Jv counts as varsity!There in no Jv specific league in Illinois!Who ever doesn’t play on Friday plays sat
Q: So how would you improve/fix Football districting scheduling?
- Thread starter EdgyTim
- Start date
We are state champs. 14 times now. How many championships do the crusaders have
If you are a stud athlete and live in city andwant to attend catholic school the past 10 yrs it’s montini,Loyola,NAZ and that’s totally cool!But you still get to recruit as one of those powerhouse schools.Some area kids obviously still go to Niles notredame and pats,guerin and some are really good athletes!One of best wrestlers in state lives blocks from pats and goes hr away To Montini for sports!As long as those schools keep winning the best athletes will still go there for sports!So they should play up with the big boys 8A
I really think your idea of Catholic Schools having an advantage because of recruiting is way off and here is why...
1. Tuition, whether full or partial. families need to pay tuition on top of taxes for the public schools.
2. Competition, if you an 7th and 8th grader that is good enough to be recruited by Catholic schools you arent just being recruited by one catholic school, mostly 5, 6 or 7 schools are after your services.
3. Choices, kids looking to go to a catholic school, especially on the southside have numerous choices. There is no low hanging fruit on the tree for any catholic school unless their is a legacy/family connection to a certain school. I grew up on the block with my two best friends, all three of us went to different catholic high schools. A coach or a certain school can recruit a kid all they want that doesnt mean the kid goes that specific school.
4. Location, there are students that drive past one catholic high school on the way to another in the mornings. Location doesnt mean a thing, kids live literally across the street from one catholic high school but choose to drive 20 mins to another.
5. As far as scholarships, and you should know this as a trainer to young athletes. Its pretty hard to judge most kids talent at the ripe age of 13 or 14 especially in football. So to throw money at a young student athlete based on their abilities, who are we to say if thats right or wrong.
No one tell you have to spend your money right?
public schools especially the bigger suburban ones have a huge advantage over catholic schools and here are a very reason why...
1.money. public schools facilities for the most part blow catholic schools away. there are always exception but for the most part, public/suburban are way better off. 2.
2. Minor leagues. public/suburban schools know for many years what talent they have coming up the pipeline. For example and for argument sake Im using made up names. Naperville pew wee football "The Little Redhawks" for the most part will be running the same offense that will be ran in at Naperville Central HS, if the high school coach is smart and organized. to me this the one point that is very much overlooked and not talked about. HS coaches at certain public/suburban schools can basically know or have a good idea of what their varsity team will look like starting in 4th/5th grade.
3. Its Free for the most part
How on Gods green earth do Catholic High Schools have an advantage?
I will give you this, tradition and coaches play the biggest part in Catholic High Schools advantage.
Regardless of whether one considers the private schools to have an "advantage," generally speaking there exists a "difference," relative to most non-private varsity teams. Just step back, watch the games and/or examine the playoff/title results historically. Multipliers and success factors acknowledge the "difference." Instead of nibbling around the edges, just mix private and non-private during the regular season then separate the state series - without the districts format.
After some thought, here is my proposal;
There are a few tenets that guided my proposal;
1. Free choice conference affiliations are a positive thing for HS athletics to allow schools to self sort into meaningful groupings in which each school can weigh its own goals
Thus, district affiliations will be kept at an ideal number of 5, and no more than 6 schools per district, which will allow for a meaningful slate of conference games to be scheduled for those schools who chose to do so (more on why the number 5 in a minute)
2. A set district schedule will relieve some of the burden of scheduling and allow the governing body (IHSA) to sort schools into meaningful groups based on the primary classification criteria (enrollment) in a way that directly leads to playoff qualification.
Thus, the only auto-qualifier will be district champs. However the totality of a teams regular season slate will go towards playoff qualifications
3. District games should carry more weight than non district games
Thus, playoff qualification will be based on a point system in which the maximum number of district point does not exceed 60 and the maximum number of non-district points does not exceed 40 points
And further, seeding preference is first assigned based on district points, and then on total points (ensuring district champs top half of the bracket seeding).
Justifications for 5 team districts as a preference:
1. Why an odd number? Rather than making even districts the standard and putting a scheduling burden on the few districts who end up "odd" with bye weeks during district play, schools as a general rule will have byes. This ensures that there are plenty of schools with byes so that everyone is in the same boat and has scheduling options. Or schools could take the opportunity to "enjoy" a bye. Only as many 6 team districts as needed to account for rounding and some travel considerations will be permitted, with the target goal of at least 80% of districts being 5 team districts.
2. By making districts smaller the IHSA limits travel concerns (at worst a school would have two long mandated trips)
3. Further, as stated as a tenet, conference affiliations are a good thing, and with the removal of auto conference qualifiers, and with the available conference slate minimized, it has a goal of fostering more broadly based conference affiliations that promote flexibility year to year within the conference, and hopefully limit shuffling since playoff qualifying isn't a goal of conferences anymore.
