Home/Away

[4Afan]

Not a fan of the neutral site for semi's, it takes away from the high school atmosphere if you ask me. Do you put each game in it's own neutral site or one neutral site per class? If it's one site per class then how does that work for the classes split north/south? Even for those 1-32, such as 7A, do you play both games in Minooka or something? You're not getting even close to the crowds from the schools involved that you would for a home game.

Also, how do you handle the gate money? Would the neutral site be entitled to any of this? If so, what does the new cut become?

 

[4Afan]

Trying to meet in the middle I came up with the following for 8A & 7A

8A
LA vs York @ Maine South
LWE vs Barrington @ Bolingbrook

7A
MC vs Batavia @ Hinsdale Central
DGN vs Normal @ LaSalle Peru

If you do a different site for each game, I don't know that there are 16 sites who would want to host a game not involving their team. Do you put Byron/Montini in Dekalb? ESL/Washington at SHG? Who's making that trip outside of parents for both teams.

 

[stonedlizard]

1. Semi's should be played at one of the participating team's schools. Great experience for the host school and opportunity for the broader community to come out to the game
2. Top seed should host. Both teams made it through three rounds to get there, some reward should go to the team with the higher seed. Regular season strength of schedule should be accounted for in seeding criteria

 

[crusader_of_90]

My boys love a nasty crowd. We do pretty well.

Then why the neutral site to start the season?

 

[chiliconcarne2]

Then why the neutral site to start the season?

Not that nasty.

 

[brucealmighy]

Nobody at Hinsdale Central cares a whit about Mt Carmel or Batavia.
Bad idea

Never had been a problem for basketball. The last two years teams from the WSC Silver have made runs and their supporters have filled neutral sites. In some cases those sectional and supers have bigger crowds than state because it is easier for casual community fans to travel to.

 

[RD_Watcher]

Nobody at Hinsdale Central cares a whit about Mt Carmel or Batavia.
Bad idea

Isn't that the point of the site being neutral? It would be on Mt Carmel and Batavia to fill the stands.

 

[brucealmighy]

Isn't that the point of the site being neutral? It would be on Mt Carmel and Batavia to fill the stands.

Also I think you would get some locals to fill some seats. Lots of passionate football communities in this state .

 

[4Afan]

Also I think you would get some locals to fill some seats. Lots of passionate football communities in this state .

so who staffs these neutral site games? Are they entitled to a portion of the gate?

 

[USD24]

so who staffs these neutral site games? Are they entitled to a portion of the gate?

I would guess the same way they handle supersectuonals in every other sport.🤷‍♂️

 

[brucealmighy]

so who staffs these neutral site games? Are they entitled to a portion of the gate?

They do this for every other sport. From regionals to sectionals to supers to state. Some of those are at college venues but the vast majority of the state playoffs are at a school that is not playing. One of the sectional soccer locations was Proviso East. They were eliminated in the regionals and Whitney Young, Hinsdale Central, Morton and LT played at their stadium.

 

[MC63]

Then why the neutral site to start the season?

Isn't that a question for the coaches and admins?

Ray Meyer once said that, "Coaches who listen to the fans wind up siting with them."

 

[DrMac210]

1. Top seed should host. Both teams made it through three rounds to get there, some reward should go to the team with the higher seed.

If that was the case in 2A North this year, Maroa (2 seed) would have got to play all 4 playoff games at home.

Wilmington (5 seed) would have had to play 3 of 4 games on the road.

 

[4Afan]

If that was the case in 2A North this year, Maroa (2 seed) would have got to play all 4 playoff games at home.

Wilmington (5 seed) would have had to play 3 of 4 games on the road.

And?

 

[RockSoup]

Since the 2017 season, there have been 40 semifinal games played in 5A up to 8A (8 games a year, past 5 years minus COVID year). Visitors are 22-18 during that timeframe. Means nothing, just a fun home and away fact.

Great discussion here, I don’t mind how the IHSA does home and away currently since we can 90% agree that while the seedings reflect a transparent, easy IHSA formula, the seeds do not reflect an actual ranking of a team. So I don’t think rewarding a team for playing a crap regular season schedule in a crap conference is deserving of anything especially a semifinal home game.

