My one and only problem with the “open class” idea that is brought up every year is the fact that the IHSA basically already has this. Every school currently has the ability to petition up to whatever class they want, and very few actually do it.
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- Thread starter Snetsrak61
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Yes correct, in theory top 16 for the 5A "top" title and bottom 16 for a secondary title so however its called Gold / Silver or A / AA.
Good point. My theory would be that playing for "top team in State" might change the perception some. I thought I read some teams cant go to 8A for some reason, (could be wrong), like ESL. If there was a reasonable and agreed upon ranking system top 12 wont have a choice but to play in the Champion bracket. Again just a working theory. But man this hypothetical Champions Bracket would be one hell of a Bracket!
For example this year could have looked like this:
1. LA
2. MC
3. ESL
4. LWE
5. NAZ
6. JCA
7. Batavia
8. Geneva
9. DGN
10. York
11. Marist
12. NC
I've mentioned a few times as well, but Ohio's competetive balance solution is very interesting as a supplement to enrollment based classes. It multiplies both private and public schools based on where they're getting students from. Public schools with a high number of transfers and private schools drawing from very wide range get dinged more. But at the end of the day it doesn't legislate that strong feeder programs can be a competetive advantage for either type of school. It only multiplies ones who reach outside those feeder programs/schools most. If it's just about "recruiting" that's fair to all types of schools.
But it'd be a big administrative burden that falls on schools to keep up. Brief article talks about its implementation and early results:
But it'd be a big administrative burden that falls on schools to keep up. Brief article talks about its implementation and early results:
Competitive balance: How the OHSAA calculates competitive balance, and why it matters
The OHSAA implemented competitive balance in the 2017-18 season. What is it, how is it calculated and has it worked?
www.dispatch.com
Yea I think there has to be some sort of carrot for schools, private and public alike, to make something like that a reality.
Or take it the other way and use the district policy as an "opt down" measure for teams who just are comfortable with something a little different. And you proportionally shrink down the State Championship / non district field into smaller classes that stack top teams naturally.
Arizona has an "open" class but is determined by MaxPreps rankings and takes the top 16(?). Not sure if there is an option for those teams to opt out if they don't want to play in the open class.
I appreciate the reply, I will be the first to admit some of my thoughts probably been shot down in the past. Haha, I knew I was entering dangerous waters, I had post ready to go but been sitting on it for few days waiting on the right timing to post, and this post came along and it seemed to fit. Figured the private vs public would eat it alive.
I agree with it being to watered down, I tried to keep it at the same amount of teams currently as I thought about the classification issues.
I took a team like West Chicago (for the record I have no rooting interest in this team one way or another) as the classic over classified team. They constantly loose top talent to Wheaton Academy and St Francis (right or wrong another argument for another day), play in one of the State's easier conferences but gets saddled in 7A solely based on the school size, I can make argument they would struggle in 4A.
I've mentioned a few times as well, but Ohio's competetive balance solution is very interesting as a supplement to enrollment based classes. It multiplies both private and public schools based on where they're getting students from. Public schools with a high number of transfers and private schools drawing from very wide range get dinged more. But at the end of the day it doesn't legislate that strong feeder programs can be a competetive advantage for either type of school. It only multiplies ones who reach outside those feeder programs/schools most. If it's just about "recruiting" that's fair to all types of schools.
But it'd be a big administrative burden that falls on schools to keep up. Brief article talks about its implementation and early results:
Competitive balance: How the OHSAA calculates competitive balance, and why it matters
The OHSAA implemented competitive balance in the 2017-18 season. What is it, how is it calculated and has it worked?www.dispatch.com
Seriously, a large school with a robust athletics department would need a compliance officer just to keep up with OHSAA competitive balance reporting requirements.
Interesting, I am going to research this some. I guess I could see teams in the bottom end wanting to opt out, but man that would be a tough sell. Ask team 256 if they had team 12 talent if they would opt out, I bet you would get a different answer. Somehow the perception would need to change, the top 12 is the playoffs, and all other brackets are like the "bowl games" in college, still prestigious but nothing beats a Natty.
And Ohio Administrators apparently find the value in it. I can't find a ton of details on CA system, but I found some references with pride that they don't use enrollment methods. I know Iowa also recently rolled out changes to capture non enrollment measures.
It can be done, but if member schools don't want to put in the work and vote in a change then we just acknowledge enrollment is very crude and imperfect for any competitive balance goals.
Who says the want to put in the work and vote? This is all fun for us fans to dive into, but when was the last time a realistic solution was submitted to the IHSA for a vote? I think we're looking for a solution to a problem that isn't there.