4. Lessens the impact of "stacked" or "weak" districts. Weak districts won't automatically have 4 teams in the playoffs and stacked districts still have opportunity for playoff qualifications outside of district play. There's even an opportunity to perhaps put historical performance as a metric without it becoming too subjective (thinking very broadly based criteria such as segregating some CPS schools) ... Simply put, smaller districts and more districts make that competitive alignment easier, or at least lessens its effects.
One big drawback: it was quite easy in the point system I devised to end up with a 5 way district tie with 5 2-2 teams. I'll go over tie breaker thoughts below. But as a positive I wasn't able to create 2 or 3 way ties in my testing. The district tie breaker rules will need to be convulated, but hopefully rare. Other drawback is also that ADs still have a decent amount of scheduling, but hopefully weve aleviated enough concerns that meets a middle ground that has more yes votes than the current proposal.
Scheduling:
4 game round robin district slate covering weeks 5-9 with one bye. 6 team districts will play a round Robin 5 game slate with no bye.
Target is about 80 5 team districts and 20 6 team districts, distributed roughly evenly across classifications.
Non district games including weeks 1-4 and the bye are up to the schools.
Point system.
There are two ways to earn points, district points and non district points. The formulas will be different, so at the end of the season, district points will be scaled to a value of 120 possible point for each district. The maximum points any single team can mathematically earn of that 120 is 60. The maximum number of non district points is 40, thus the 4 district games at 60% are scaled much more heavily than 5 remaining games at 40%. As a reminder though, while qualification is based on the totality of points, auto qualification and priority seeding (roughly seeds 1-12) is based on district points first.
District points = 1 for each district win plus 1 times the district win total of the defeated opponent.
As an example, a "simple" district where the top team went 4-0, the next 3-1 and so-on down the line would hand out 20 points with the top team getting 10 points. A perfectly even 2-2 district would hand out 30 points with each team at 6 points. Thus, we scale all districta to 120 points total at season end (which will also come in handy due to the difference between 5 and 6 team districts). District winner auto qualiflies.
Non district points. Each non district win times 7 times a enrollment multiplier (between 0.857 and 1.143). The multiplier is as follows
For any opponent with the same enrollment classification (1A - 8A) = 1.0, regardless of total size. For opponents with a standard deviation of enrollment between +/- 3- 4 times the average enrollment of your class, +/- 0.0715 to the multiplier. For opponents with enrollment greater than 4x Standard deviation +/- 0.143 multiplier. Out of state opponents automatically equal a weight of 0.9285 per win. Goal here is to encourage like size matchup, but not penalize or incentivize too greatly. But you can see that a team that goes 5-0 can have anywhere from 30 to 40 points. So one or two games won't have a big impact but constantly "ducking" opponents will eventually take a toll on points. No additional scaling is done at season end. A summary of this standard deviatation example below. Some scaling also would have to happen with 6 team districts to make the relative weight of district and non district games equal, but in which the max points should still be 100.
For the non district multiplier, I did this based on 2018 playoff qualifiers, which wouldn't be quite the same as doing it off all schools in that class, but should give a pretty good idea. Generally it worked out that a school can still schedule up or down a class with no impact, but the big discrepancies in scheduling create an impact on points/qualifying.
Class 1A
Avg enrollment: 234
4× lower: N/A
3x lower: N/A
3x greater: 374
4x greater: 421
Median of 2A: 349
Class 2A
Avg enrollment: 351
4× lower: 223
3x lower: 255
3x greater: 446
4x greater: 478
Median of 3A: 468
Class 3A
Avg enrollment: 478
4× lower: 318
3x lower: 358
3x greater: 597
4x greater: 637
Median of 4A: 659
Class 4A
Avg enrollment: 663
4× lower: 408
3x lower: 478
3x greater: 853
4x greater: 917
Median of 5A: 1,022
Class 5A
Avg enrollment: 1,012
4× lower: 465
3x lower: 602
3x greater: 1,422
4x greater: 1,559
Median of 6A: 1,503
Class 6A
Avg enrollment: 1,515
4× lower: 912
3x lower: 1,062
3x greater: 1,967
4x greater: 2,118
Median of 7A: 2,007
Class 7A
Avg enrollment: 2,008
4× lower: 1,548
3x lower: 1,663
3x greater: 2,353
4x greater: 2,468
Median of 8A: 2,765
Class 8A
Avg enrollment: 2,937
Due to large enrollment span in 8A school sizes on the high end, I have opted to set the 3x and 4x limit at 2,007 (7A median) and 1,806 (7A lowest) respectively rather than use standard deviation. (Arguably the 3 and 4x factor could use smoothing across all classes, but hopefully minimal).
Tie breaker for district champions:
1. First will be based on head to head.
2. Record against common opponents (including any non district common opponents)
3. Total season points (as opposed to only district points)
4. (Might need more tie breaker ideas here)
Tie breaker for playoff qualifiers
1. District points
2. Something similar to current playoff points which would incorporate wins of all opponents (Details TBD).
I may try to leverage Soucie's districts and split them off into 5 and 6 team samples, but we'll see if I have the energy and knowledge to give it a shot.