With the current system, I like the first round option for the higher seed. But I’d be all for a two year trial using a Massey or CalPrep rating system. Qualify using the current rules and seed using one of the algos. I did 7A in another thread comparing the current set up and a calprep seeded bracket. I’ll try to find it but you could see a lot more logic in the seeding and some banger potential quarterfinal matchups.

 

[RockSoup]

Found it. Bumped up the thread #1 seed Home Field advantage. Start at post #14, you can see the much better bracket derived by the Calpreps algo. It was funny as you read through the following posts no one followed up on the computer ranked bracket, 2 posters were literally having a discussion of where would this committee come from and how long would it take, and I was like it takes about a half hour. I see no harm in a two or even one year trial. Print a one page information sheet for coaches of how the chosen computer ranking product works (Massey or Calpreps would give out a non-proprietary fact sheet) and say it’s a trial. Only teams that have dominated crap conferences would object.

Anyway I posted two novels basically to answer the original posters dislike of the home away system. The current home away system is the best for a transparent but bad seeding process.

 

[Snetsrak61]

Only teams that have dominated crap conferences would object.

The Twitter warriors would be out!

 

[jwarigaku]

How can you have 5 losses and host a semi final game??????

Can I get you some Cheese with that whine?!

 

[jwarigaku]

The problem is designing a seeding model that easily understood and tested. If they had a system that wasn't easily applied it'd be ripe for controversery over the rankings.

Snetsrak,

This power ranking formula has been used in PIAA district 3 for more than 30 years. It was adjusted 7 years ago when PA went from 4 divisions to 6 divisions of football. I have the link to the full document below. It does tend to recognize teams for playing up divisions and opponents that have winning records. Please note districts in PA overlay large geographic regions and leagues exists in each district nothing like the IL district plan.

PIAA District 3 POWER RANKING EXPLANATION

 

[TigerforFlyers]

Then why the neutral site to start the season?

All roads lead back to Normal…..

But seriously, that was Home game for MC hosted at ISU; the travel there was the only neutral part about it. I was quite surprised and disappointed to see MC highlights ONLY of olden days against ESL on the big screen, along with MC announcers reverberating through the PA system.

 

[Snetsrak61]

Snetsrak,

This power ranking formula has been used in PIAA district 3 for more than 30 years. It was adjusted 7 years ago when PA went from 4 divisions to 6 divisions of football. I have the link to the full document below. It does tend to recognize teams for playing up divisions and opponents that have winning records. Please note districts in PA overlay large geographic regions and leagues exists in each district nothing like the IL district plan.

PIAA District 3 POWER RANKING EXPLANATION

What defines a district? Purely size or something else? If you can agree to a definition of district strengrh, a adjusted wins formula would qualify as pretty easily understood. But if it was just size 8A-1A, I don't think that would alleviate questions on the shortcomings of size based classifications, though you'd probably have something akin to the old football enrollment.

 

[jwarigaku]

What defines a district? Purely size or something else? If you can agree to a definition of district strengrh, a adjusted wins formula would qualify as pretty easily understood. But if it was just size 8A-1A, I don't think that would alleviate questions on the shortcomings of size based classifications, though you'd probably have something akin to the old football enrollment.

Snet,

The CCL/ESCC, DVC, Upsate8, DuKane, etc.. all remain in place. Districts are geographic areas such as for example:
District 1 Will, Dupage, Kane Counties
District 2 Cook county north
District 3 cook county South
Etc throughout the state games played at the district level feed into regions, in PA East and west in IL would likely be North/South and then to a state game. Season consists of 10 regular season games then feeds into districts with 1-6A classes, then to regionals and super region in some cases to east west and then State. Season could be as many as 16 games but in some classes you may find a bye week or two but no less than 13 games to a state title at any level.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[Kevin JCHS 81]

I don't really have a strong opinion but I like the way it is done now. Of course the brackets and seeding could be a lot better. But, this system makes it impossible for people to figure out except by us die-hard football fans.