The IHSA Hunger Games

[stonedlizard]

Because it's August, football is around the corner, and I'm still convinced I've solved the public vs private debate once and for all. It's time to Make America Great Again. I've rebranded, revamped, and am reintroducing the IHSA Best of the Best Bowl aka the IHSA Hunger Games.

How it works...

• Football moves to 7 standard enrollment (+multiplier) based classes and one open Best of the Best class - the Hunger Games class
• Teams that meet the "success factor" with normal enrollment in class 4A-8A automatically added to Best of the Best class for two years - this year it would be Montini and SHG
• Success Factor applies to public and private schools - welcome to the big leagues Rochester
• All other teams can opt in to the Best of the Best class prior to start of season
• Top 32 Opt In teams - by combination of DSR (+Edgy), AP, and Massey rankings - are seeded and will compete in the Best of the Best Hunger Games. No minimum wins needed
• Opt in teams seeded 33+ fall out of Hunger Games and into the standard 1-7A playoff pool and eligibility rules

The Where and When...

• All Best of the Best Bowl Hunger Games playoff games are played on Saturday nights, 1-7A on Fridays and Saturday afternoons - we're putting the pig skin on a pedestal
• Higher seed is Home team for all rounds
• Best of the Best Bowl finals are played in neutral stadiums not named Soldier Field or UofI Memorial

The Why....

• We're opening up the books - you opt in and make the Best of the Best Bowl Hunger Game playoff series and you earn higher share of revenue for Best of the Best Bowl playoff games (and oh baby, will there be some $$)
• The revolution will be televised - Quarterfinal, Semis and Finals televised with portion of ad revenue going to schools participating in said game
• Honor, Glory, Prestige Worldwide! - The ultimate champion will literally be "The Best of the Best"
• Are you f*!$#(@^ kidding me? Who wouldn't want this?

Is your school in or out?

 

[stonedlizard]

For the millions wondering, if implemented this year, the following schools would get promoted to the Best of the Best class. A tremendous recognition in it's own right...

Rochester - 4A Title in '12 '13 '14
Phillips - 4A Title in '15 4A Runner up in '14
Montini - 5A Title in '12 '13 5A Runner up in '14
SHG - 5A Title in '13 '14
Crete-Monee - 6A Title in '12 6A Runner up in '15
Glenbard West - 7A Title in '12 '15
Loyola - 8A Title in '15 8A Runner up in '13

Who else joins?

 

[Cat Box]

Point of clarification...
Is the Best of the Best class for playoffs only? Teams still play their 9-game regular season in their affiliated conference, right? This is just an elite playoff system - does not effect regular season, correct?

 

[stonedlizard]

@Cat Box playoffs only. Regular season stays the same. One key point - Best of the Best class doesn't have a minimum win requirement to qualify. So a 4-5 CCL Blue team may end up making the BoB top 32 depending on how the field is ranked.

 

[Voodoo Tatum 21]

Very interesting!!

Lizard - besides your automatic qualifiers listed above that were put into the "Best of the Best" what other teams would go in there? You mentioned Teams could request in/"opt in", but what happens if not enough teams want to "opt in"? do the highest ranked teams get "forced in"

Would be interesting to see what that "best of the best" top 32 would have looked like last fall in 2015

Two Concerns:
1. There were some pretty low seeds (20 to 30 seeds) in 8A that made deep runs last year,... but even if they opted in - I doubt they would have made the Best of the Best top 32 average ranking AP/Edgy/Massey at the end of the regular season to qualify for the Hunger Games!!

2. Everyone would be watching the Hunger Games!! and it would totally devalue the other 7 "also ran" playoff divisions 1A thru 7A. Those "state champions" would feel like participation trophies since all the "Best of the Best" were sucked out of the each division.