There are a few tenets that guided my proposal;
1. Free choice conference affiliations are a positive thing for HS athletics to allow schools to self sort into meaningful groupings in which each school can weigh its own goals
Thus, district affiliations will be kept at an ideal number of 5, and no more than 6 schools per district, which will allow for a meaningful slate of conference games to be scheduled for those schools who chose to do so (more on why the number 5 in a minute)
2. A set district schedule will relieve some of the burden of scheduling and allow the governing body (IHSA) to sort schools into meaningful groups based on the primary classification criteria (enrollment) in a way that directly leads to playoff qualification.
Thus, the only auto-qualifier will be district champs. However the totality of a teams regular season slate will go towards playoff qualifications
3. District games should carry more weight than non district games
Thus, playoff qualification will be based on a point system in which the maximum number of district point does not exceed 60 and the maximum number of non-district points does not exceed 40 points
And further, seeding preference is first assigned based on district points, and then on total points (ensuring district champs top half of the bracket seeding).
Justifications for 5 team districts as a preference:
1. Why an odd number? Rather than making even districts the standard and putting a scheduling burden on the few districts who end up "odd" with bye weeks during district play, schools as a general rule will have byes. This ensures that there are plenty of schools with byes so that everyone is in the same boat and has scheduling options. Or schools could take the opportunity to "enjoy" a bye. Only as many 6 team districts as needed to account for rounding and some travel considerations will be permitted, with the target goal of at least 80% of districts being 5 team districts.
2. By making districts smaller the IHSA limits travel concerns (at worst a school would have two long mandated trips)
3. Further, as stated as a tenet, conference affiliations are a good thing, and with the removal of auto conference qualifiers, and with the available conference slate minimized, it has a goal of fostering more broadly based conference affiliations that promote flexibility year to year within the conference, and hopefully limit shuffling since playoff qualifying isn't a goal of conferences anymore.
4. Lessens the impact of "stacked" or "weak" districts. Weak districts won't automatically have 4 teams in the playoffs and stacked districts still have opportunity for playoff qualifications outside of district play. There's even an opportunity to perhaps put historical performance as a metric without it becoming too subjective (thinking very broadly based criteria such as segregating some CPS schools) ... Simply put, smaller districts and more districts make that competitive alignment easier, or at least lessens its effects.
One big drawback: it was quite easy in the point system I devised to end up with a 5 way district tie with 5 2-2 teams. I'll go over tie breaker thoughts below. But as a positive I wasn't able to create 2 or 3 way ties in my testing. The district tie breaker rules will need to be convulated, but hopefully rare. Other drawback is also that ADs still have a decent amount of scheduling, but hopefully weve aleviated enough concerns that meets a middle ground that has more yes votes than the current proposal.
Scheduling:
4 game round robin district slate covering weeks 5-9 with one bye. 6 team districts will play a round Robin 5 game slate with no bye.
Target is about 80 5 team districts and 20 6 team districts, distributed roughly evenly across classifications.
Non district games including weeks 1-4 and the bye are up to the schools.
Point system.
There are two ways to earn points, district points and non district points. The formulas will be different, so at the end of the season, district points will be scaled to a value of 120 possible point for each district. The maximum points any single team can mathematically earn of that 120 is 60. The maximum number of non district points is 40, thus the 4 district games at 60% are scaled much more heavily than 5 remaining games at 40%. As a reminder though, while qualification is based on the totality of points, auto qualification and priority seeding (roughly seeds 1-12) is based on district points first.
District points = 1 for each district win plus 1 times the district win total of the defeated opponent.
As an example, a "simple" district where the top team went 4-0, the next 3-1 and so-on down the line would hand out 20 points with the top team getting 10 points. A perfectly even 2-2 district would hand out 30 points with each team at 6 points. Thus, we scale all districta to 120 points total at season end (which will also come in handy due to the difference between 5 and 6 team districts). District winner auto qualiflies.
Non district points. Each non district win times 7 times a enrollment multiplier (between 0.857 and 1.143). The multiplier is as follows
For any opponent with the same enrollment classification (1A - 8A) = 1.0, regardless of total size. For opponents with a standard deviation of enrollment between +/- 3- 4 times the average enrollment of your class, +/- 0.0715 to the multiplier. For opponents with enrollment greater than 4x Standard deviation +/- 0.143 multiplier. Out of state opponents automatically equal a weight of 0.9285 per win. Goal here is to encourage like size matchup, but not penalize or incentivize too greatly. But you can see that a team that goes 5-0 can have anywhere from 30 to 40 points. So one or two games won't have a big impact but constantly "ducking" opponents will eventually take a toll on points. No additional scaling is done at season end. A summary of this standard deviatation example below. Some scaling also would have to happen with 6 team districts to make the relative weight of district and non district games equal, but in which the max points should still be 100.
