.  Wins have to count for something. Viera is a decent team, but 3 losses to non-national power type teams should not rate a higher seed. They lost to Osceola badly, who was dominated by Tampa Jesuit. They lost to a good Rockledge team (but that team is not Armwood) and they lost an close OOS game to Fort Dorchester, who is a decent team at 8-2 and who has a similar national rank to Viera in the very flawed and innacurate Max Prep rankings (424 and 430).

This system is very, very flawed and something has to be done about it. Taxpayer dollars fund a lot of this sport and it cannot be decided on arbitrary garbage like biased point systems and F*IN MAX PREP RANKINGS (look how the FHSAA just destroyed a half dozen sports last week by going to such a screwed up system where it relies on Max Preps rankings).

Been saying this for YEARS, but the FHSAA needs to be disbanded by statute and a new organization put in place. Clean house. Logic dictates that we should do as follows for football playoffs:

Reduce to 5 classes by simply going from largest to smallest and counting backwards. If there is a big gap here and there, those teams can go up or down accordingly:

Each class needs 16 districts with 8 teams each. Top 2 make playoffs. Reseed by section based on points after the first round (not regions; so reseed the entire North and South sections after the first round). Point system can be very simple. Points would just be wins, losses, and strength of schedule. 1 point each win. No points for losses. SOS bonus rated 1-4 points based on your opponents record at the conclusion of the season and on how many of these teams made playoffs the year before. That would satisfy everyone. Takes into account SOS but also awards you for being the first or second best team in a large district.

Outside of that, you can have the very tiny rural schools and sunshine state conference/independent types in their own deal.
 

[nolebull813]

It's trash. Josh needs to use his influence to voice a loud opinion to the FHSAA 

[DisabledAccount]

8 team districts and no scheduling flexibility 

 

I hope that never passes, our district games are generally boring games already

[badbird]

39 minutes ago, 181pl said:

Here are two homer examples, but they are two of MANY, MANY such examples based on the "playoff brackets"

1.  Jefferson gets in over Robinson? Both 5-5. Robinson beats them straight up at their place. Robinson ahead of Jefferson in the district. Robinson had 9-1 Plant, Jesuit, and Bloomingdale on their schedule. Jefferson had 9-1 Armwood and Plant City. Neither team had a victory over their 9-1 foes. Jefferson beat Steinbrenner, Brandon, Middleton, Wharton, and Spoto. Robinson beat JEFFERSON, Leto, Spoto, Blake, and Brandon. Neither team was on a victory tour this year, but they both had similar mediocre results. I'm not even saying a 5-5 team really deserves to be in, but when there are two of them in the same district and the team that won head to head and finished higher in the district on almost identical schedules, the results are complete garbage. Is this what the FHSAA intended? Take away head to head results when otherwise everything else is the same, with a "razor thin" schedule advantage to Jefferson, and only based on the bonus points nonsense, not from actual results of the schedule this year? 

2.   How is 7-3  Viera, who lost to everyone they played that had a pulse (except Cocoa), the #2 seed over 9-1 Plant, the #3 seed? Plant played several playoff teams this year, including Armwood (their only L in a super close game), Sickles, Gaither, and Wiregrass. They also played a very tough Hillsborough team that missed the playoffs because it played the hardest schedules in the area.  Wins have to count for something. Viera is a decent team, but 3 losses to non-national power type teams should not rate a higher seed. They lost to Osceola badly, who was dominated by Tampa Jesuit. They lost to a good Rockledge team (but that team is not Armwood) and they lost an close OOS game to Fort Dorchester, who is a decent team at 8-2 and who has a similar national rank to Viera in the very flawed and innacurate Max Prep rankings (424 and 430).

This system is very, very flawed and something has to be done about it. Taxpayer dollars fund a lot of this sport and it cannot be decided on arbitrary garbage like biased point systems and F*IN MAX PREP RANKINGS (look how the FHSAA just destroyed a half dozen sports last week by going to such a screwed up system where it relies on Max Preps rankings).

Been saying this for YEARS, but the FHSAA needs to be disbanded by statute and a new organization put in place. Clean house. Logic dictates that we should do as follows for football playoffs:

Reduce to 5 classes by simply going from largest to smallest and counting backwards. If there is a big gap here and there, those teams can go up or down accordingly:

Each class needs 16 districts with 8 teams each. Top 2 make playoffs. Reseed by section based on points after the first round (not regions; so reseed the entire North and South sections after the first round). Point system can be very simple. Points would just be wins, losses, and strength of schedule. 1 point each win. No points for losses. SOS bonus rated 1-4 points based on your opponents record at the conclusion of the season and on how many of these teams made playoffs the year before. That would satisfy everyone. Takes into account SOS but also awards you for being the first or second best team in a large district.

