The best IHSA Football playoff formula

[33corndog33]

This should be the new playoff formula for IHSA football. This formula will create better pairings. This factors in record, strength of schedule, and tie breakers.

Formula
1. Regular season record. Take wins then subtract losses 8-1 record = 7 points... you get the idea.
2. Add Playoff Points, just like the IHSA uses now.
3. Add Defeated opponent wins.
4. If any teams are tied for playoff points from above, then the team with more wins gets the higher seed.
5. If there is still a tie, then the team with the fewest regular season points allowed gets the higher seed.

Here are the pairings for 8a using this formula. The formula gives us the top 32 teams.

1. LA (107 points)
32. Niles West (46 points)

16. Bellville East (68 )
17. Glenbard West (67)

8. York ((76)
25. St. Ignatius (62)

9. South Elgin (73)
24. Oswego (62)

4. Edwardsville (84)
29. Aurora East (57)

13. HF (71)
20. Taft (66)

5. Warren (84)
28. Algonquin Jacobs (57)

12. Palatine (72)
21. Joliet West (64)

2. LWE (105)
31. Chicago Lane (48)

15. Stevenson (68)
18. Sandburg (67)

7. Maine South (76)
26. Minooka (61)

10. Lockport (73)
23. Naperville North (63)

3. Barrington (91)
30. West Aurora (53)

14. Naperville Central (68)
19. Downers South (66)

6. Neuqua Valley (79)
27. LaGrange Lyons (59)

11. Huntley (72)
22. Plainfield North (64)

With the formula from above there will be some ties with points. For example, Naperville C, Stevenson, and Belleville East all had 68 points. With a tie like this, the fewest regular season points allowed gives you the better seed. in this case Naperville C allowed 112 points giving them the higher seed.

 

[stripes13]

Coaches + Edgy + Soucie + Michael O'Brien + Quags + Randy Kindred + guys from the other parts of the state.

There's your "committee." Boom. You're welcome.

You each owe me $15 for making life easier. DM me for the Venmo.

 

[Wittymoniker1]

Was wondering if you can do 7A. I know Rita was 5-4 entering Week 10, but she had one of the toughest schedules in state. Or, at least, what seed Rita would've been under your system.

 

[33corndog33]

Was wondering if you can do 7A. I know Rita was 5-4 entering Week 10, but she had one of the toughest schedules in state. Or, at least, what seed Rita would've been under your system.

St. Rita would have 82 points based on this formula which would put them around a 5 to 9 seed. Im guessing on the seed since I haven't calculated 7a yet.

 

[Wittymoniker1]

St. Rita would have 82 points based on this formula which would put them around a 5 to 9 seed. Im guessing on the seed since I haven't calculated 7a yet.

Wow! Very high for a 5-4 team.

 

[Formicidae13]

This is a good start but needs two corrections in my opinion.
First of all, it seems better to go just off of wins rather than subtracting losses from the wins. Doing so would leave an 8-0 team that did not try to find a week 9 game better off than an 8-1 team that played week 9, for instance.
Secondly, playoff points needs to be altered. You should not count games that a team played in for the playoff points or else it gives teams points for losing. Example: A 9-0 team would receive zero playoff points for the games they played in, but a 5-4 team would receive 4 points for losing. The reason playoff points work in their current iteration is it only compares teams will equal win totals.

 

[4Afan]

Coaches + Edgy + Soucie + Michael O'Brien + Quags + Randy Kindred + guys from the other parts of the state.

There's your "committee." Boom. You're welcome.

You each owe me $15 for making life easier. DM me for the Venmo.

What coaches would ever volunteer for this? Edgy and Soucie have crazy schedules as it is, now they're going to go evaluate downstate teams on a weekly basis?

 

[stripes13]

What coaches would ever volunteer for this? Edgy and Soucie have crazy schedules as it is, now they're going to go evaluate downstate teams on a weekly basis?

Every other sport has coaches rank teams to seed for the playoffs.

 

[EdgyTim]

What coaches would ever volunteer for this? Edgy and Soucie have crazy schedules as it is, now they're going to go evaluate downstate teams on a weekly basis?

Um……never mind.

 

[mc140]

Every other sport has coaches rank teams to seed for the playoffs.

In a sectional that is known for months. Yet still many are awful at it or don't even bother to submit seeds.

 

[USD24]

Coaches + Edgy + Soucie + Michael O'Brien + Quags + Randy Kindred + guys from the other parts of the state.

There's your "committee." Boom. You're welcome.

You each owe me $15 for making life easier. DM me for the Venmo.

Michael O'Brien wouldnt know a football if he tripped over it. He needs to stick to hoops.

 

[tomloner]

Strength of schedule has to be taken in account but it can be very subjective. One needs to look no farther than Nazareth Academy at (4-5). They beat 9-0 Prairie Ridge, 9-1 Glenbard South, 10-1 Carmel of Mundelein, and 10-2 Wheaton St. Francis.

 

[4Afan]

I don't get why everyone is trying to fix the system. The IHSA playoff system isn't perfect by any means but has there ever been a year where the best team didn't get a chance to compete for the title?

People asking for a committee like its D1 college football are crazy. The IHSA system is as transparent and straight forward as you can get. Teams know what they need to do to make the playoffs from day 1 in the summer. The only question for certain schools on the border in regards to size is what class they will end up in.

If this is coming from certain teams continually winning then, if anything, apply a success factor across the board. Make the semi's in two consecutive year and you move up a class.

 

[Snetsrak61]

I don't get why everyone is trying to fix the system. The IHSA playoff system isn't perfect by any means but has there ever been a year where the best team didn't get a chance to compete for the title?