For the non district multiplier, I did this based on 2018 playoff qualifiers, which wouldn't be quite the same as doing it off all schools in that class, but should give a pretty good idea. Generally it worked out that a school can still schedule up or down a class with no impact, but the big discrepancies in scheduling create an impact on points/qualifying.
Class 1A
Avg enrollment: 234
4× lower: N/A
3x lower: N/A
3x greater: 374
4x greater: 421
Median of 2A: 349
Class 2A
Avg enrollment: 351
4× lower: 223
3x lower: 255
3x greater: 446
4x greater: 478
Median of 3A: 468
Class 3A
Avg enrollment: 478
4× lower: 318
3x lower: 358
3x greater: 597
4x greater: 637
Median of 4A: 659
Class 4A
Avg enrollment: 663
4× lower: 408
3x lower: 478
3x greater: 853
4x greater: 917
Median of 5A: 1,022
Class 5A
Avg enrollment: 1,012
4× lower: 465
3x lower: 602
3x greater: 1,422
4x greater: 1,559
Median of 6A: 1,503
Class 6A
Avg enrollment: 1,515
4× lower: 912
3x lower: 1,062
3x greater: 1,967
4x greater: 2,118
Median of 7A: 2,007
Class 7A
Avg enrollment: 2,008
4× lower: 1,548
3x lower: 1,663
3x greater: 2,353
4x greater: 2,468
Median of 8A: 2,765
Class 8A
Avg enrollment: 2,937
Due to large enrollment span in 8A school sizes on the high end, I have opted to set the 3x and 4x limit at 2,007 (7A median) and 1,806 (7A lowest) respectively rather than use standard deviation. (Arguably the 3 and 4x factor could use smoothing across all classes, but hopefully minimal).
Tie breaker for district champions:
1. First will be based on head to head.
2. Record against common opponents (including any non district common opponents)
3. Total season points (as opposed to only district points)
4. (Might need more tie breaker ideas here)
Tie breaker for playoff qualifiers
1. District points
2. Something similar to current playoff points which would incorporate wins of all opponents (Details TBD).
I may try to leverage Soucie's districts and split them off into 5 and 6 team samples, but we'll see if I have the energy and knowledge to give it a shot.
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Nothing, yet. Not sure I'm up to the task really. Basically could just try to subjectively alter Soucie's with my best "gut" feeling on how to adjust the districts down (for example try to take 2 of his 8 team districts that look approximately close in distance and split them into 2 five and 1 six team district) And just do that up and down the board.
First crack at it with 7A and 8A. Niu, after doing this I definitely appreciate more the flexibility in bumping schools up or down a class... just hard to do so in a objective way.
8A wasn't too bad outside of the 3 StL area schools. The furthest 3 north schools also had a bit of an odd cluster, though not nearly as bad, obviously. 7A south suburban and south side schools nearly broke me. I ended up making a few subjective calls there like keeping CPS schools together and putting MC with west suburban schools where they'd match up with two other catholic schools in Naz and Benet. An earlier version was a little more geographically true, but just didn't sit right with me.
With my setup you'll see classes float around the 62-68 range depending how the 5/6 districts fall. That alone could cause countless iterations and computer algorithm optimization of district layouts. For simplicity though, I'm pre-setting as alternating classes of 62 and 68.
Class 8A- 12 Districts, 62 Teams
District 1 (5): Gurnee (Warren), Waukegan, Zion-Benton., Lincolnshire (Stevenson), Winnetka (New Trier)
District 2 (5): Evanston, Park Ridge (Maine South), Skokie (Niles West), Wilmette (Loyola), Niles (Notre Dame)
District 3 (5): Barrington, Carpentersville (Dundee-Crown), Glenview (Glenbrook South), Palatine (Fremd), Palatine
District 4 (5): Elgin, Hoffman Estates (Conant), Huntley, Roselle (Lake Park), South Elgin
District 5 (5): Bartlett, Carol Stream (Glenbard North), Elmhurst (York), Glen Ellyn (Glenbard West), Lombard (Glenbard East)
District 6 (5): Aurora (West), Downers Grove (South), Naperville (Central), Naperville (North), St. Charles (East)
District 7 (5): Aurora (East), Aurora (Metea Valley), Aurora (Waubonsie Valley), Bolingbrook, Naperville (Neuqua Valley)
District 8 (5): Berwyn-Cicero (Morton), Chicago (Taft), Chicago (Lane), Franklin Park (Leyden), Oak Park (River Forest)
District 9 (5): Chicago (Brother Rice), Chicago (Curie), Chicago (Marist), Hinsdale (Central), LaGrange (Lyons)
District 10 (5): Chicago Heights (Bloom), Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East), Homewood-Flossmoor, Orland Park (Sandburg), Palos Hills (Stagg).
