Make the Playoffs Great Again

[stonedlizard]

On the 2011 Brook example, not so sure they wouldn't still have been an 8A team. Even if they did fall to 7A, this isn't intended to get every single season great team into 8A, that's what the open class proposal would try to do.

A large enrollment, undefeated team winning 5,6,7A is not bad, not trying to stop that.

 

[Cross Bones]

We sure Rochester would lose to St. Rita in 2016?

If I had to place my money somewhere it would have been on Rita. I think we both acknowledge the general idea in football that the team that wins the line of scrimmage is the team that wins. It's going to take a lot of advantage in the skills to overcome that problem for the Rockets.

On the 2011 Brook example, not so sure they wouldn't still have been an 8A team. Even if they did fall to 7A, this isn't intended to get every single season great team into 8A, that's what the open class proposal would try to do.

A large enrollment, undefeated team winning 5,6,7A is not bad, not trying to stop that.

two years, 1 8A playoff win coupled with a 5-5 season? If that doesn't drop one into the lower class then I don't get the point of moving teams up and down. If the point isn't to get the single season great team into 8A then we end up with the same problem we set out to fix. You're going to get a team like 2011 Brook which was arguably the top team in the state into a 7A with the top teams removed leaving a sham of a playoff. Not only does it ruin that class, but it also hurts those teams to be in a lesser class by definition.

 

[ramblinman]

If I had to place my money somewhere it would have been on Rita. I think we both acknowledge the general idea in football that the team that wins the line of scrimmage is the team that wins. It's going to take a lot of advantage in the skills to overcome that problem for the Rockets.

Rita was a first round 7A knockout that eked into the playoffs with a week 9 win over Marmion by two points on a walk off FG. They also struggled to beat 4-5 PC thanks to a last minute FG to force that game into OT. Speaking of 4-5 teams, the Mustangs lost to St. Patrick.

Bones, who ya crappin?

 

[Cross Bones]

Rita was a first round 7A knockout that eked into the playoffs with a week 9 win over Marmion by two points on a walk off FG. They also struggled to beat 4-5 PC thanks to a last minute FG to force that game into OT. Speaking of 4-5 teams, the Mustangs lost to St. Patrick.

Bones, who ya crappin?

Yes, and Rochester lost to SHG who proceeded to get beat from pillar to post by PR.

 

[ramblinman]

Yes, and Rochester lost to SHG who proceeded to get beat from pillar to post by PR.

What does that have to do with Rita?

 

[Cross Bones]

What does that have to do with Rita?

It has to do with Rochester, the other team involved in the discussion.

 

[stonedlizard]

If I had to place my money somewhere it would have been on Rita. I think we both acknowledge the general idea in football that the team that wins the line of scrimmage is the team that wins. It's going to take a lot of advantage in the skills to overcome that problem for the Rockets.



two years, 1 8A playoff win coupled with a 5-5 season? If that doesn't drop one into the lower class then I don't get the point of moving teams up and down. If the point isn't to get the single season great team into 8A then we end up with the same problem we set out to fix. You're going to get a team like 2011 Brook which was arguably the top team in the state into a 7A with the top teams removed leaving a sham of a playoff. Not only does it ruin that class, but it also hurts those teams to be in a lesser class by definition.

I'm not gonna devolve into a who would beat who conversation. At the very least these teams would be in a position to play each other and we'd see how it unfolds on the field.

I'm also not going to get caught up in some hypothetical 2011 result and how that would play out in this system. We're not correcting 2011. There's always going to be outliers. Will say that a team that plays a largely 7/8A regular season schedule, has an undefeated regular season, and playoff appearances over the past two years could end up in 7 or 8A, just don't know and I don't really care. Say they ended up in 7A, how is that 1 year, outlier team, any worse than PR in 6A this year? or ESL in 7A this year (only as a result of opting up)? or PC in 7A in 2014? or Montini is 6A in 2015? or GBW in 7A in 2015? or JCA in lower classes for half their championships? etc etc. If a team is great for a single season and doesn't end up in 8A that year, I'm not upset, nor trying to solve for that. Had they ended up in 7A, we all would have congratulated them on a spectacular season and would have had plenty of message board material to discuss where they rank across the state.

My motives and the thought behind this system were made clear from the first post: reduce rd1 and rd2 blowouts, reduce the handful of private and public school dominating specific lower classes, increase competitive balance of schools in a given class and create something that is fluid enough to react to teams that prove they are better than their given class over time. This doesn't solve for every single scenario, wasn't intended to.