Outside of that, you can have the very tiny rural schools and sunshine state conference/independent types in their own deal.
 

Osceola did not get dominated by Jesuit but you have a point.  System is garbage.  Btw most computer rankings have Viera over Plant.  Maybe that's not the best example.  We will see in round 2.

[DisabledAccount]

3 minutes ago, badbird said:

Osceola did not get dominated by Jesuit but you have a point.  System is garbage.  Btw most computer rankings have Viera over Plant.  Maybe that's not the best example.  We will see in round 2.

Plant will always come up short of 1 seed as long as the county controls their schedule which is not very good and will be dragged down because Tampa only has a few teams that could be considered elite

[Hwy17]

36 minutes ago, badbird said:

Osceola did not get dominated by Jesuit but you have a point.  System is garbage.  Btw most computer rankings have Viera over Plant.  Maybe that's not the best example.  We will see in round 2.

Computer rankings are garbage. Both Maxpreps and Pinkos.  We win a game by 24 points and our ranking goes down. BS

[WhatsUpDoc]

Been saying it all year the point sytem is flawed. Does anybody know who suggested this point sytem in the first place? If it was someone at FHSAA they need to be fired!!!!

[WhatsUpDoc]

8 minutes ago, Hwy17 said:

Computer rankings are garbage. Both Maxpreps and Pinkos.  We win a game by 24 points and our ranking goes down. BS

I never really cared about maxpreps nor Pinkos in years. You cannot use a point spread to suggest a team will or should win by this many points when in fact environmental issues arise and even injuries. This is not the NFL or College where they have the luxury of having 5 QBs on the roster. This is HS football so every public school mostly is limited.

[THIS_IS_DILLARD]

I agree for the last few weeks maxpreps have been dropping our rankings rapidly now were almost ranked 1000!!! In the the nation really 1 thousand lol

[WhatsUpDoc]

Maxpreps and Pinkos is like college AP poll they don’t say much nor mean much in my book but some folks loves them so I have to respect it but not like it.

[badbird]

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.

[Hwy17]

10 minutes ago, badbird said:

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.

I bet our pick'em contest winners do better than Pinkos.  

[badbird]

1 minute ago, Hwy17 said:

I bet our pick'em contest winners do better than Pinkos.  

what about the pickem losers?  I used pinkos most of the time for my picks and I'm in first.  Just saying

[Hwy17]

7 minutes ago, badbird said:

what about the pickem losers?  I used pinkos most of the time for my picks and I'm in first.  Just saying

So what's your %? Something I observe about Pinkos: when the prediction is 7 points or less, the accuracy is about 50/50. Pinkos claims an 80% accuracy rate. That's nothing. Now if Pinkos had a 90% rate or better, I would put more stock in it.

[DisabledAccount]

39 minutes ago, Hwy17 said:

I bet our pick'em contest winners do better than Pinkos.  

I participate in national pickems over on prep gridiron and I'm getting more right than calpreps on the season

 

If only I could have done better picking Florida games

[OldSchoolLion]

5 hours ago, 181pl said:

Each class needs 16 districts with 8 teams each.
 

The problem is we want it all.  In the dinosaur days, we had large districts.  Nowadays, folks are so into having flexibility, they would consider some of those old districts boring/stifling.  However, that setup of old did a much better job of deciding on the field who the best teams were in each region.  When a district champion met another district champion, those two teams had already proven themselves against 7-9 other teams from their classification.

We get frustrated today because we are relying upon numbers and computers to decide things.  We can't have it all.  And we are making things very complicated trying to satisfy all of our desires.  Personally, I liked the big districts because it was an accomplishment to win a district title.  Even if a team did not win state, they could hoist their district trophy with pride.  How excited can a team get to win a 3-team district, especially if the other two are lousy?  Even some regional titles today are not terribly exciting accomplishments.  With bigger districts, there's a better chance that at least one or two other teams are going to give you a run for the money. 

Scheduling flexibility, having more teams in the playoffs, and working around perceived inequities, ie public vs private, comes at a cost.  We have to accept it or make compromise.  What we are doing is like trying to squeeze one side of a balloon to make it smaller.  The other side inevitably distorts. 

 

[ohs vargas]

2 hours ago, badbird said:

Osceola did not get dominated by Jesuit but you have a point.  System is garbage.  Btw most computer rankings have Viera over Plant.  Maybe that's not the best example.  We will see in round 2.

Forreal I need a rundown on how Osceola got dominated lol. It was an even match Osceola just made to many mistakes.

Jesuit offense was completely shut down. They got a punt return for a TD, fumble recovery for a TD and scored a touchdown on a short drive after Osceola botched a punt....

[181pl]

Osceola was down by 2 scores most of the game. Dominated may have been a touch strong but the outcome never seemed in doubt.