District 11 (6): Lockport, Oswego, Oswego (East), Plainfield (East), Plainfield (North), Plainfield (South)
District 12 (6): Belleville (East), Edwardsville, Joliet (Central), Joliet (West), Minooka, O’Fallon
Class 7A- 13 Districts, 68 Teams
District 1 (5): Moline, Rockford (Auburn), Rockford (East), Rockton (Hononegah), Rockford (Guliford)
District 2 (5): Algonquin (Jacobs), DeKalb, Round Lake, Fox Lake (Grant), McHenry
District 3 (6): Buffalo Grove, Highland Park, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Mundelein, Northbrook (Glenbrook North)
District 4 (5): Arlington Heights (Hersey), Des Plaines (Maine West), Mount Prospect, Park Ridge (Maine East), Skokie (Niles North).
District 5 (5): Addison (Trail), Elk Grove Village, Chicago (Lincoln Park), Hillside (Proviso West), Maywood (Proviso East)
District 6 (6): Elgin (Larkin), Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, St. Charles (North), Schaumburg, Streamwood.
District 7 (5): Batavia, Geneva, West Chicago, Wheaton (North), Wheaton (Warrenville South).
District 8 (5): Downers Grove North, LaGrange Park (Nazareth), Lisle (Benet), Villa Park (Willowbrook), Chicago (Mount Carmel)
District 9 (5): Romeoville, Plainfield (Central), New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central), New Lenox (Lincoln-Way West), Lansing (T.F. South)
District 10 (5): Blue Island (Eisenhower), Chicago (Von Steuben), Chicago (Hubbard), Summit (Argo), Chicago (Schurz)
District 11 (6): Oak Lawn (Community), South Holland (Thornwood), Tinley Park (Andrew)., Palos Heights (Shepard)., Harvey (Thornton), Burbank (Reavis)
District 12 (5): Bradley-Bourbonnais, Quincy, Normal (Community), Pekin, Yorkville
District 13 (5): Alton, Belleville (West), Collinsville, East St. Louis, Granite City
8A wasn't too bad outside of the 3 StL area schools. The furthest 3 north schools also had a bit of an odd cluster, though not nearly as bad, obviously. 7A south suburban and south side schools nearly broke me. I ended up making a few subjective calls there like keeping CPS schools together and putting MC with west suburban schools where they'd match up with two other catholic schools in Naz and Benet. An earlier version was a little more geographically true, but just didn't sit right with me.
With my setup you'll see classes float around the 62-68 range depending how the 5/6 districts fall. That alone could cause countless iterations and computer algorithm optimization of district layouts. For simplicity though, I'm pre-setting as alternating classes of 62 and 68.
Class 8A- 12 Districts, 62 Teams
District 1 (5): Gurnee (Warren), Waukegan, Zion-Benton., Lincolnshire (Stevenson), Winnetka (New Trier)
District 2 (5): Evanston, Park Ridge (Maine South), Skokie (Niles West), Wilmette (Loyola), Niles (Notre Dame)
District 3 (5): Barrington, Carpentersville (Dundee-Crown), Glenview (Glenbrook South), Palatine (Fremd), Palatine
District 4 (5): Elgin, Hoffman Estates (Conant), Huntley, Roselle (Lake Park), South Elgin
District 5 (5): Bartlett, Carol Stream (Glenbard North), Elmhurst (York), Glen Ellyn (Glenbard West), Lombard (Glenbard East)
District 6 (5): Aurora (West), Downers Grove (South), Naperville (Central), Naperville (North), St. Charles (East)
District 7 (5): Aurora (East), Aurora (Metea Valley), Aurora (Waubonsie Valley), Bolingbrook, Naperville (Neuqua Valley)
District 8 (5): Berwyn-Cicero (Morton), Chicago (Taft), Chicago (Lane), Franklin Park (Leyden), Oak Park (River Forest)
District 9 (5): Chicago (Brother Rice), Chicago (Curie), Chicago (Marist), Hinsdale (Central), LaGrange (Lyons)
District 10 (5): Chicago Heights (Bloom), Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East), Homewood-Flossmoor, Orland Park (Sandburg), Palos Hills (Stagg).
District 11 (6): Lockport, Oswego, Oswego (East), Plainfield (East), Plainfield (North), Plainfield (South)
District 12 (6): Belleville (East), Edwardsville, Joliet (Central), Joliet (West), Minooka, O’Fallon
Class 7A- 13 Districts, 68 Teams
District 1 (5): Moline, Rockford (Auburn), Rockford (East), Rockton (Hononegah), Rockford (Guliford)
District 2 (5): Algonquin (Jacobs), DeKalb, Round Lake, Fox Lake (Grant), McHenry
District 3 (6): Buffalo Grove, Highland Park, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Mundelein, Northbrook (Glenbrook North)
District 4 (5): Arlington Heights (Hersey), Des Plaines (Maine West), Mount Prospect, Park Ridge (Maine East), Skokie (Niles North).
District 5 (5): Addison (Trail), Elk Grove Village, Chicago (Lincoln Park), Hillside (Proviso West), Maywood (Proviso East)
District 6 (6): Elgin (Larkin), Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, St. Charles (North), Schaumburg, Streamwood.
District 7 (5): Batavia, Geneva, West Chicago, Wheaton (North), Wheaton (Warrenville South).
