New Postseason Format Proposal

[Jimbo23]

This is a common topic discussed on the GID with the most common option people are in favor of being that 6A and 1A have 32 teams each (32 largest and 32 smallest) and fill the middle in from there. I did just that and came up with 5 new-ish classes (6A stays the same). To keep this post as short as possible, I'm going to share the top 6 and bottom 6 in classes 6A and 1A (based on Sagarin at end of this season), and the top 10 and bottom 10 in classes 2A-5A (in order of ranking --> Best to Worst).

1A Top 6: Springs Valley, Triton, North Miami, Tri, Frontier, and North Vermillion
1A Bottom 6: Southern Wells, Attica, Cambridge City Lincoln, Bowman Academy, Edinburgh, and Irvington Prep (Indy)
Region Teams in 1A: Bowman Academy

2A Top 10: Adams Central, Providence, North Judson, Indy Lutheran, Lafayette CC, South Putnam, Linton-Stockton, Madison-Grant, Paoli, and Wheeler
2A Bottom 10: Elwood, South Central, Parke Heritage, Whitko, Lake Station, Mitchell, Crawford County, North Newton, Clarksville, and Union County
Region Teams in 2A: Lake Station, South Central, Wheeler, Whiting

3A Top 10: Evansville Memorial, Brownstown Central, FW Luers, Garrett, Cascade, Evansville Mater Dei, Southridge, Andrean, Knox, and Maconaquah
3A Bottom 10: Princeton, Calumet, Indy Washington, Brown County, Blackford, Purdue Poly, Bellmont, Wabash, Bishop Noll, and Benton Central
Region Teams in 3A: Andrean, Bishop Noll, Boone Grove, Calumet, River Forest

4A Top 10: Heritage Hills, Indy Chatard, East Noble, West Noble, Gibson Southern, Leo, FW Dwenger, Brebeuf Jesuit, Lebanon, and Northwood
4A Bottom 10: Gary West Side, Connersville, Western, Charlestown, Greensburg, Edgewood, Highland, East Chicago, Frankfort, and Owen Valley
Region Teams in 4A: East Chicago, Gary West Side, Griffith, Highland, Hanover Central, Lowell, KV

5A Top 10: New Pal, Decatur Central, Warsaw, Indy Roncalli, Merrillville, Concord, East Central, Mishawaka, Lafayette Jeff, and Plainfield
5A Bottom 10: Munster, New Haven, Goshen, Evansville Central, Bedford North Lawrence, New Albany, Indy Shortridge, Richmond, Anderson, and Jennings County
Region Teams in 5A: Chesterton, Hammond Central, Hobart, LaPorte, Merrillville, Michigan City, Morton, Munster, Valparaiso,

6A Top 6: Brownsburg, Westfield, Lawrence North, Center Grove, Warren Central, and Crown Point
6A Bottom 6: Portage, Lake Central, FW Northrop, Jeffersonville, Southport, and Indy Arsenal Tech
Region Teams in 6A: Crown Point, Lake Central, Portage

[nwifbfan]

So essentially taking the largest 32 teams in 1A and bumping them up to 2A and continuing the bumping of 32 teams in all classes through 5A.

It appears the only local schools impacted by that are Andrean to 3A and Hobart to 5A. Every other local school stays where they are currently.

I’m assuming success factor was not considered just current enrollments?

I do like the reduction of the number of small schools from 64 to 32. I would like at also reducing 6A from 32 to 24. Huge disparity in enrollments in 6A.

[BallinFreak]

Be careful what you wish for on some of these things. I have friends in Missouri. They went to a small class 1 in recent years and people have started hated it almost immediately. They refer to it as class .5 because it is so small and they do not feel like the winner of that class is really worthy of a state championship.

[Dann Ellenwood]

Does officiating placement/advancement have anything to do with Indiana giving 5A and 6A bye weeks, instead of this proposal, which would give 1A and 6A bye weeks?

[Jimbo23]

So essentially taking the largest 32 teams in 1A and bumping them up to 2A and continuing the bumping of 32 teams in all classes through 5A.

It appears the only local schools impacted by that are Andrean to 3A and Hobart to 5A. Every other local school stays where they are currently.

I’m assuming success factor was not considered just current enrollments?

I do like the reduction of the number of small schools from 64 to 32. I would like at also reducing 6A from 32 to 24. Huge disparity in enrollments in 6A.

