New Postseason Format Proposal

[Dann Ellenwood]

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?

Absolutely makes sense.

[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.

To hell with the Missourians. Lol

jimbo not a show me fan!

[BallinFreak]

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.

I agree completely with this . That spread is insane. Seems silly to have 32 really small schools together and then at the other end that huge gap.

[Jimbo23]

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?

Absolutely makes sense.

Good to know I'm not a total idiot. Lol so we can add officiating assignments to a green check mark, solved that issue.

[Jimbo23]

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.

I agree completely with this . That spread is insane. Seems silly to have 32 really small schools together and then at the other end that huge gap.

6A is a tougher beast to navigate. My favorite idea can MAYBE help solve the problem but based on this year's data it would be tough to argue in its favor. My idea would be an 8-Team Open Division for the Top 8 teams in the State. IF that was adopted with my proposed reclassification, 7 of the top 8 would come from 6A and 1 team (New Pal) would come from the new 5A (opening up a spot in 5A for the lowest enrollment in 6A (Jeffersonville, 2141), not including success factor.

The interesting thing about enrollment is it's not AS MUCH of a factor as it's made out to be. This Open Division for example would include 3 Teams with a Top 15 enrollment in the State (one of which being Crown Point). LC is 15th at 2961 students, for 6A. They're closer to being the 3rd largest school in the State (Warren Central) than they are to being the 5th smallest (Portage), but yet LC is not a football juggernaut. More kids does not always equal more ATHLETES/ football players, in my experiences.

Open Division 2024
1. Brownsburg, 3297
2. Westfield, 2789
3. Lawrence North, 2817
4. New Palestine, 1209
5. Center Grove, 2893
6. Warren Central, 3748
7. Crown Point, 2978
8. Indianapolis Cathedral, 1172

This would've given you Cathedral vs Brownsburg, Westfield vs Crown Point, Lawrence North vs Warren Central, and New Palestine vs Center Grove in Round 1 of the Open. Pretty sick matchups if you ask me.

New 6A (in Order of Sagarin w/ Enrollment)
1. Ben Davis, 4567 (2)
2. Fishers, 3664 (3)
3. Hamilton Southeastern, 3442 (7)
4. Carroll (Fort Wayne), 2569 (13)
5. Columbus North, 2267 (20)
6. Pike, 3192 (10)
7. Avon, 3476 (6)
8. Franklin Central, 3362 (8)
9. Fort Wayne Snider, 1915 (24)*
10. Noblesville, 3208 (9)
11. Zionsville, 2309 (19)
12. Lawrence Central, 2404 (16)
13. Elkhart, 3166 (11)
14. Carmel, 5200 (1)
15. Penn, 3480 (5)
16. Homestead, 2408 (15)
17. Perry Meridian, 2358 (18)
18. Harrison (West Lafayette), 2169 (22)
19. Indianapolis North Central, 3616 (4)
20. Portage, 2170 (21)
21. Lake Central, 2961 (12)
22. Fort Wayne Northrop, 2158 (23)
23. Southport, 2368 (17)
24. Indianapolis Arsenal Tech, 2500 (14)

[nwifbfan]

There really no easy non controversial format and appreciate your thinking. Also, I think LC is an anomaly. Almost all of those schools on your list has had some recent success. LC has not. Different topic.

This issue is the number of games those 6A teams get to play in a season. Already reduced and would be reduced even more.

[Jimbo23]

There really no easy non controversial format and appreciate your thinking. Also, I think LC is an anomaly. Almost all of those schools on your list has had some recent success. LC has not. Different topic.

This issue is the number of games those 6A teams get to play in a season. Already reduced and would be reduced even more.

There truly is not an easy way. I even mapped out what a 24 team bracket would look like based on what I have worked up. The Sectional Finals would end up being: Noblesville vs Penn, Fishers vs Hamilton SE, Ben Davis and Zionsville (or Pike), and Columbus North vs Franklin Central. I think it comes as no surprise that the State Title Game for this class would STILL be Indy Metro 6A vs Indy Metro 6A (Fishers vs Ben Davis). I do agree that there is a problem with the 6A big boys playing less games through my method. If you're the Open Champ/ Runner-Up, you have 3 Postseason OFF weeks (10, 13, and 15) whereas in the "new" 6A you could have 1 or 2 Postseason OFF weeks (week 10 for top 2 seeds in each Sectional and Week 14 for State Championship Teams).

As far as LC goes, for sure a different topic of conversation. Carmel, despite their enormous size and resources has also taken a little bit of a dip in recent years. Obviously they've had success in the last decade or two, unlike LC, but enrollment numbers don't make up for the things that actually matter, I'm sure most of which we would bring up in a "how do we fix LC" conversation. Which we can save for a later date or thread. Lol

[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

jimbo not a show me fan!

I enjoyed the Show Me State, the few times I've been. Lol don't care for their thoughts on true, little school, 1A Football though.

[nwifbfan]

I believe Carmel is about to make the turn around as they have hired Kevin Wright in return as HFC.

Since we are spitballing here, let’s take your open division to start then offer other programs the ability to opt in but then let those programs that are in open division openly, legally recruit.

Or

Start with open division as stated, put all private/parochials in this open division but allow them to legally recruit.

Obviously the smaller privates would still struggle to compete but maybe you have size requirement to be allowed in Open Division. I struggle to see in any scenario how a BNI could compete.

Sounds crazy but just spit balling. It would also appease a lot of the people that want to see a split between public and pp.

[Dann Ellenwood]

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?

Absolutely makes sense.

Good to know I'm not a total idiot. Lol so we can add officiating assignments to a green check mark, solved that issue.

We may have "solved that issue" lol. I was just wondering from a different perspective.