District 8 (5): Downers Grove North, LaGrange Park (Nazareth), Lisle (Benet), Villa Park (Willowbrook), Chicago (Mount Carmel)
District 9 (5): Romeoville, Plainfield (Central), New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central), New Lenox (Lincoln-Way West), Lansing (T.F. South)
District 10 (5): Blue Island (Eisenhower), Chicago (Von Steuben), Chicago (Hubbard), Summit (Argo), Chicago (Schurz)
District 11 (6): Oak Lawn (Community), South Holland (Thornwood), Tinley Park (Andrew)., Palos Heights (Shepard)., Harvey (Thornton), Burbank (Reavis)
District 12 (5): Bradley-Bourbonnais, Quincy, Normal (Community), Pekin, Yorkville
District 13 (5): Alton, Belleville (West), Collinsville, East St. Louis, Granite City
The only problem I keep seeing is winning percentage has to somehow be calculated Into the new setup or nothing is accomplished .For instance 8A district 2 Niles west would not win a district game.Even though Zion-Benton is on the way up a little Sam with them!I think most of us want to see the best compative districts they can have.
What is Nile Wests goals? Under my proposal districts are less than half your games now. So you maintain the flexibility to seek out the type of opponents you want for the other 5 games. Now it's unlikely a team who can't win a district game can make the playoffs, but I don't think that's an unrealistic outcome. Seems like NW will struggle to win games period, but certainly if enrollment is the primary classifier. Even when playing much smaller schools they've lost. Hard to make that competitive.
The other idea I kicked around in my head but could never figure out how to formulate cohesively is to create two distinct types of classes... Let's call it class C and class D.
Class D (District) is primarily a location, then enrollment/competetive, based system with a closed 8-9 game season with a 1-2 game district playoff to crown a district champ.
Class C (Championship) is a normal 9 game season with a state series competition like now, with probably 3 classes (small closed enrollment - ie "public only", small open enrollment, and large open enrollment). Teams would opt into this classification, and be seeded in the playoffs with a KPI like metric.
Just couldn't figure out how to make it clean since it involves teams opting into distinct classes, and it's hard to forecast what the split would be. But the hope being that all the top programs in each class opts up and you are left with a more competitively tired system and get much closer to naming a true state champ. The "have nots" can still play a regular season slate with the goal of playing for something, a district championship game.
Class D (District) is primarily a location, then enrollment/competetive, based system with a closed 8-9 game season with a 1-2 game district playoff to crown a district champ.
Class C (Championship) is a normal 9 game season with a state series competition like now, with probably 3 classes (small closed enrollment - ie "public only", small open enrollment, and large open enrollment). Teams would opt into this classification, and be seeded in the playoffs with a KPI like metric.
Just couldn't figure out how to make it clean since it involves teams opting into distinct classes, and it's hard to forecast what the split would be. But the hope being that all the top programs in each class opts up and you are left with a more competitively tired system and get much closer to naming a true state champ. The "have nots" can still play a regular season slate with the goal of playing for something, a district championship game.
Yea the most northern 8A schools ended up being a bit of a tough one. At the end of the day I definitely wasn't pulling out a ruler on all these, so to speak, and still had to just pull the trigger on some less than ideal splits. Often times groups of 4 or 7 would have made more sense geographically, but I had the stated goal of only 5 and 6 team districts, particular 5 team districts. On some of these groupings you could combine 2 or 3 districts and just split the difference between them all and have some schools pass each other to play another district school... But they all end up being pretty close, for the Chicago area schools at least.
Definitely a job for a computer and not a subjective human, haha.
Edit--I think subjectively I liked the Maine South-Loyola pairing, which influenced it a lot. One of Glenbrook, Loyola, or New Trier was the best option to go with that northernmost district 1. Glenview made the most sense of those three, but the natural replacement for them in district 3 was Ms, which lost that Loyola-MS pairing I liked so much, though I could have just shoehorned one of the Niles schools just as easily... End of Day someone was going to break awkwardly in that scenario, and in some ways I just made sure there were a few breaks so none necessarily stood out. Ended up with a similar situation with the south suburban 7A schools.
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ok,we have gone over this for many many years. and we have all agreed everyone public/private recruits otherwise you are not doing your job. and the tuition excuse is lame already. if they cannot afford or get bad grades they are going to transfer out anyway.
but, lets get facts straight.
private schools advantage = depth, this is the biggest factor in school discrepancies.
and we are talking 6a and below public schools v All private schools.
7a & 8a schools can sometimes get away with it just in pure numbers of kids in the hallways.
and that is relative to sport specifics not just football.
but, yes you are correct in that a lot of the area feeder programs can mimic their area hs. and the private schools do recruit these areas pretty heavily also. where the private schools have a better advantage of getting recruits is thru the catholic/private grade school teams.
now lets put this to rest and figure out how to determine competitive districts...
need to: district teams for competitiveness/ fbe/ school enroll/ general area location. travel should 60miles or less in most regions. few exceptions of course with more southernly teams v fbe/competition levels.
should be more like regions not districts. districts(regions) have to be determined by 60 mile radius
which cover and overlap entire state, so you have the flexibility in scheduling competitively within your area.
