High School Football

[91jack]

They are talking about cutting it from 16 to 8 teams for the playoffs. That's because of the travel. Why don't they just put it back the way it was. They could leave it at 16 teams but have the west river teams play each other in the 1st round. The Sioux Falls teams will have to play each other eventually anyway. I thought the whole thing about seeding all the teams was a waste from the beginning. I understand Brookings, Watertown, O'Gorman and Roosevelt is a tough District but that's life. The State would save money.
Change it back and all will be OK.

[Patkran]

Re: High School Football

SD has too many football classes. 6 FB classifications is the real problem. Cut it to 2 9 man classes and 2 11 man classes. Anyone who co-ops automatically plays 11 man.

Travel is one issue, the large number of 1st round blow-outs every year is the other issue.

[BTownJack]

Re: High School Football

They are talking about cutting it from 16 to 8 teams for the playoffs. That's because of the travel. Why don't they just put it back the way it was. They could leave it at 16 teams but have the west river teams play each other in the 1st round. The Sioux Falls teams will have to play each other eventually anyway. I thought the whole thing about seeding all the teams was a waste from the beginning. I understand Brookings, Watertown, O'Gorman and Roosevelt is a tough District but that's life. The State would save money.
Change it back and all will be OK.

Absolutely not...seeding the AA class was one of the best things they could have done. That goes a long ways in assuring the best two teams meet in the finals versus an earlier round. They ought to start doing it in all classes of SD high school football. These blowouts in the finals are getting really ugly and not much fun to watch. Anyone else with me?

[joeboo22]

Re: High School Football

PatKran is right.... they have to many classes and too man blowouts so if they cut for the lower classes they have to cut for AA also.... They need to cut atleast 1 class and should look at cutting 2....

[BTownJack]

Re: High School Football

PatKran is right.... they have to many classes and too man blowouts so if they cut for the lower classes they have to cut for AA also.... They need to cut atleast 1 class and should look at cutting 2....

I agree with this as well. Way too many classes considering there is only 29 teams at most in each class. Here is the breakdown of the number of teams in each class:

11-AA: 17
11-A: 25
11-B: 29
9-AA: 27
9-A: 27
9-B: 27

Source: SDHSAA

If the HS football football finals were more competitive I might actually consider attending them even though that are played in that most dreadful of a venue.

[Jack4Life]

Re: High School Football

SD has too many football classes. 6 FB classifications is the real problem. Cut it to 2 9 man classes and 2 11 man classes. Anyone who co-ops automatically plays 11 man.

Travel is one issue, the large number of 1st round blow-outs every year is the other issue.

I totally agree. I know the theory is to have as many student-athletes participate as possible, but SD has watered down the playoffs too far. Time for some to learn you don't always get a medal, sometimes life is like that.

[Evolution Prime]

Re: High School Football

I think that cutting 9B and 11B out would work better than cutting the number of playoff games or going back to the old system. Split 11-man and 9-man in half after cutting those two out. If you don't think that some of the lower 11B school could cut it 11A, drop them to 9AA. If you can't cut it as a 9-man school bring back an optional 6-man class to football, just no playoffs for those schools. Then you can shorten the days of the championship to two. Keep 11AA on Saturday night while rotating the others between the days.

I think keeping the seeding is important. You could be in a killer region and highly ranked but never make it out of the region because you get stuck playing another highly ranked team. All the while some mediocre team makes the semis or finals because play in a poor region. Yeah it may bring some teams from West River over to East River (Harding County out to Castlewood, ouch), but it is a more fair playoff system. This will reduce the amount of blowouts you see in the semis and finals. If you have a legit team, you should get a fair opportunity to get to the finals. Everyone wants to see a good finals matchup. (Best I've ever witnessed was Arlington vs Gettysburg in 9AA finals)

[jackmd]

Re: High School Football

SD has too many football classes. 6 FB classifications is the real problem. Cut it to 2 9 man classes and 2 11 man classes. Anyone who co-ops automatically plays 11 man.

Travel is one issue, the large number of 1st round blow-outs every year is the other issue.

I'm on board. This mentality that everyone needs to make the playoffs is out-of-control. It's high school athletics for crying out loud. In the big scheme of things it means virtually nothing. The lessons best learned have to do with working hard to make yourself the best, taking direction from your coach, and learning to work as a team. You don't need to win a playoff game or state championship to learn those things.

Reduce it to 4 classes, keep the playoff teams at 16 and try to do as fair a job as possible with regional rankings. You can never guarantee that someone who deserves to get in doesn't get it. Letting everyone in is not the solution.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: High School Football

if it would have been just 8 teams per class this past season, dell rapids would not have made the playoffs. they finished 3rd in their region and they won the 11A championship.

[sdbballfan]

Re: High School Football

I would have to say that I agree with dropping it to eight teams in the playoffs if all divisions are kept. If you would cut it down to 4 divisions, then I think that 16 in the playoffs is the way to go. I did some checking on the playoffs this year and broke it down into how many quality teams made it in each class. I used the criteria of 6-2 or better in every class except 11AA and used 6-3 or better there.

11AA - 5 9AA - 10
11A - 7 9A - 8
11B - 11 9B - 9

So I think that eight per division would have worked out well. I realize that some 5-3 teams were probably better than some of the 6-2 teams, but you play the schedule you were given. And those tend to be more geographic based.

I would also like to see seeding done at every level. As a previous post mentioned, it might make for more travel for some schools, but it seems there is always that problem every year after the first round. That comes with having a state as big as SD with the population spread out so much.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: High School Football

if it would have been just 8 teams per class this past season, dell rapids would not have made the playoffs. they finished 3rd in their region and they won the 11A championship.

I think they would go with the top 8 teams via Power Points and not the top two teams per region, so Dell Rapids would have made it in the top 8.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: High School Football

The lessons best learned have to do with working hard to make yourself the best, taking direction from your coach, and learning to work as a team. You don't need to win a playoff game or state championship to learn those things.

Yes, but it so much sweeter to win one!

[91jack]

Re: High School Football

I'm not saying don't seed it at all. I just think that if you're thinking about cutting it to 8, why not play the 1st round and then seed it. The west river teams will come east and play the top 3 rated teams in state in the 2nd round. That's close to having a 8 team tourney. I think you are putting too much stock in having good matchups in the 2nd round. Watch the 1st round if those are the better games. There will be blowouts in 1 round either way you look at it. If the west river teams can beat the best teams in state then that's tough. I guess most of the west river teams get knocked out in the 1st round so they only have to travel once anyway.
They are looking at this because of missing school. That would knock out some teams so only a few have to travel. The idea of starting practice earlier isn't a great idea.
I guess I look at it as you have to play the teams eventually. Other than 11AA, most teams don't travel very far in the 1st couple rounds so the missing school think doesn't apply.

[ringthebells]

Re: High School Football

What has always seemed stupid to me is that during the regular season each team gets a week to prepare. When the playoffs start, the preparation time gets cut down. Under the new proposal the schedule allows a weeks preparation, less school missed, fewer blow-outs/wasted travel money, and a few more days to prepare substitutes for injured players. I'm not sure of the affect on any group other than 11AA, but I like the idea for the big schools. There will be some controversy between team #8 and #9, but that's better than watching team #16 travel 800 miles to get beat by 40 points by a school they lost by 50 to earlier in the season.

[Cowbell]

Re: High School Football

I've always felt if something is broke, fix it. If it isn't broke leave it alone. In the case of high school football playoffs, it seems to be broke in more ways than one.