Yes there will be certain individuals that cry about it, but it appears the majority are fine with the status quo.
I think most don’t care, the IHSA certainly doesn’t. They can’t even make the easy fix of 1-32 in all classes.
The proposals will be there this offseason, but they will probably be more lame than what’s been discussed here
We're getting the weird "average enrollment of every school in your radius" vote aren't we? Can't wait to see that 😒
Why do you say that? Because there's more private schools favored to win? Privates won 6 titles, I believe, in 2022 but I don't recall any serious proposals for change.
I’ve already read about some convoluted proposals out there with regards to neighborhood schools and average of said schools.
The bottom line is that the multiplier and waiver system is pretty solid, but I think the waiver should be harder to get to. I also think it shouldn’t have anything to do with the regular season.
IC for example was a favorite to win it all in 4A 2 years ago. They got upset by another CCL team in the quarterfinals, and this year didn’t make it because of their crazy hard schedule. Nothing about what they’ve done in the past decade has shown that they aren’t competitive in 4A, but if they achieve 5 win seasons in the next 2 years they have a cake walk to to 2A title.
Same thing happened to Montini, had few off years, regrouped, and find themselves in 3A.
I agree, multipliers and waivers is a solid start but could be improved on. One of my concerns is publics still only have one very outdated requirement, school size. I think that worked back in the day but I know longer feel it's a true metric any longer. Again I think school size should be in equation, but also feel it could and should be improved on.
Ok but if we forget about privates for a second, what's the difference between Morton Berwyn and Lyons township as far as how to classify them other than enrollment? I'm sorry but are you going to suggest that Morton we a lower classification because of demographics despite having (off the top of my head) similar enrollments? There are so many other factors that differentiate the two schools that attempting to account for would be totally misdirected imo.
Enrollment is a pretty good indicator for publics. There are outliers but not many.
Overall ability. Speed and size. On the macro, a team like Downers Grove South will always beat a team like Manteno. The odds against it are pretty astronomical.
This is just a guess, but I think his point is that for the most part, public schools who are placed in a class based on actual enrollment, for the most part, fit effectively into that class.
For example, I will use the Fox Valley Conference, which has had amazing success with the league's two top schools at the 6A level but would likely never play at ISU if success-factored into the 8A level.
And, yes, there are outliers at both ends of the spectrum, and he acknowledges that by saying "pretty good indicator of."
Just off the top of my head, you have Rochester a legit title contender seemingly 8 years out of 10. And there's Lena-Winslow which is a perennial title contender in 1A as examples of public schools that perhaps are just too good for their class.
And then there's the other end of the spectrum. Would football at schools such as Morton, Waukegan, Zion-Benton, Round Lake, etc., have more participation if they were downsized to 5A or 4A rather than their current situations in which there is barely a non-zero chance of making the playoffs and a zero chance of meaningful playoff advancement.
The big-picture point is that if you dropped big-school horrible programs down several classes, then you are pushing up other schools to higher classes, and the schools that may get pushed up are not necessarily schools that could thrive at a higher class level. Rochester obvously could, Lena-Winslow obviously could and East St. Louis obviously could. But dropping a weak program way down can definitely be unfair to some other school.
Anyway, the guy's point probably is that of roughly 400 public schools playing football, that for those that make the postseason, they seem to fit into the right class. Schools get back-to-back strong classes and are strong two years, then fall back when those kids graduate.
That's, in general, how things work at many programs. Obviously, that doesn't hold true at the Maine South's and Barrington's of the world. But in general, I do agree with withe "pretty good indicator" premise.
I think this is a false equivalence. IHSA playoffs are filled with smaller schools dominating larger schools. I could argue a large portion of the upper class larger schools in IHSA playoffs would struggle against teams several classes below. To me the issue is on the outdated enrollment rule that they can only stay or go up.
That creates a big problem though. How do you sort them out? Computer rankings?
I stand firm that enrollment is a great metric when it’s public v public.
The computer rankings are suspect at best. Montini was a +3 home dog according to “gambletron” this past weekend and rolled to a 30 point win.
I don’t know a single person that would’ve bet against Montini last Saturday, and I’m a Wilmington guy. Granted there were injury factors, but even healthy it would have taken a Herculean effort for them to even be competitive in that game.
I acknowledge that Byron almost beat Montini, and I have no illusions about it. I don’t know where any of those two teams would be in the hypothetical system, but I know that whatever computer input calpreps got was flawed because there’s no way Wilmo was a favorite against either Byron or Montini.
Some very good points.
I will say enrollment has its place and certainly a starting point, I just think times have changed enough that it can't be the only factor. I could argue wealth of the athletes may play a bigger role now a days with year round training available. Morton West and East Aurora would love to know what they are missing.