Montini,naz,Loyola,Rita,mt carmel,Brother rice,Niles notre dame. All should be 8A all the rest should lower.
You actually think MC and SR should be 8A?
Taking IHSA numbers from this year minus the multiplier.
Actual boys in the seats:
LA 1005
Marist 814
BR 694
MC 618
SR 575
First I hope someone floats a proposal to repeal this next year if the tentative districts are not published. If not then they have to treat everyone equally based upon students in the school and location. No gerrymandering.
The way I understand it there will be a matrix of how the payoffs will work.
Ex: D1#1 vs D5#4, D1#2 vs D5#3, D1#3 vs D5#2, and D1#4 vs D5#1 or something similar.
This matrix would not take in account for strength of each district or strength of total schedule. While the 1-32 playoff brackets did not take these issues into account (CPS schools) it went a long way to get the better teams into the semifinals. A lot better than the quads were.
IF this goes forward there has to be away to make weeks 1&2 count for something. I propose a hybrid system.
Scenario A: the top two teams from each district make the playoffs automatically. The first two weeks of the year still count for playoff points. The top two teams from districts plus the next 16 at large teams based upon playoff points get put into a pool of 32 and the brackets go as they are now done. Most of the 16 at large teams would still be the 3rd and 4th place district teams but this makes every game count.
Scenario B: same as above but top three teams from each district qualifies and there are only 8 at large teams.
The way I understand it there will be a matrix of how the payoffs will work.
Ex: D1#1 vs D5#4, D1#2 vs D5#3, D1#3 vs D5#2, and D1#4 vs D5#1 or something similar.
This matrix would not take in account for strength of each district or strength of total schedule. While the 1-32 playoff brackets did not take these issues into account (CPS schools) it went a long way to get the better teams into the semifinals. A lot better than the quads were.
IF this goes forward there has to be away to make weeks 1&2 count for something. I propose a hybrid system.
Scenario A: the top two teams from each district make the playoffs automatically. The first two weeks of the year still count for playoff points. The top two teams from districts plus the next 16 at large teams based upon playoff points get put into a pool of 32 and the brackets go as they are now done. Most of the 16 at large teams would still be the 3rd and 4th place district teams but this makes every game count.
Scenario B: same as above but top three teams from each district qualifies and there are only 8 at large teams.
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All.... According to the IHSA enrollments and classification cutoffs will be released in December preceding each two year cycle. So when district play starts in 2021 schools won't have that information until December 2020. That will also for schools who wait have them scrambling for scheduling their non con game(s). Ratsy
I like this a lot. Scenario A makes teams schedule teams that will be over .500 and not cream puffs the first two weeks.
60+ kids seems more in line with 8A than 7A. LWE is a bad example since that is not an apples to apples comparison. They have more kids than just about any other program in the state.
For comparison purposes Bolingbrook has 64 Varsity Players and H-F 62 Varsity Players per 8 to 18.com placing Mount Carmel and St. Rita right in line with them...one reason why I had them in 8A originally
Even if they slipped to 6A I think they would petition up to 7A. Looks like you put a lot of thought into your posting. Instead of a lot of lopsided first round games they will just happen in the regular season.
Here's a question...Would it be more fair to create 8 equal districts by class but have 8A and 7A determined by 2018 Varsity Football enrollment and classes 6A through 1a determined by total school enrollment?
Case in point...Bloom Township has 2948 kids and Lincoln Way East has 2902. Bloom has 34 Varsity Football Players and Lincoln Way East has 92. Is that fair? Doesn't seem like it.
So while I understand the concern about school enrollment from smaller private schools, I don't necessarily agree having a Mount Carmel or St. Rita in 7A and Bloom Township in 8A with half as many kids.
Once one gets down to classes 6A and below, I would say most Varsity programs run out 22-35 players or so? I know there are some exceptions but as a general rule that maybe seems correct? So Varsity Football enrollment doesn't matter as much once we get past 7A and 8A.
It matters greatly though in 8A and 7A.
Just a thought on my part to more fairly balance the classes with a simple and objective measurement.
Case in point...Bloom Township has 2948 kids and Lincoln Way East has 2902. Bloom has 34 Varsity Football Players and Lincoln Way East has 92. Is that fair? Doesn't seem like it.
So while I understand the concern about school enrollment from smaller private schools, I don't necessarily agree having a Mount Carmel or St. Rita in 7A and Bloom Township in 8A with half as many kids.
Once one gets down to classes 6A and below, I would say most Varsity programs run out 22-35 players or so? I know there are some exceptions but as a general rule that maybe seems correct? So Varsity Football enrollment doesn't matter as much once we get past 7A and 8A.
It matters greatly though in 8A and 7A.
Just a thought on my part to more fairly balance the classes with a simple and objective measurement.