 

[stonedlizard]

It has to do with Rochester, the other team involved in the discussion.

Rochester lost to SHG. SHG lost to PR. Marmion and St. Rita played each other close.

What do we have?

Marmion, St. Rita, Rochester in 6A
SHG in 7A
PR in 8A

 

[Brin22]

I think this is a great first step and there is not much not to like about it.

Would it make sense to take this one step further, eliminate conferences and create groups where match ups are determined power points so teams have a well-rounded schedule? Perhaps limit conferences to 5 teams and create interesting games based on power points?

This idea may have been discussed already, kind of skimmed through several posts.

Again, love the idea!

 

[reaperup]

How does something like this get proposed and pushed with the IHSA? How can this be presented to the coaches?

 

[LHSTigers94]

I think a lot of thought went into this but I really can't see where it solves problems. None of the schools are interested in moving up so forcing them to will not be the answer. A more simple answer would start with 1-32 for all classes. Right now the last two year 7A and 8A have been pretty good and should serve as an example. Rochester dominating 4A really isn't as big of a deal as it appear to be. They are not big enough or physical enough to move up in class. Yes they are winning but, it is not because of a size difference. Montini is the same way, to me they earned each title appearance by beating some pretty good teams. The Montini/ JC playoff match up was great for a while. I think there is too much effort to make high school football like college bowl games.. We are looking to change the playoff system to hopefully see some games (match-ups) they we are interested in. Don't know if that is a good idea.

 

[go dogz]

I'm not gonna devolve into a who would beat who conversation. At the very least these teams would be in a position to play each other and we'd see how it unfolds on the field.

I'm also not going to get caught up in some hypothetical 2011 result and how that would play out in this system. We're not correcting 2011. There's always going to be outliers. Will say that a team that plays a largely 7/8A regular season schedule, has an undefeated regular season, and playoff appearances over the past two years could end up in 7 or 8A, just don't know and I don't really care. Say they ended up in 7A, how is that 1 year, outlier team, any worse than PR in 6A this year? or ESL in 7A this year (only as a result of opting up)? or PC in 7A in 2014? or Montini is 6A in 2015? or GBW in 7A in 2015? or JCA in lower classes for half their championships? etc etc. If a team is great for a single season and doesn't end up in 8A that year, I'm not upset, nor trying to solve for that. Had they ended up in 7A, we all would have congratulated them on a spectacular season and would have had plenty of message board material to discuss where they rank across the state.

My motives and the thought behind this system were made clear from the first post: reduce rd1 and rd2 blowouts, reduce the handful of private and public school dominating specific lower classes, increase competitive balance of schools in a given class and create something that is fluid enough to react to teams that prove they are better than their given class over time. This doesn't solve for every single scenario, wasn't intended to.

stoned - I obviously think this is a great system. as this is the tier system. the classes(divisions) would shake out just as you have shown. great work explaining it.
yes- and you still need to run it north, south, east, west. your 8best teams will be your open class in a playoff.
and seeding(for lack of better word) is strictly based off points earned throughout the year.
then you begin to find your 32 8a, 32 7a, etc. and this will also help in teams playing a light schedule/ hard schedule/ or even schedule. I think weight 15% for division play is good. so like if you a 4or5a team is gets weight much worse than playing at least an even schedule.
nothing will ever eliminate blowouts, because on any given day a team can play (good/fair/or not so good) and match up well against certain opponents.(it also does allow for extra percentage points for games ending 20pts more +.2%, 35pts +.35% and minus for loss. it ultimately helps in determining any ties. but this will make for far more competitive games in the end. and yes scheduling one of the those open class teams(the next year) carries more weight. definitely need to go back 5years, because as we all know, most schools have a cycle of 3/4years public and 4/5years private.
this system/your system is reward based. and to be classified in 8a and ranked is your glory. and so on the down to class 1a.
each division will have a champion 8a - 1a, and one open class champ.
and it has the same weights applied for scheduling out of state opponents. the weight is based off their ranking in state.
stoned - one day the ihsa will adopt this system. and it will be very fun to watch high school football again(nationally). and then we will see nationally ranked teams playing for super class (nationally ranked) teams.

 

[capnbillhitters]

I think this is a great first step and there is not much not to like about it.

Would it make sense to take this one step further, eliminate conferences and create groups where match ups are determined power points so teams have a well-rounded schedule? Perhaps limit conferences to 5 teams and create interesting games based on power points?

This idea may have been discussed already, kind of skimmed through several posts.

Again, love the idea!