I agree computer rankings alone would not be enough, some human touch will always be needed. I guess I am thinking polls like College football. Not perfect but they get it close, even Max Preps gets it's fairly close. I would argue Byron could roll most if not all of the Upstate Eight Conference and they are mostly comprised of 7A and 8A teams with 6 from the conference making the playoffs. My money would be on Byron with the exception of maybe the WA game.
This all largely depends on how you define the objective of the playoffs, especially in a multi-class playoff system.
I'd love to see a single playoff. In the absence of that, I believe the objective should be to produce playoff classes of teams with ~equivalent competitive equity. I don't care where the team is located, whether the parents pay for their kids to attend the school, or what arbitrary lines are drawn to dictate who can attend. Pairing schools of competitive equity together for the playoffs leads to competition, struggle, and perseverance - the hallmarks of a true champion and a benefit to all the kids lucky enough to experience them.
Enrollment-based classification is an easy and understandable starting point towards this, however quickly proves itself as fundamentally flawed. On it's own, it has a poor correlation towards competitive equity. The IHSA seems to realize this too given varying attempts throughout the years to layer adjustments on top of enrollment (football enrollment, multipliers, success factors). Some of these help towards a competitive equity-based objective. Some could have helped, but have been applied inconsistently and/or illogically.
At the high school level, competitive equity-based systems are possible though, do exist (see Arizona, California, Georgia to name a few), and can be achieved without separating schools based on closed vs open enrollments.
A few things to note...
Whether you choose to accept these or not, there is a fact basis at the Illinois high school level:
This disparity - 40 schools responsible for ~78% of all championships; 24 schools responsible for ~60%; 16 schools responsible for ~47%; 7 responsible for ~26% - often manifests itself in the public vs private debate because it's easy (those top 24 or 16 or 7 schools are well-known and well-recognized as public or private), because it's fun (good programs make for passionate fan bases which makes for passionate debates and passionate message boards), but mostly because people naturally look to assign blame for a perceived unfairness to the proverbial villain or 'other' instead of recognizing that it's the system itself that is predominant factor behind the disparity.
Take the red pill.
I'd love to see a single playoff. In the absence of that, I believe the objective should be to produce playoff classes of teams with ~equivalent competitive equity. I don't care where the team is located, whether the parents pay for their kids to attend the school, or what arbitrary lines are drawn to dictate who can attend. Pairing schools of competitive equity together for the playoffs leads to competition, struggle, and perseverance - the hallmarks of a true champion and a benefit to all the kids lucky enough to experience them.
Enrollment-based classification is an easy and understandable starting point towards this, however quickly proves itself as fundamentally flawed. On it's own, it has a poor correlation towards competitive equity. The IHSA seems to realize this too given varying attempts throughout the years to layer adjustments on top of enrollment (football enrollment, multipliers, success factors). Some of these help towards a competitive equity-based objective. Some could have helped, but have been applied inconsistently and/or illogically.
At the high school level, competitive equity-based systems are possible though, do exist (see Arizona, California, Georgia to name a few), and can be achieved without separating schools based on closed vs open enrollments.
A few things to note...
Whether you choose to accept these or not, there is a fact basis at the Illinois high school level:
- Coaches and programs do make a difference
- The potential population of students available to a school does matter to a degree
- Since 2000, there have been 182 IHSA champions crowned across all classes, but only 80 unique schools have earned a championship; 40 of those have won multiple championships in the same time period
- Those 40 schools are responsible for 142 (~78%) of all championships since 2000
- The winning most school (Rochester) and 27 of the 40 (~68%) schools winning multiple titles since 2000 are public
- 16 schools are responsible for ~47% of all championships and 10 of these are private
This disparity - 40 schools responsible for ~78% of all championships; 24 schools responsible for ~60%; 16 schools responsible for ~47%; 7 responsible for ~26% - often manifests itself in the public vs private debate because it's easy (those top 24 or 16 or 7 schools are well-known and well-recognized as public or private), because it's fun (good programs make for passionate fan bases which makes for passionate debates and passionate message boards), but mostly because people naturally look to assign blame for a perceived unfairness to the proverbial villain or 'other' instead of recognizing that it's the system itself that is predominant factor behind the disparity.
Take the red pill.
All these actual factual numbers just gives me all the feels. Yet there will still be those thst somehow choose to dispute them and just go off opinions and assumptions based on nothing.
This also further proves my point that Illinois is top heavy for football.
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All very well stated.
