Everything you wanted to know beforehand about the football playoff process

By Michelle Hillison
northcarolina.ihigh.com


ADMS: The NCHSAA does expect to have 2003 ADM figures for this year's football playoff selection process. The figures will be released simultaneously on their own site and on northcarolina.ihigh.com in the next few days. It is impossible to give a more specific time of release because the figures require some editing.
Wednesday update: NCHSAA releases ADM figures. Each classification will be subdivided (1-A, 1-AA, 2-A, 2-AA, 3-A, 3-AA, 4-A, 4-AA). Once the NCHSAA is notified which 64 schools have qualified, the schools will be divided into 2 groups: the larger 32 and smaller 32, based on the Average Daily Membership (ADM), for the year in question. Then each group of 32 will be divided into two brackets, east and west (Even though a school may be in an eastern conference during the regular season, that same school may be in the western half of the bracket for the playoffs, and vice-versa. This may be necessary in order to balance the brackets.)


EXCLUSIVE RELEASE: On Saturday, the NCHSAA will give northcarolina.ihigh.com the exclusive "preliminary brackets" no later than 3 p.m. If there's an incorrect record or conference finish, coaches have until 6 p.m. to report the error.
Traffic is going to be immense and we have our tech staff on alert. But do be patient if there are some momentary outages.


STANDINGS CHECK: Everyone - please look at the iHigh conference standings and email [email protected] if you see an error.

SCORES ON FRIDAY: Getting scores in as quick as possible on Friday night will help the NCHSAA's process move as quickly as possible. PLEASE take a moment to email your score to [email protected] or call your score into iHigh, 919-363-5668. Calling on your cell phone from the game is a great idea!

REPORTING QUALIFICATIONS: Schools no longer need to contact the NCHSAA directly. Each school is to contact their conference president and tell them their won/loss record. The conference presidents have to fax the form in with all of their schools listed (with their won/loss records) by 11:00 pm Friday night.
All conference representatives, please remember to fax your form to the NCHSAA for your conference as soon as possible. The NCHSAA's Dick Knox sent out this form twice, as recently as a few weeks ago. If for some reason, you don't have the form, contact the NCHSAA or worst case, contact Michelle at [email protected] and I'll get ensure you get the form. (Mr. Knox is out of the office until Thursday doing basketball rules clinics)


How teams qualify: We went over this list with Rick Strunk from the NCHSAA before posting it and he feels it is accurate.
Teams that play an endowment game are still allowed to drop the result of any one non-conference game from their schedule.

4A/3A/2A football playoff berths for 2003

1. A team must finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the conference to qualify. In a split conference a team must finish 1st or 2nd in their division, OR

2. A team must have 4 wins overall if they do not finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in conference play (1st or 2nd in split conferences) OR

3. If not enough teams qualify using the criteria in #1 and #2 above, we would take the team(s) with the highest conference winning percentage next, OR

4. If too many teams qualify using the criteria in # 1 and #2 above, the team(s) with the highest conference winning percentage will qualify.

5. All classifications will field a full complement of 64 teams, 32 in each sub-division. There will be no byes. Each sub-divided group will be divided into east and west

6. If ties exist at any level they will be broken by the luck of a draw.

7. Actual seeding process begins and will remain the same as last year.

a. Seed all #1s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
b. Seed all #2s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
c. Seed all #3s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
d. Seed all remaining team with four wins or more based on where they finish in their conference standing (ie, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th)
1A football playoff berths for 2003

1. Each conference will qualify all but the last place team for a total of 62 teams.

2. The two teams with the next highest overall winning percentage will qualify to complete the 64 team bracket. If ties still exist, the team with the highest conference winning percentage will get the berth. The 64 teams will be sub-divided, then divided into east and west.

3. If ties exist at any level they will be broken by the luck of a draw.
4. Actual seeding process begins.


a. Seed all #1s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
b. Seed all #2s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
c. Seed all #3s by overall records - ties will be broken by the luck of a draw
d. Seed all remaining team with four wins or more based on where they finish in their conference standing (ie, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th)
90th NCHSAA State Championships

1-A Sat., Dec. 6 Wallace Wade
1-AA. Sat., Dec. 6 Wallace Wade
2-A Sat., Dec. 6C arter-Finley Stadium
2-AA Sat., Dec. 6 Carter-Finley Stadium
3-A Sat., Dec. 6 Kenan Stadium
3-AA Sat., Dec. 6 Kenan Stadium
4-A Sat., Dec. 6 Groves Stadium
4-AA Sat., Dec. 6 Groves Stadium

 

Now ain't that simple.

 

It would be nice if they would just scrap this format and go back to the previous playoff format except in 1a.This system has killed the excitment of the playoffs with this watered down version.I for one would like another shot at S Point or Ragsdale or even AL Brown but this format has killed that possibilty

 

diluted format sucks .............................nchsaa has its work cut out dealing with fiscal responsiblities and this weak playoff system they have adopted!