4 win minimum

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Posted on Tue, Feb. 11, 2003

4-win minimum among football playoffs tweaks
Under proposal, no fewer than 3 berths for 2A-4A conferences
LANGSTON WERTZ JR.
Staff Writer

Next season, N.C. high school football teams will likely need to win at least four games to make the playoffs.

At its annual meeting Saturday, the N.C. Football Coaches Association voted to endorse an N.C. High School Athletic Association proposal that would make several changes to the football playoff system, which allowed several 1- and 2-win teams to reach the 2002 postseason. Under the plan, which the NCHSAA Board of Directors may approve in May:

• All four classes will continue to be subdivided into bigger and smaller subclasses.

• Teams in classes 2A, 3A and 4A will need at least four victories to become playoff-eligible.

• Each conference will be guaranteed at least three playoff berths in classes 2A, 3A and 4A.

"We feel like this is a step in the right direction," said Charlie Adams, NCHSAA executive director. "Some of the flack we took last year was because of the teams in there with the poorer records. So being playoff eligible for 2A, 3A and 4A make sense."

Adams said the plan needs fine-tuning. Some coaches are concerned about the potential for byes a win-minimum would cause. Several have expressed hope to shorten the playoffs by allowing fewer teams.

Adams said next season, the NCHSAA planned to stick to 64 playoff teams in classes 2A, 3A and 4A. Newton-Conover athletics director Don Patrick, the secretary of the coaches association, said by May -- when the NCHSAA Board will vote -- coaches would try to come up with a method to avoid byes.

"The plan sounded OK until they started talking about byes," Providence coach Bruce Hardin said. "I don't think any football coach who's gone through the long season wants a bye."

 

What are you all's coments?

 

It will help get rid of some of the teams who were going into the playoffs with 2 on in the case of 1A no wins. The problem with this is that now you will have teams getting byes in the first round because you can't fill out the brackets in this watered down system. NC needs to move to 5 classes and get rid of the split playoff system.

 

Yep, this split playoff system blows some serious ass.

 

I like the split divisions with more teams in the playoffs, but the 4-win rule change would be a good change. Also from what I understand the new system made a lot of money and schools will be getting more money back. It also keeps the interest going longer for some teams and keeps more fans in the stands late in the season.

 

I personally think its a money thing. Not only for the schools but for nchsaa. Its generated revenue they wouldn't normally get. I think they should go with 5 classifications. Too many weaker teams getting in. It dilutes the product. My school has one victory in the last two years and would hate for them to make the playoffs and get bounced on their tails.

 

Get this. The deeper a team goes into the playoffs the harder it is for that team to make money. The NCHSAA gets a dollar off of every ticket as soon as it's sold. They then get a percentage of the total gate with that percentage getting higher as teams advance deeper in the playoffs. The schools also only get around 35 dollars per room from the NCHSAA when they get to the state championships. Anybody able to find decent hotel rooms for that amount for 60 football players. Schools end up going into their own athletic fund to finish paying for the rooms, and let's not forget about general travel cost. The schools that advance deep into the playoffs year in and out are getting the shaft if you ask me. After watching the NCHSAA over the years, it's more about money and less about the kids. One last thing, the NCHSAA gets to use, or they did when it was just Chapel Hill, the facility for free.

 

Good point, Smashmouth! It's definitely a money thing for the NCHSAA. The logical thing to do is to switch to five classifications. But that would mean only five champions, not eight. Less money for the association.



Here's something, though. I don't know if they do this anymore, but once upon a time (the 80s) in Mississippi they would have bowl games set up for teams that were good, but didn't make the playoffs (remember back in the 70s and 80s when it was very TOUGH to even make the playoffs?). An actual bowl game set up between, say, two teams who finished with 8-2 records but because both losses were in conference, they didn't qualify for the playoffs...but were still quality teams. That way, you maintained the integrity and competitiveness of the playoffs (truly a reward for excellence during the season) and yet still found a way to reward good teams that maybe suffered due to being in a particularly tough conference. Heck, you could schedule the bowl games for Thanksgiving Day and make it festive. I remember one year, 1981, when the Western 4A conference only had 1 playoff slot...and so the final game of the regular season came down to Hickory (9-0) vs. Asheville (9-0) - winner take all. The winner got the conf. title AND the playoff berth, the loser got nothing. Asheville won that game and Hickory finished 9-1. Now, are you going to tell me that Hickory wasn't deserving? Of course they were...but it just wasn't in the cards that year. But it would have been great if a team that good could have squared off with another good team in a Turkey Day bowl or something. And you could have as many of these bowl games as you wanted...maybe 3 per classification or something. Details could be worked out, but I think this would be a good way to limit the number of playoff teams but still reward good teams that couldn't quite qualify for, say, a 32-team playoff.

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