Were you like me as a child? Would you only eat fried bologna and pancakes for long stretches of time? I did that, but invariably, some adult would force me to eat leafy, dirty, green junk. Mom would insist I needed to eat spinach so I would get vitamins in my system and have, uh, smoothly-working plumbing. Now, what does that have to do with football? Very little. Almost nothing actually. It's a total reach in every way and an awful way to start things.
When the new school year begins in August, so too will the new five classification athletic system in South Carolina. For decades, our state has had four athletic classes, but member schools said in a nearly unanimous voice last year that it was time for a change. Going to five classes accomplishes a couple of things, mainly reducing the difference in student enrollment between the smallest and largest schools in each class. Right now, there are 52 teams in AAAA, AAA and AA and 51 in Class A. In AAAA, the classification for the state's largest schools, Wando is at the top of the list with more than 4,000 students, giving them 2,500 more students than the smallest AAAA teams. The difference isn't as extreme in the other three classes, but generally the largest schools in each class are roughly twice the size of the smallest, creating a competitive disadvantage. Going to five classes bridges that gap somewhat. The move also pushes all the private and charter schools that currently populate Class A up to AA. Class A public schools have complained for years that their non-public counterparts have a bevy of built-in advantages, including the lack of fixed attendance lines, the ability to cap enrollment (insuring they remain in Class A) and the ability to recruit and offer scholarships. That has manifested itself in non-public schools winning about two-thirds of all state championships in Class A in recent years, despite making up only a small portion of the class's membership. Because all the private and charter schools are near the top of Class A in terms of enrollment, they'll all go up to AA, where they will face competition that is better able to compete with them than in Class A, whose schools are the smallest and often poorest in the state. Now that the move to five classes is on the horizon, more work still has to be done. For example, a playoff format for each of the five classes has to be devised. I frankly don't care about what AA, AAA, AAAA and AAAAA do. They can pick teams with rock, paper, scissors or something. We're here to focus on Class A. Apparently, the most popular idea right now is for 24 teams (Class A will now have 41 schools) to make the post-season in all sports. How those 24 will be chosen is still up in the air. There will be six regions, so an easy answer is just to take the top four teams from each region...6 x 4= 24. You give each region champ and two at-large teams first-round byes and everything falls into place. The problem with that, though, is that three of the new regions have eight teams, two have six and one has five. The eight team regions don't think its equitable for them to get the same number of playoff teams as five and six team regions. They want to get five each, with the smaller three getting three apiece. That plan is flawed too, though. In 2014, Great Falls started the year 7-0 in football, but they finished up with a pair of top-10 ranked teams (McBee and Lamar) and county rival Lewisville. They lost those three games to finish up 7-3, but were in fourth place in their region. They wouldn't have made it in the playoffs under the format the eight-team regions now want, but three-and-four-win teams from other regions, like McCormick or North, would have. With some regions stronger than others in different sports, that will likely be a regular occurrence. The point of the post-season is to reward the best teams, not the ones who happen to reside in a big region. I never thought I'd say this, it pains me to have these words come out of my mouth...but the best, fairest solution is a points system, the likes of which I've cursed and hated since they started. Right now, Class A has a points system that awards points for wins and losses. A win over a losing Class A school is worth one point, a win over a winning Class A school is worth 1.5 points and it climbs in half-point increments up to a win over a winning AAAA team. You get smaller point totals for losses on that same climbing scale and big bonus points for how you finish in your region. Since we have two Class A teams in the county I've always figured up the point totals statewide to see if Great Falls and Lewisville will make the playoffs and who they will face. I just love spending three hours every Wednesday going through the schedule of every Class A team in the state, taking into account that you can only count two games against AA, AAA and AAAA competition, including only one AAA and one AAAA game and that every other contest will simply be marked down as though it was against a Class A opponent...oh, and that you have to mark off two games at the end of the season and the mark-offs have to maximize your point total and that if you play a non-league team or one from out of state you have to get a signed letter from their principal verifying their enrollment, then determine what class they'd be in if they were in South Carolina and a member of the league. That sounds not-at-all convoluted and really fun doesn't it? And I'm SO good at math on top of that. Unfortunately, there is not a better measuring stick for playoff consideration. The current points formula does not allow a team to load up on AAA and AAAA competition out of region just to accrue points and insure a post-season slot. It makes all of a team's games count for something, where just taking a set number from each region does not. That makes non-region games completely meaningless. A points system does build in a reward for region finish. Even though it's a difficult thing for fans to keep track of and even though I loathe it, a points system is the way to go. A slight tweak might be in order. I think all six region champions should be given an automatic bye and seeded one through six based on their points total. The top two non-region winning teams in terms of points should get the last two byes (and be seeded seventh and eighth based on their points totals). Of the teams left, you take the top 16 and put them in a standard bracket. Once the first round ends, you re-seed, pitting the lowest seeded at-large team left against the number one overall team, the next lowest seed against number two and so on. I think the current upper and lower state brackets go out the window. That will make for some potentially long bus rides, but in the true sense there just aren't many Class A teams left in the upper part of the state. Most Class A school are in the midlands and lowcountry, so an upperstate bracket would be upperstate in name only. Throw everyone into the same pot and have one bracket. I think the plan above rewards a team's full body of work, maintains the importance of region play and puts the best teams in the playoffs without being made to consider something as arbitrary as region size. Like them or not (and I'm squarely in the "not" camp) points systems are an awful like the leafy greens mom made me eat...they lead to the best outcome.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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