Could do it like Soccer and have the Premiership Division, the Championship Division and the Rookie Division and dump all the classifications. East St. Louis has the right idea - "we good enough to compete and we want to compete against the best" we volunteering to move up from 6A to 7A"

Could get all those "Powers" in 4A/5A/6A to volunteer to move up to 7A and 8A and have two power divisions and hold two Hunger Games. .

 

[stonedlizard]

Very interesting!!

Lizard - besides your automatic qualifiers listed above that were put into the "Best of the Best" what other teams would go in there? You mentioned Teams could request in/"opt in", but what happens if not enough teams want to "opt in"? do the highest ranked teams get "forced in"

Would be interesting to see what that "best of the best" top 32 would have looked like last fall in 2015

Two Concerns:
1. There were some pretty low seeds (20 to 30 seeds) in 8A that made deep runs last year,... but even if they opted in - I doubt they would have made the Best of the Best top 32 average ranking AP/Edgy/Massey at the end of the regular season to qualify for the Hunger Games!!

2. Everyone would be watching the Hunger Games!! and it would totally devalue the other 7 "also ran" playoff divisions 1A thru 7A. Those "state champions" would feel like participation trophies since all the "Best of the Best" were sucked out of the each division.

Could do it like Soccer and have the Premiership Division, the Championship Division and the Rookie Division and dump all the classifications. East St. Louis has the right idea - "we good enough to compete and we want to compete against the best" we volunteering to move up from 6A to 7A"

Could get all those "Powers" in 4A/5A/6A to volunteer to move up to 7A and 8A and have two power divisions and hold two Hunger Games. .

I would ultimately love to move back to fewer classes, though I don't see that happening and was attempting to sate the masses. The Premier league was one of the basis' for this thought though.

Few additional thoughts:

• The hope is that eventually everyone wants to opt in, at least the top 5-8A teams (more$$ afterall), but some years you may only get 8-16. In those cases, the best of the best Bowl series simply has a smaller field of participants
• 20-30 seeded team in current 8A who can't crack the Best of the Best top 32 means they fall back to to-be 7A playoffs. Schedule tougher regular seasons, increase your SOS, win more games. No cakewalks here
• 1-3A remains roughly the same anyway, those schools don't get automatically promoted in, and would likely never opt in nor reach the top 32 if they did. Net neutral to this group
• 4-6A would hope to have most of the top privates and publics opt in. For those that don't - I'm looking at you Washington - they're already trying to force out the privates to win a deluded championship. I'd imagine they'd welcome this.

 

[Voodoo Tatum 21]

I would ultimately love to move back to fewer classes, though I don't see that happening and was attempting to sate the masses. The Premier league was one of the basis' for this thought though.

Few additional thoughts:

• The hope is that eventually everyone wants to opt in, at least the top 5-8A teams (more$$ afterall), but some years you may only get 8-16. In those cases, the best of the best Bowl series simply has a smaller field of participants
• 20-30 seeded team in current 8A who can't crack the Best of the Best top 32 means they fall back to to-be 7A playoffs. Schedule tougher regular seasons, increase your SOS, win more games. No cakewalks here
• 1-3A remains roughly the same anyway, those schools don't get automatically promoted in, and would likely never opt in nor reach the top 32 if they did. Net neutral to this group
• 4-6A would hope to have most of the top privates and publics opt in. For those that don't - I'm looking at you Washington - they're already trying to force out the privates to win a deluded championship. I'd imagine they'd welcome this

Fantastic! Maybe the "Opt in" is done in week 9 at the end of the regular season? Teams that are young learn a lot about themselves during the season and also can gut check their team's status on the injury bug front.

 

[HHSTigerFan]

And why would Rochester want to do this? What a stupid idea

 

[stonedlizard]

 

[Cross Bones]

I was going to ask the same thing. Why would a small public school want to? An open class does sound fun and is fun to think about though. However, if I have 1200 students and the class of a decade for my school what is the draw to go up against and lose to a school of 3200 with their typical class?