When I broke down the numbers the other year, going back to the start of 8 classes, it was pretty evident that:
Among elite programs that private schools held a competetive edge, but nothing necessarily crazy. Observationally this isn't hard to believe with the two most trophied schools by a long shot both being private schools. A standard that the LWEs and Main Souths can't eclipse, but do compete well against.
Then the next tier was your tier of schools that was not quite elite, but consistently strong. In this tier any private-public difference was totally wiped out.
Then in the lowest tier, programs that will almost never reach a semis let alone finals it was likewise nearly equal to perhaps a slight public edge (razor thin).
But why the perception? I think there's a statistical fallacy we don't notice when we just compare private school verse public school record, which is a common stat used in these arguments.
Think of two equally matched schools competing for the state title, one private and one public. We can probably do this at any of the 6 classes that are split this year.
The public school may very likely have made it to the finals beating all public schools along the way. Maybe they beat one private along the way. So we get perhaps no new data all along the way. The private school on the other hand may very well have beat 3 or 4 public schools along the way. So we get a 3-0 tally to add to our overall private v public record. Conversely whenever there is a weak private school that's bounced in round 1 we only get a 0-1 record to combat the other direction. They can't go get beat again to reinforce their lack of success. Or perhaps they get bounced by a private and we get NO data displaying a weak private even if a large number of public programs may have beat them as well. You can play out this same story in your tier two programs. In your typical private v public quarters matchup its likely we accumulated a 2-0 private-public record one way and a null record the other. Even if the public wins, that quarter of the bracket yields a 2-1 private-public record edge.
Basically the private schools are just a more extreme representation of the have and have nots that define the entire state of HS football. And the difference in opportunity of matchup helps skew that imbalance into a greater public v private divide when we only scratch surface of total record.
So where do we go? Private schools on average should be playing slightly higher than their enrollment than a comparable public school and the waiver program should IMO be eliminated or based on more structural components than a 2 year rolling record that yo-yos private schools up and down every two years.
To the extent that success is a component of classifications it should be applied to both private and public schools. Though I tend to also think it should be zero factor. The objective IMO should be : fair opportunity to field a competetive team. Equality of outcomes shouldn't be the goal, but rather access to opportunity. So enrollment should still be a big factor. Lena Winslow or Byron are top 50 programs if you beleive a ranking system like Massey, but it'd be pretty silly IMO to say they'd be a high-mid seed school in a second best playoff that would match them with tons of 7A and 8A schools if you could line up all schools on a strictly rating basis.
As to football enrollment: it matches regular season to playoff better. Naz absolutely has benefited from having a tough regular season record that preps them well for 5A. It's a totally valid competetive advantage that nearly any small to mid size team could take on in theory. Obviously there's other advantages and disadvantages too, but that goes for every school - just a matter of how you use those advantages. But maybe that opportunity shouldn't exist : you play against the size of school in the playoffs that got you there. Not unreasonable. It would certainly help elevate private school classifications on the whole (with perhaps a slight modification needed that doesn't drag down some of the 8A schools to 6/7A).
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CAs system changed this past season and they used MaxPreps rankings. Teams who were in the top 3 of conference did not make the playoffs because they were bounced by large schools with 2 or 3 wins.
Enrollment absolutely needs to be taken into account and I like the football enrollment and eliminate largest and smallest opponents.
For seeding, go 1-32 and use an RPI formula.
I do agree enrollment should be a factor and in all liklihood the primary one. And I think there's reasons to prefer football enrollment, although you could also blend both FBE and standard. Like a 75/25 weighting perhaps.
Any other factors I would prefer be intrinsic factors and not a success type factor which is a trailing indicator and therefor fairly inefficient and pointless.
On a very conceptual level it's like the top/bottom 25% or so of classes should blend over on enrollment with things like SOS or other elements that can bump schools up or down a bit within a general size based classification system.
This is stupid.
There are three independent areas that need to come together cohesively in a multi-class playoff system.
- Eligibility - who qualifies?
- Classification - how do you group the qualifiers?
- Seeding - how do you sort within the group?
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That was a great analysis and these are great observations. Plenty of unconscious bias gets introduced into this conversation, but the reality has been pretty consistent and clear for years now.
There's a clear upper tier of elite programs and a second tier of consistent strong programs that the current playoff system does not adequately & consistently adjust for.
Wow, so much of what I have been thinking but articulated in a manner I could only wish to do. Thank you for that write up and information bomb! As a fan of good competetive football but newer to these boards, I just want to see more balance in competition.
This right here is what it's all about:
"Pairing schools of competitive equity together for the playoffs leads to competition, struggle, and perseverance - the hallmarks of a true champion and a benefit to all the kids lucky enough to experience them."