I think it would be a lot harder if you included breaking up conferences. West Suburban is a 90 year-old conference. Those guys wouldn't break that up over a post season formatting issue.

 

[reaperup]

I agree... But the alternative the IHSA is coming up with, with districts, would break up those conferences.

 

[Horsefeather]

Great stuff, Lizard. I don't post as much as I have in the past, but this is one of the best, logical arguments and proposals I've ever seen. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the IHSA will listen, but it's a great idea. Kudos on the efforts here. I hope it generates discussion where it should.

 

[stonedlizard]

I personally never liked the idea of the district system. Have always been a fan of conferences and the traditions that are maintained with them. I understand they aren't perfect, that change happens, but consider those problems a story for another day.

 

[stonedlizard]

I think a lot of thought went into this but I really can't see where it solves problems. None of the schools are interested in moving up so forcing them to will not be the answer. A more simple answer would start with 1-32 for all classes. Right now the last two year 7A and 8A have been pretty good and should serve as an example. Rochester dominating 4A really isn't as big of a deal as it appear to be. They are not big enough or physical enough to move up in class. Yes they are winning but, it is not because of a size difference. Montini is the same way, to me they earned each title appearance by beating some pretty good teams. The Montini/ JC playoff match up was great for a while. I think there is too much effort to make high school football like college bowl games.. We are looking to change the playoff system to hopefully see some games (match-ups) they we are interested in. Don't know if that is a good idea.

I don't really look at it as trying to match the bowl game model. I look at it as having some flexibility to keep a balanced set of classes. I don't necessarily think Rochester should be in 8A, I don't think the early Montini teams that made their run in 5A should have been in 8A. I do think that they could have moved a class or two upwards over their respective runs, and that's really what I was aiming for with this.

Good points though. I think 1-32 for all classes would be a big, feasible, first step.

 

[LHSTigers94]

I don't really look at it as trying to match the bowl game model. I look at it as having some flexibility to keep a balanced set of classes. I don't necessarily think Rochester should be in 8A, I don't think the early Montini teams that made their run in 5A should have been in 8A. I do think that they could have moved a class or two upwards over their respective runs, and that's really what I was aiming for with this.

Good points though. I think 1-32 for all classes would be a big, feasible, first step.

I point to boylan winning 6A and 7A, Naz 6A then 5A, MC doing the same in 11/12 I believe. Then I look at WWS winning 8A then losing 7A the next year. In the end there is no guarantee moving up or down a class will increase or limit success. Some teams are just good no matter what class they are in. Some people talk about wanting the see the matchup between ESL and PR however I see it differently. I see both teams deserving of winning a state championship which is what happened. I don't see a need to match them up and allow a less deserving team win a championship by matching the best teams in one class. If you are really interested, do a king of the hill the following week and match 8A vs 7A and 6A vs 5A etc.

 

[stonedlizard]

I point to boylan winning 6A and 7A, Naz 6A then 5A, MC doing the same in 11/12 I believe. Then I look at WWS winning 8A then losing 7A the next year. In the end there is no guarantee moving up or down a class will increase or limit success. Some teams are just good no matter what class they are in. Some people talk about wanting the see the matchup between ESL and PR however I see it differently. I see both teams deserving of winning a state championship which is what happened. I don't see a need to match them up and allow a less deserving team win a championship by matching the best teams in one class. If you are really interested, do a king of the hill the following week and match 8A vs 7A and 6A vs 5A etc.

I hear you and I don't generally disagree. Again, this isn't supposed to get every 5-8A enrollment based champion into the "top class", I hope that's not the main point coming across.

 

[LHSTigers94]

I hear you and I don't generally disagree. Again, this isn't supposed to get every 5-8A enrollment based champion into the "top class", I hope that's not the main point coming across.

Right, I understand. I think your proposal is great however I don't see much wrong with the system now. I really think you seed all classes 1-32 and most problems will be solved.

 

[Snetsrak61]

An interesting proposal. Good work taking the time to mock it up. I do wonder if this system wouldnt become a little too fluid though. Not sure what purpose a two-three year spike to 8A serves for a team who really belongs more in the 6-7A field, but just happens to put up a great one or two classes, gets creamed in the new class for a few years before falling back to their old class. If you take the regular season part of you approach, its something similar to Football enrollment, and I think I'd weight that more heavily. For the post season part, you have something similar to a "stepped" success factor, but I think you could use an exponential multiplier to weight the rounds more appropriately, rather than straight line points. An exponential success factor/multiplier combo I came up with last year basically didn't have an effect on a team who just made the quarterfinals in consecutive seasons. Going beyond that is when you saw any success messure kick in. Something like that would keep some stability in the classes while still allowing the cream of the crop programs to rise over time and settle into a natural competetive slot, I think.