Give me the right 34 players and I'll win a lot of games. As far as LWE how many of those 92 players actually saw playing time vs Loyola? How many of the guys on MC and SR saw quality minutes in close games? Between wrestling, baseball, and hockey there are probably 20 kids on their rosters for whom football is their hobby sport, Playing football in the CCL is a right of passage for many legacy families. Everyone here is looking at this thru the prism of their own life experiences. I've only seen a couple of posts that are really off the wall. A lot of ideas for the IHSA. I hope the IHSA has people reading all of the posts here not just the ones that support how they want to do this. But no matter how they break up the state there will be winners and losers.
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Rosters a very difficult to find accurate counts because a lot of teams do not have sophmore teams so they count as rostered players on varsity.Im also hearing most schools are not put sophmore teams out.A team like HF now could have 100 varsity players.
Agree on the winners and losers part which we have right now. Your point on the right 34 guys is true too...case in point is Joliet Catholic. I'm not sure how many sophomores and freshmen they pulled up for the playoffs but they were listed at right around 50 guys minus the 15 or so sophomores and freshmen included in that number for the 5A title game. They beat a Montini team that went toe to toe with Loyola (I know not the same Loyola team as by the end of the season but still quite impressive on their part).
I still do feel that it does help to have those higher varsity player numbers for football when it comes to depth and competition at practice.
With that being said it also comes down to having the right 2900 or however many kids in your school too. If your community comes from an area where a higher percentage of those kids feeding into your school have played sports in feeder programs prior to getting to high school such as Lincoln Way East, it can lead to that 2900 figure seeming more like 5000 than at Bloom where maybe most of those 2900 kids are playing their sport for the first time when they get to high school and that 2900 figure seems like 1500.
Likewise if most of those players on a team like Mt. Carmel have played youth football prior, than that is going to factor into the equation as well. While Mt. Carmel only has 618 boys, 10% of the entire school plays Varsity Football as well as most of that 10% having played youth football. If that were the case at Bloom for example, Bloom would have 145 Varsity Football players which we know isn't the case. I don't have a solution for how you fix that, but I'm just pointing out that it also isn't an apples to apples comparison.
Like you said the IHSA has a lot to look at with this proposal, but I just think it has to be based on more than just enrollment and geography.
That is true so maybe you would need to look at non-freshmen participation since freshmen playing on Varsity is still pretty rare no matter where you go.
8 to 18 is pretty accurate though for the SWSC and I don't think a lot of the Bolingbrook, H-F, and LWE listed on there were sophomores when I checked.
I’m hearing this the first season for a lot of schools with no soph team.Could you imagine. Watching LWE vs Stevenson week 2.They potentially could have 125 man varsity roster on each sidelines.
This year LWE would have had 157 on the sidelines if the soph's suited with the varsity. Stevenson would be out manned somewhat. But the two bands are huge. 2 bands & 2 football teams - that's a lot of kids.
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I'm warming to the idea of some kind of "success factor" for all schools, whether they be boundaried or non-boundaried. We hear about schools who, for whatever reason, don't "play to their size". When they choose to be in conferences, they can play against other schools that are at the same level of competitiveness, even if they are not even close to the same size.
In football, Maine East and West Chicago immediately come to mind. WeGo is about the same size as the Wheatons, Geneva, Batavia, and St. Charles North. It might end up being in the same 7A district as them. But over the years it has become clear that it cannot compete with them in football. There ought to be a way to drop a school like WeGo in class, using a formula based on recent history, so it can be competitive in the regular season, much less have a shot at a State series.
Maybe it is more of a smaller school issue, but sometimes you just have to take into account what the student body's sports preference is when they don't seem to "play to their size", Sometimes the kids just prefer a different sport. Wilmington, for example, has been competitive with the bigger schools in football in the I-8 in part because the other fall sports are generally non-competitive. There will be years where the Wildcats will have 30+ freshmen play football, while a total of 8-10 kids play golf and less than 15 play soccer. Manteno, neighbors to the east, has 200ish more kids in school, but will field a full soccer program with 20+ varsity kids and 30+ f/s kids, and a cross country team, and a deeper golf team. Wilmo is happy to field a soccer team, Manteno wants deep state tourney runs - Herscher and Peotone are more like Manteno, seeking to be good in both, but it is going to be harder to do as their enrollments have dropped about 200 kids in the last six or seven years.
I've read several times on different posts here that one of the reasons Cicero-Morton, one of the biggest schools in the IHSA, isn't very good at football is because their student body has a significant Hispanic population which prefers soccer. This happens all over. Gilman Iroquois West, which won the 2A title in 2003, hasn't been very competitive since then in football. Their soccer team, however, has become pretty good - including a player who led the country in goal scoring in 2018...
But do you success factor Wilmington because the kids prefer football? It is kind of like the "helmet count" theory some have used. In the smaller schools, it would penalize the schools that don't water down their programs - they only play football / basketball / track, no cuts, so they have larger numbers than the diversifying schools...But it might be needed if you want to allow some larger school programs to be more competitive, like Bloom...