People asking for a committee like its D1 college football are crazy. The IHSA system is as transparent and straight forward as you can get. Teams know what they need to do to make the playoffs from day 1 in the summer. The only question for certain schools on the border in regards to size is what class they will end up in.

If this is coming from certain teams continually winning then, if anything, apply a success factor across the board. Make the semi's in two consecutive year and you move up a class.

Yea I tend to agree. I think changes to seeding are probably the most realistic thing. But depending on how the continued districts vote go I'd suggest the change needed is a opt in district system. Two tiered system and district tier can attempt to experiment and refine other issues while the open/conference version stays basically as it is today.

 

[ramblinman]

Seeding isn't as broken as classification. Belleville East beat up on Aurora East 70-0 in round one this year. How badly do you think that Edwardsville would beat up on AE in your system? You are just trading one beat down for another.

 

[Snetsrak61]

Seeding isn't as broken as classification. Belleville East beat up on Aurora East 70-0 in round one this year. How badly do you think that Edwardsville would beat up on AE in your system? You are just trading one beat down for another.

And if the fields are gonna go 32 deep there really isn't anyway to fix classifications either in regards to blow outs.

 

[4Afan]

Seeding isn't as broken as classification. Belleville East beat up on Aurora East 70-0 in round one this year. How badly do you think that Edwardsville would beat up on AE in your system? You are just trading one beat down for another.

I was wondering when you and your one string guitar would chime in on the matter. There is no solution for your obsession with blowouts. You want change, but don't have any solution and whatever hypothetical change may happen in the future would still create blowouts. You want less blowouts, then let only the top 4 from each class play for the title.

It's not exclusive to Illinois, it can't be fixed with changing the classification. The issue throughout the country with high school football is there is no parity. You can look at neighboring states like Iowa or Indiana or the top states like Texas and if you look at their playoff results there are just as many blowouts in the first round.

All things are not equal across the board, privates have a larger area to draw kids from, publics have better and worse communities creating better programs. Even in smaller classes some teams have 50-60 kids and some teams are lucky to have 30 kids.

 

[ramblinman]

And if the fields are gonna go 32 deep there really isn't anyway to fix classifications either in regards to blow outs.

Yeah, there is. Drop schools like Aurora East and Taft down. Move schools like MC, Batavia, etc. up. The blow outs would be reduced.

 

[4Afan]

Yeah, there is. Drop schools like Aurora East and Taft down. Move schools like MC, Batavia, etc. up. The blow outs would be reduced.

Drop AE and Taft down to 3A and they get blown out by Byron just as much as they already did in 8A. Move MC up to 8A and they blow out Aurora West, like Edwardsville did.

It all goes back to lack of parity in high school football.

 

[ramblinman]

I was wondering when you and your one string guitar would chime in on the matter. There is no solution for your obsession with blowouts. You want change, but don't have any solution and whatever hypothetical change may happen in the future would still create blowouts. You want less blowouts, then let only the top 4 from each class play for the title.

It's not exclusive to Illinois, it can't be fixed with changing the classification. The issue throughout the country with high school football is there is no parity. You can look at neighboring states like Iowa or Indiana or the top states like Texas and if you look at their playoff results there are just as many blowouts in the first round.

All things are not equal across the board, privates have a larger area to draw kids from, publics have better and worse communities creating better programs. Even in smaller classes some teams have 50-60 kids and some teams are lucky to have 30 kids.

My solution would reduce blowouts, not eliminate them. It would make for more evenly balanced classes. I realize that you prefer the woefully imbalanced status quo.

 

[ramblinman]

Drop AE and Taft down to 3A and they get blown out by Byron just as much as they already did in 8A. Move MC up to 8A and they blow out Aurora West, like Edwardsville did.

It all goes back to lack of parity in high school football.

In the unlikely event that Byron would play East Aurora or Taft in the playoffs the way I envision them, it would not be in 3A.

What it all goes back to is class expansion and 32 team brackets.

 

[doctor_d]

And if the fields are gonna go 32 deep there really isn't anyway to fix classifications either in regards to blow outs.

Agree.
Way too big a discrepancy between the top teams and the mediocre, let alone the truly bad. Would need 8 teams per class to have competitive brackets throughout all the classes. Even then, the very best teams would still have their share of 4+ score wins.

 

[4Afan]

My solution would reduce blowouts, not eliminate them. It would make for more evenly balanced classes. I realize that you prefer the woefully imbalanced status quo.

Your solution is hypothetical so you can't definitively say it would reduce blowouts.

As I said, it's a lack of parity, no matter how you divide up the classes. There are ~500 football playing schools in Illinois and 256 make the playoffs and in any given year across all classes there are approximately 30 teams that have a realistic chance to win a title. That's less thank 10% of all football playing schools with a chance to win a championship. Those numbers aren't conducive to competitive playoffs from start to finish. As it is 8 out of 16 semifinal games this year were 3 scores or more this year.

 

[doctor_d]

The most realistic goal is to have a handful of teams in each class that are contenders, while maintaining a certain level of quality of play.
If you pilfer the lower levels of all the best teams, you’d be making a mockery of the smaller classes. There would still be a sizable number of blowouts too.
Worrying about blowouts involving non contenders is like worrying about the dishes not being done when the water heater just sprung a leak.

 

[Sparty Jones]

Why does anyone care about blowouts in the first round? Reserves get to play, some teams get a rare trip to the playoffs, seniors get one last hurrah, and other good reasons. Please look at every other sport on the IHSA and their regionals. Blowouts galore. Who cares?