 

[stonedlizard]

I was going to ask the same thing. Why would a small public school want to? An open class does sound fun and is fun to think about though. However, if I have 1200 students and the class of a decade for my school what is the draw to go up against and lose to a school of 3200 with their typical class?

It's a fair point, perhaps you make it a 5A and above success promotion to the open class for 2 years while the 4A and below schools just get bumped a class in the 1-7A levels. Keep in mind though that that "once in a decade" class would have had two meet the success promotion criteria from prior years of winning to automatically be pushed in.

...But back to thinking about the positive side, how about the scores that could be settled! Who opts in?

 

[Cross Bones]

It's a fair point, perhaps you make it a 5A and above success promotion to the open class for 2 years while the 4A and below schools just get bumped a class in the 1-7A levels. Keep in mind though that that "once in a decade" class would have had two meet the success promotion criteria from prior years of winning to automatically be pushed in.

...But back to thinking about the positive side, how about the scores that could be settled! Who opts in?

East St. Louis is the only school I think would opt into it.

 

[mship1975]

And why would Rochester want to do this? What a stupid idea

Rochester will be 5A this year or next for playoffs I would guess. At rate of growth they aren't stopping there. I believe they are currently classified in low 5A

 

[go dogz]

Rochester will be 5A this year or next for playoffs I would guess. At rate of growth they aren't stopping there. I believe they are currently classified in low 5A

Because it's August, football is around the corner, and I'm still convinced I've solved the public vs private debate once and for all. It's time to Make America Great Again. I've rebranded, revamped, and am reintroducing the IHSA Best of the Best Bowl aka the IHSA Hunger Games.

How it works...

• Football moves to 7 standard enrollment (+multiplier) based classes and one open Best of the Best class - the Hunger Games class
• Teams that meet the "success factor" with normal enrollment in class 4A-8A automatically added to Best of the Best class for two years - this year it would be Montini and SHG
• Success Factor applies to public and private schools - welcome to the big leagues Rochester
• All other teams can opt in to the Best of the Best class prior to start of season
• Top 32 Opt In teams - by combination of DSR (+Edgy), AP, and Massey rankings - are seeded and will compete in the Best of the Best Hunger Games. No minimum wins needed
• Opt in teams seeded 33+ fall out of Hunger Games and into the standard 1-7A playoff pool and eligibility rules

The Where and When...

• All Best of the Best Bowl Hunger Games playoff games are played on Saturday nights, 1-7A on Fridays and Saturday afternoons - we're putting the pig skin on a pedestal
• Higher seed is Home team for all rounds
• Best of the Best Bowl finals are played in neutral stadiums not named Soldier Field or UofI Memorial

The Why....

• We're opening up the books - you opt in and make the Best of the Best Bowl Hunger Game playoff series and you earn higher share of revenue for Best of the Best Bowl playoff games (and oh baby, will there be some $$)
• The revolution will be televised - Quarterfinal, Semis and Finals televised with portion of ad revenue going to schools participating in said game
• Honor, Glory, Prestige Worldwide! - The ultimate champion will literally be "The Best of the Best"
• Are you f*!$#(@^ kidding me? Who wouldn't want this?

Is your school in or out?

I like it personally, a few years back 2007ish I suggested the same thing and I am 100% sure it has been discussed before that. But, we are coming up on 10years now, so if we keep it verbalized into the heads of the ihsa. it will become an openly discussed topic idea. and could become a reality in the next 5years or so. now even more so it makes sense because they are discussing the splitting of public/private and other ideas of making it more of an even playing field.
this kills two birds with one stone(lizard)

 

[stonedlizard]

East St. Louis is the only school I think would opt into it.

I feel if you could prove out a higher revenue potential for the playoffs, you'd get privates opting in. You add the top end privates to the forced in schools above and ESL and you have some momentum building.

Anyone know the details of how revenue distribution works for IHSA playoffs currently? Memory's a bit hazy on the workings.