To answer your first sentence/ question, I first added the largest 32 4A schools into 5A, then the largest 31 1A schools (there were 62 teams in 1A this year) into 2A, and then worked my way from 4A down to 3A.

Locally, it impacts Andrean and Hobart as far as "moving up" goes. State wide, I think it creates an equitable 1A class (Of the top 6 teams in the new 1A, 3 of them have ever appeared in a State Title game and only 1 in the last 30 years). I think 2A and 5A become VERY competitive at the top half (a lot of people like to complain that 5A is watered down, I think that argument is dead with this alignment). I think 3A and 4A become more competitive as well given that a lot of 4A heavy hitters would be in 5A now and 3A would be very strong overall with both Evansville smaller Privates (Memorial and Mater Dei), plus Andrean, Luers, and some solid publics in the "new" 3A.

I did consider success factor (sort of) so Cathedral and Snider were still 6A (for now), East Central in 5A, and Chatard in 4A. Based on the realigned enrollments, Chatard and East Central being success factored up 1 class SHOULD technically put East Central in 6A and Chatard in 5A, but I didn't mess with the success factor schools because it was a little too much to deal with as I thought this through. Lol

I really enjoy the Small School drop down to 32 as it gives schools who truly never or almost never have a chance to get to Lucas Oil. Ballin's .5 class forewarning from Missouri is well received but to hell with the haters of small school football. Those same people whining that it's "not a real title," are the same ones who don't watch, support, or even talk about 1A (small school) football.

[Jimbo23]

Be careful what you wish for on some of these things. I have friends in Missouri. They went to a small class 1 in recent years and people have started hated it almost immediately. They refer to it as class .5 because it is so small and they do not feel like the winner of that class is really worthy of a state championship.

To hell with the Missourians. Lol

[Jimbo23]

Does officiating placement/advancement have anything to do with Indiana giving 5A and 6A bye weeks, instead of this proposal, which would give 1A and 6A bye weeks?

I'm not sure? I'm not too familiar with how the officiating placement works for officials. I know you've been able to inform us on officiating in the past. What is considered to be the current, possible, correlation between official placement and 6A/ 5A bye weeks, in your mind? Just trying to get some clarification to help answer your question a little bit.

[Dann Ellenwood]

Does officiating placement/advancement have anything to do with Indiana giving 5A and 6A bye weeks, instead of this proposal, which would give 1A and 6A bye weeks?

I'm not sure? I'm not too familiar with how the officiating placement works for officials. I know you've been able to inform us on officiating in the past. What is considered to be the current, possible, correlation between official placement and 6A/ 5A bye weeks, in your mind? Just trying to get some clarification to help answer your question a little bit.

Lower rated crews are eliminated from the tournament after the 1st week of the post season now. So those crews can not even work a 5A/6A game in the post season if done after week 1.

Hope this makes sense.

[Jimbo23]

Does officiating placement/advancement have anything to do with Indiana giving 5A and 6A bye weeks, instead of this proposal, which would give 1A and 6A bye weeks?

I'm not sure? I'm not too familiar with how the officiating placement works for officials. I know you've been able to inform us on officiating in the past. What is considered to be the current, possible, correlation between official placement and 6A/ 5A bye weeks, in your mind? Just trying to get some clarification to help answer your question a little bit.

Lower rated crews are eliminated from the tournament after the 1st week of the post season now. So those crews can not even work a 5A/6A game in the post season if done after week 1.

Hope this makes sense.

GOTCHA!!! That totally makes sense when you put it that way. I suppose this could cause a conundrum for the IHSAA (me in this instance lol). The lower rated crews would still be eliminated in time for the 6A kickoffs (obviously). As far as 5A is concerned, is it a reasonable possibility for the lower rated crews (who likely will be eliminated in Week 11) be assigned to matchups where the result is essentially already decided? To give a local example, say in 5A Merrillville is matched with Hammond Central. Merrillville was like a 40+ point Sagarin favorite and any reasonable person can infer that there can be no officials and Merrillville will win the game. Would that be a feasible solution in this hypothetical?

[nwifbfan]

I still think 6A needs to be addressed. The spread between largest Carmel (5200) and smallest Jeffersonville (2140) is massive. This does not include Cathedral and Snider due to success factor.

The spread between the other classes excluding success factor teams is still large but not nearly as large as 6A.

Local 6A schools are around 2500-2700 vs top 5 3700-5200 all Indy schools will always struggle to compete for State final. It’s purely about the numbers ie more bodies usually means more athletes.