[181pl]

Old School Lion

 

Without even getting into the public private debate, the point system is simply an arbitrary joke.  Teams in Hillsborough aren't even allowed to make their own schedule. 

 

As for pub v private it's very interesting. The privates can't survive football wise on a high level w.o. the benefit of the public schools. They need public schools to play them and to participate in large class playoffs with them to legitimize them. Yet publics allow a handful of privates to make mockery of the system at their expense.  I would separate them. Two private school classes. But I would also keep an open bowl optional so the best private and best public could square off against each other after the playoffs to determine the true overall state champ. This keeps the limited integrity of the system and allows each side to test the best from the other side at the end of the year. Realistically, STA would probably win this 6 out of 10 times but I'm ok with that.

[OldSchoolLion]

21 minutes ago, 181pl said:

Old School Lion

 

Without even getting into the public private debate, the point system is simply an arbitrary joke.  Teams in Hillsborough aren't even allowed to make their own schedule. 

 

As for pub v private it's very interesting. The privates can't survive football wise on a high level w.o. the benefit of the public schools. They need public schools to play them and to participate in large class playoffs with them to legitimize them. Yet publics allow a handful of privates to make mockery of the system at their expense.  I would separate them. Two private school classes. But I would also keep an open bowl optional so the best private and best public could square off against each other after the playoffs to determine the true overall state champ. This keeps the limited integrity of the system and allows each side to test the best from the other side at the end of the year. Realistically, STA would probably win this 6 out of 10 times but I'm ok with that.

Everything was cool until the 90's when Aquinas, Bolles, NFC and University started winning multiple titles.  I see the debate for a separate private class.  I come back to what is driving it, and you said it...a handful of private schools.  In any one year, 98% of private schools are not a threat to most public schools.

Here's the challenge I see with a separate class.  St Thomas and Columbus would have a huge advantage because of their size.  They have much larger populations than most of the private schools.  In certain years, a handful of teams might be able to give them a game.  But some of the smaller private schools have had difficulty sustaining their programs.  So one year University School might give STA a fight, but two years later they could be beat 70-0.  The arrangement might even drive certain kids  away from certain private schools in a certain year because they know they will have a better shot of winning a championship elsewhere.  I really think it would be a bloodbath and kids would get very discouraged.

Things might have evolved differently had we done like DC and Los Angeles.  But we have what we have in FL...a handful of private powerhouses with a disproportionate amount of talent.  The best resort might just be to do what they did with St Frances in Baltimore...refuse to play them and force them to play a national schedule.  I am sure not sure that making private school classes to address a handful of schools is the best solution for all.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

[181pl]

I hear you. St Thomas and Columbus kind of mess up the classifications for private schools if we were to separate them. However, some private schools with tiny populations can compete with the biggest schools in the state public or private simply based on the fact that they recruit 20 or 30 elite football players. So as much as I don't like putting teams with much, much larger schools, privates could theoretically compete with these teams by simply ramping up their recruiting.

[181pl]

22 hours ago, badbird said:

Osceola did not get dominated by Jesuit but you have a point.  System is garbage.  Btw most computer rankings have Viera over Plant.  Maybe that's not the best example.  We will see in round 2.

I'm not picking on Viera. I was just using this as an example. And computer rankings are usually suspect.  Eye test way to go.

[DisabledAccount]

4 minutes ago, 181pl said:

I hear you. St Thomas and Columbus kind of mess up the classifications for private schools if we were to separate them. However, some private schools with tiny populations can compete with the biggest schools in the state public or private simply based on the fact that they recruit 20 or 30 elite football players. So as much as I don't like putting teams with much, much larger schools, privates could theoretically compete with these teams by simply ramping up their recruiting.

You are looking at all privates as if everyone of them are Chaminade or Trinity Christian 

 

And quite honestly there are several publics in South Florida that pull in talent that rivals most privates so if we really focused on a competitive balance then just separating the privates won't fix the problem 

 

People think all privates are St Thomas Aquinas when in reality they are at a much different pace then most privates

 

They are basically IMG with more history

[DisabledAccount]

1 minute ago, 181pl said:

I'm not picking on Viera. I was just using this as an example. And computer rankings are usually suspect.  Eye test way to go.

Viera opened with 3 tough games and lost all 3

 

Plant lost to best team they played

 

Viera has a win over cocoa which looks better than most of the wins on plant schedule but then again Hillsborough county scheduling screws teams like Armwood and Plant over in this system by forcing them to play so many teams that will lower their point average and may cost them from getting the 1 seed in most years

[181pl]

It's weak logic. They are lost to everyone good they played that had a pulse except for Cocoa. And to say Hillsborough County doesn't have good teams is silly. A Hillsborough team has been in the finals almost every year for the last 15 years.