 

[Brin22]

No districts and no conferences, rather all 600 teams in one big pool where, but there are some rules. We keep lizards power points system and just expand it.

Because the regular season is 9 games, let’s break up all the teams into 9 different tiers. Each team needs to play 3 teams in your own tier, 3 above and 3 below. Also, we can cap the distance teams can travel to 45 miles or something.

Obviously tier 1 and tier 9 teams need to be treated differently, but we’ll deal with that later and there is a solution.

This is not really a season by season approach, but one long continuous line broken up by playoffs which set the next year tiers. We use prior year’s power points to set the tiers and like I said each team needs to play 3 own tier, above and below teams and those points will determine which tier and seed for the playoffs. Once the season is done, power points recalculated and are used for the next year’s tiers.

Tiers can and will change every year and teams will play different opponents every year.

 

[cornerrat]

All.... It appears the principal of Tinley Park has been busy. Check out his proposal (#11) to the IHSA, Ratsy

 

[reaperup]

Where can this be found?

 

[ramblinman]

All.... It appears the principal of Tinley Park has been busy. Check out his proposal (#11) to the IHSA, Ratsy

Oh my.

The proposal was not approved for board consideration by the Legislative Commission.

 

[ramblinman]

Where can this be found?

http://ihsa.org/documents/bylaws/2016-17BylawProposals.pdf

 

[stonedlizard]

I had trouble following some of it, hopefully my dissertation was a bit easier to comprehend!

To clarify - wasn't as hard to follow as much as it left some unanswered questions. Enrollment still the basis for the 8 classes?

 

[stonedlizard]

An interesting proposal. Good work taking the time to mock it up. I do wonder if this system wouldnt become a little too fluid though. Not sure what purpose a two-three year spike to 8A serves for a team who really belongs more in the 6-7A field, but just happens to put up a great one or two classes, gets creamed in the new class for a few years before falling back to their old class. If you take the regular season part of you approach, its something similar to Football enrollment, and I think I'd weight that more heavily. For the post season part, you have something similar to a "stepped" success factor, but I think you could use an exponential multiplier to weight the rounds more appropriately, rather than straight line points. An exponential success factor/multiplier combo I came up with last year basically didn't have an effect on a team who just made the quarterfinals in consecutive seasons. Going beyond that is when you saw any success messure kick in. Something like that would keep some stability in the classes while still allowing the cream of the crop programs to rise over time and settle into a natural competetive slot, I think.

I like the progressive concept for points as you get into later rounds. @capnbillhitters mentioned something similar. @jwarigaku was also a proponent of weighting the regular season a little heavier than the .667 used in original proposal. I like both ideas and think they could be incorporated in. Perhaps something like a .8 regular season weighting and the exponential point scale for playoffs while calculating the past two seasons power points...

 

[reaperup]

I like the bracket challenge

 

[Cross Bones]

What was that proposal about? dual round robin tournaments in the regular season? Didnt like it at all.

 

[Snetsrak61]

I like the progressive concept for points as you get into later rounds. @capnbillhitters mentioned something similar. @jwarigaku was also a proponent of weighting the regular season a little heavier than the .667 used in original proposal. I like both ideas and think they could be incorporated in. Perhaps something like a .8 regular season weighting and the exponential point scale for playoffs while calculating the past two seasons power points...

Any chance you'd be willing to share some of your data? I've been messing around with some exponential point formats, and would love to test them out.

 

[woody6]

All.... It appears the principal of Tinley Park has been busy. Check out his proposal (#11) to the IHSA, Ratsy

Actually this proposal #11 (and another proposal #9) were submitted by the principal of Andrew HS in Tinley Park.

 

[woody6]

These playoff improvement proposals are highly logical, well thought-out and the result of much time spent by impressive minds. However, I wonder if the players themselves are so dissatisfied by the current set-up to warrant such upheavals. Just asking.

 

[ramblinman]

These playoff improvement proposals are highly logical, well thought-out and the result of much time spent by impressive minds. However, I wonder if the players themselves are so dissatisfied by the current set-up to warrant such upheavals. Just asking.

Great question. I suppose the answer to it would depend on who you ask.

Ask the kids from Prairie Ridge or Rochester if they are satisfied with the playoffs as they are, and the answer would likely be yes.

