« 9/22 scores | Main | 9/23 scores »
Football playoff brackets
By Joboo | September 23, 2008
MSHSAA has posted their football playoff brackets for 2008. With this being the first year for the added round of playoffs, I was very interested to see how they were going to be arranged, what possible effect they might have, and if any general weirdness would ensue. As I started to examine them, it was really quite boring. Classes 1-4 all follow a similar format and nothing seemed controversial at all. But just as I was starting to think I would have nothing to write about, I brought up the class 5 bracket. Jackpot.
For the most part, everything is pretty straight-forward and makes sense. The exception being class 5. I’ll get to that later. The schedule is as follows. Classes 1-5 will have a regional round played on Wednesday Nov 5th, sectionals on Monday Nov 10th, and quarterfinals on Saturday Nov 15th. Class 6 will start with sectionals on Friday Nov 7th then play quarterfinals on the next Friday, Nov 14th. Classes 1-4 will play their semifinals on Saturday Nov 22nd with semis in classes 5 & 6 being played on Friday the 21st. And championships are on the 28th and 29th. Classes 1, 3, & 5 on the 28th, 2, 4, & 6 on the 29th.
Now for the matchups. Let’s start with the easy stuff, with is everything but class 5. 16 districts in classes 1-4, 8 in class 6. The winner of each district gets to host the first round game and plays the second place team from a district they’ve been paired with. So for example. Districts 1 & 2 are paired up. The winner of district 1 will host the first round game against the second place team from district 2. While the winner of district 2 will host and play the second place team in district 1. Easy, right? The only real drawback is that some teams could see some serious travel time for the first round games. The intriguing part is that we could see the huge district clashes (such as Webb City/Carthage or Miller/Thayer) replayed in the second round of the playoffs. Cool. In a couple of weeks, we’ll take a look at potential playoff scenarios to see how this really effects all the teams.
Now, class 5. The heart of the issues is class 5 is that there are 11 districts. 11. That makes it impossible to build a totally fair bracket. What they ended up with is surely frosting someones buttons. And it’s the members of district 5. Of the 11 district winners, 10 move directly into the quarterfinals. The winner of district 5, featuring Holt and Timberland both of which are receiving votes in the latest state poll, gets to host an extra game the other district winners don’t have to. And doesn’t receive the off week to prepare for their next opponent and get healthy. Of the 10 that move into the quarters, 4 have to play each other. The winners of districts 1 & 2, and the winners of districts 10 & 11 with districts 2 & 11 getting to host. The winner of district 6 (Camdenton, Lebanon, Rolla, Waynesville) gets the winner of the district 5 champ and the district 4 runner up but may not host the game. The other 5 remaining district winners will host the winners of games between the other second place finishers.
Wow! It looks like a mess and it is a mess. But in reality, this is about the best they could do without some sort of system for seeding the teams. In reality it’s a 32 team bracket minus 10 teams. And it appears to the naked eye that they decided on district 5 based on it being so close to the district 4 teams. There is no perfect way of doing this, and it appears they’ve kept the craziness isolated to only class 5.
There are still questions to be answered. Most notably the method for determining home field in the second and subsequent rounds. Do district winners get to host over 2nd place teams? What about when district winners or runners up meet? Will it be an ‘every other year’ or ‘who has had the fewest home games’ decision? And will there be any changes for next year? Hmmm….
If nothing else, MSHSAA accomplished their goal of getting the second place team in the playoffs. But they also managed to generate a good deal of talk and a wee bit of controversy for high school football too. Like it didn’t get enough attention already.
Topics: Football |