I'm not a fan of enrollment or points deciding where teams are seeded into the playoffs.
The playoffs should be broken up into the grade of your league, plus an Open Division for those who want to test the waters of the West Catholic Athletic League.
Because right now points are what get teams into the playoffs. An 'A' caliber league gets more points than a 'B' or 'C' league, as does facing an 'A' caliber opponent.
An 'A' league team only needs five wins to make the playoffs. Seven wins from a 'B' league team likely won't get them into the playoffs if they don't finish in the top two in their league.
John Devine has been writing about high school sports in Monterey County since, well, practically since he was an athlete at King City in the days just after leather helmets. In PrepNation, John has even more in-depth analysis of the latest results and news he's brought to you in The Herald and in his weekly videos.
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2 comments:
Agree with you.
And I'd add this to it.
There should be a bettwer way to determine the value of a win. (A win over any team gets you two points...at tie gets you one point.) Seaside scheduled Atascadero, Palma and Salinas...three teams ranked in the top 200 in the state. Greenfield scheduled Avenal, Pajaro Valley and Harbor...three teams ranked in the bottom 1,000 (out of 1,063) teams in the state. When Greenfield wins all their games they get 6 points. If Seaside loses to Palma then they end up with 2 points for their victory over Salinas but 0 win points losses to Palma and Atascadero. I think CCS has to embrace the advances in technology represented by the calpreps.com rankings and assign win (and tie) points based on where an opponent is ranked in the state rankings at the end of the regular season. If you schedule a team in the top 200 and beat them you get 2 points...a win versus a team ranked between 201 and 400 equals 1.75 ponts...a win over a team between 401 and 600 is 1.5 points...a win over any team ranked between 601 and 800 is 1.25 points...and then 1 point for a win over any team ranked higher than 800.
Furthermore, as you point out, a team that is in an A league accumulates a lot of points simply for playing their league schedule. How about you get points for only the three toughest non-league opponents you schedule? And no "show up to play points" for your other 7 games. So if you schedule 3 A league teams you get 3 points...2 A league teams and one B league team would be 2.5 points...2 A league teams and one C league teams gets you 2 points...3 B league teams equals 1.5 points...etc.
Further, go to what has been suggested to the CCS of structuring CCS as 4 A leagues, 4 B leagues and 4 C leagues.
But ultimately I'm afraid you still have to structure the CCS play-offs on the basis of enrollments. Simply because the state bowls are structured on enrollment also. Until they change the way the state bowls are selected, I think this is the only way to go. (In my opinion there should be consideration to separate bowl divisions for public and private, along with an Open Bowl that allows the best of the privates to compete with the best of the publics.)
The whole CA playoff system rings hollow to me. No true state championship only a beauty contest masquerading as one. How can Texas have legitimate championships in 6-man up to super 5A and CA has zip? Population? Play fewer non-league games and add more sections. The travel wouldn't be much more than now as the "long" road trip would only be to the state championship.
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