Ask the kids from Chicago Marine Leadership Academy (a 57-0 first round blowout victim in 3A) if they would have rather been blown out in the 3A enrollment based playoffs or played a more competitively balanced first round game in the competition based 1A playoffs (where stonedlizard's formula puts them) and I suspect their answer would be to prefer 1A over 3A.

 

[stonedlizard]

Any chance you'd be willing to share some of your data? I've been messing around with some exponential point formats, and would love to test them out.

What would you like? 2014-2016 regular/post season results suffice? The entire workbook? I'm of the "open source" opinion on most things so let me know.

I do plan to play around with a combo of the scaling playoff point concept you and @capnbillhitters mentioned as well as the different weighting. Will post the results.

 

[capnbillhitters]

These playoff improvement proposals are highly logical, well thought-out and the result of much time spent by impressive minds. However, I wonder if the players themselves are so dissatisfied by the current set-up to warrant such upheavals. Just asking.

I get the idea that kids just want to win state championships. Obviously we obsessives want to create the perfect solution that drives a single answer to Best in the State question. Do the kids really care? Most of the GW kids from '15 and ESL & PR kids from '16 can, in their minds, claim that status as undefeated champs. Maybe none of those kids finish as state champs in those years (some might say likely all lose) in a 8A super class created by Lizard.

In this future state will any championship other than the 8A title be a real title? Not really. More like a B league C league title at best. Would we obsessives like it that way? Sure. It is tidy. But maybe the kids would not see the future 7A or 6A titles as B or C league titles. Maybe they would be perfectly happy.

I do know that any team emerging from the 8A juggernaut that this proposal would create would be the best of the best. And that is what we are here to find.

 

[capnbillhitters]

I do plan to play around with a combo of the scaling playoff point concept you and @capnbillhitters mentioned as well as the different weighting. Will post the results.

If you are going to play with that I would like to correct a flaw in my suggestion. It should be a Factor of 1 for regular season and playoff victories should be:

Round 1 Win - 1.2
Round 2 Win - 1.4
Qtr Final Win - 1.6
Semifinal Win - 1.8
State Title - 2.0

I incorrectly started at 1.0 for Round 1 victory and ended at 1.8 for the title.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

 

[stonedlizard]

I get the idea that kids just want to win state championships. Obviously we obsessives want to create the perfect solution that drives a single answer to Best in the State question. Do the kids really care? Most of the GW kids from '15 and ESL & PR kids from '16 can, in their minds, claim that status as undefeated champs. Maybe none of those kids finish as state champs in those years (some might say likely all lose) in a 8A super class created by Lizard.

In this future state will any championship other than the 8A title be a real title? Not really. More like a B league C league title at best. Would we obsessives like it that way? Sure. It is tidy. But maybe the kids would not see the future 7A or 6A titles as B or C league titles. Maybe they would be perfectly happy.

I do know that any team emerging from the 8A juggernaut that this proposal would create would be the best of the best. And that is what we are here to find.

While I would love a "best of the best" playoff result, I would caution that this system isn't necessarily intended to find the "best of the best". Instead, it is an attempt to classify times on a more competitive basis. Does that most often result in 8A being the best of the best? I think so. But if this were fully adopted I could definitely see years where a 6A or 7A champion has a legitimate claim at the end of the year for being in conversation with the 8A champion for "best of the best". And I think that's ok.

Will also add that Forreston's 1A championship in today's world is by no means belittled by the fact that they would stand virtually zero chance against Loyola or Maine South. They were the best of their classification, which was simply based on enrollment.

In this system I would also propose that their potential 1A championship is not belittled by it being 1A vs 8A. They are still the best of their classification, the difference being that that classification is slightly more nuanced - a result of their regular season success, historical success, and the quality of opponents they play.

As you mentioned though, I have a feeling the students would cherish it either way.

 

[capnbillhitters]

Sorry but classes built on enrollment are far different than classes built on success or strength of schedule. As such there is a different view of classes in the latter. You just have to accept that aspect.

And while a 7A team may be a "once in a decade" class or two of talented boys, the argument of quality wins will dog any 7A Champ in any "Best of" discussion.

 

[stonedlizard]

Sorry but classes built on enrollment are far different than classes built on success or strength of schedule. As such there is a different view of classes in the latter. You just have to accept that aspect.

And while a 7A team may be a "once in a decade" class or two of talented boys, the argument of quality wins will dog any 7A Champ in any "Best of" discussion.

I'll accept that, but would still say that 1-3A is almost never competitive with 6-8A regardless of the enrollment or competitive classification method, so don't think those championships garner too different a meaning than they do today.