I've only been in Virginia for 12 years and they have changed the way they do playoffs for football 2-3 times...
Let's look back at why there was such an outrage that started all this mess in the first place:
#1- People were sick of bigger schools with high enrollment a sneaking by and playing in divisions in which they should not have been. Case in point- Briar Woods... They were playing 4A football with 5A numbers for multiple years..look at their last state championship in Div. 4 they played Heritage-Lynchburg who has an enrollment of a little over 1,000+ kids who is now 3A under the system when Briar Woods had over 2000+ kids and currently 5A . Now don't get me wrong Coach Pierce is a great coach and friend of mine and he had great players who went out and played hard and won those championships under the old guidelines but I think everyone could say that that shouldn't happen.
#2-People were complaining about how an 8-2 or 9-1 team didn't make the playoffs. I couldn't agree more! How could you VHSL throw your shoulders up and say sorry you can't go compete for a championship because there were four other teams in your region who either went 10-0 or won their prospective districts and gained the automatic bid to playoffs. shouldn't happen...so then VHSL finally found heart to expand playoffs from 4 teams to either 6 or 8 depending on region..well then people complained about that because yeah those old teams who had pretty good records made playoffs but it also opened up scenarios where teams with losing seasons would make the playoffs like when Pulaski Co. Made playoffs at 1-9 one year... To me nothing against Pulaski Co. Because they qualified under those guidelines at the time but that makes Virginia HS football look like a joke.
#3-People were complaining about teams wanting to play up or down... For better competition, less travel/proximity, rivalries, more college exposure for kids..whatever..should not be allowed... You play similar schools with your enrollment...if you are that much better than your competition whether it be because of athletes, coaching, facilities, whatever..,.congrats... It's the job of schools like you to work harder than you and beat you!
Now let's look at the solutions the VHSL implemented to answer these questions:
Answer to #1 the VHSL stepped in and said that you are going to play in Class 1A-6A and it will be based on enrollment and will try to even out the classes to best of ability and this will be based on ADM every 2 years...they then proceeded to come up with this "Conference" system to setup postseason play for every other sport other than football... Which are no more than glorified "districts" but make old "district" play obsolete...I couldn't believe they would do away with the importance of "district play" that breeds rivalries and excitement and easy takes care of travel costs/gate receipts/ all-district teams/not to mention a badge of pride to win your district which used to give you free access to playoffs!
Answer to #2 the VHSL developed a 32 team playoff for each class which basically boils down to only something like 15-20 teams per a class not making the playoffs...talk about totally watering the playoffs down...now it's a given that teams with 2-8 all the way to 4-6 "losing seasons" would be making the playoffs...which makes VHSL look bad because everyone knows why $$$ making scheme...and you get some bloodbath first round games...even though there were some upsets in there and you even had some teams who advanced deep in playoffs who had losing regular seasons...begs me to ask question did they have tough schedule or did everyone else above them have a cupcake schedule? Now it's not who you play it's that you just win so you can make playoffs...which has caused some stronger teams a hard time scheduling games...in the other sports I felt like the conference were not needed because they had a system where the best teams made regionals anyway..still don't understand the philosophy about how a team can lose in the postseason and still move on and have possibility to win State Championship is crazy in my opinion...that's like giving someone a second chance or do-over... They don't do that in football... Man that's not fair..we need to change that to be equal to all other sports....haha got yah going...that's the problem with our sports society today in the US...everyone needs to play, everyone deserves a trophy, and everything has to be fair...unfortunately that's not how life is...so why do we set up that sense of entitlement in our youth?
Answer to #3 the VHSL mandated that all schools must play in enrollment division...clap, clap, clap...think this was right move and though it made a couple of schools mad but oh well...life's not fair and you can't please everyone!
Suggestions to right the wrongs:
Do the VHSL think they know everything and go about like we are the best at everything? Who did research on this style of playoffs. Conferences, doing away with districts but forcing everyone to play district schedule,playoff points, etc...Did we look at other state models and take things into suggestion? Well I'm going to give one..take a look at other methods... I hold a bias towards my native IL playoffs system... Each school is put in a conference which is similar to our districts based on proximity/location and similar enrollments. They play each other and any non-conference games until postseason. They then take all 5-4(only play 9 games regular season because of pending weather up north) and all conference champions...they then find "bubble" schools who make playoffs with a 4-5 record (very few) with high points because of strength of schedule...until they have enough teams to make up 6-now 8 classes of 32 team playoffs...then they take highest 32 teams who make that system and that becomes your 8A class...next 32 teams is 7A...etc etc... Oh yeah their enrollment numbers are gender specific as well...So for football, male enrollment is the numbers they go by! Now they can do that because they have way more schools plus private schools are included-another point see below)...So technically you don't know what division you will be in until playoffs... If you make it...now some schools are a definite but some schools may fluctuate depending on change of enrollment...for example my high school was 4A for a bunch of years but now have dropped to 3A because of drop of enrollment ...that way enrollment is based off of number of kids each year and then you don't get into problem of our 2 year cycle nonsense...oh god forbid the schools have to give ADM numbers every year! also the playoffs are way more exciting because the teams that deserve to be there state-wide are playing for the championship! After they select the 32 they then split them into a North/South Region and then seed those teams 1-16 and they play till they meet at state championship...cures issues with our problem of 4-5 hour bus rides, travel expenses, and lost instruction/education time!
Do not cave into letting private schools play in VHSL public school leagues and playoffs...even if they say they will abide by state rules and regulations...like recruiting, housing, etc....they will still do it...then you have IL issues where the private school powers who can and do recruit take home the state championship every year unless they have a down year...but IL has curbed it a bit lately because they add an "adjuster" to enrollments of private schools, especially all boys schools, where they add a multiplier and raises their male enrollment which puts them in class comparable to competition.
Let's look back at why there was such an outrage that started all this mess in the first place:
#1- People were sick of bigger schools with high enrollment a sneaking by and playing in divisions in which they should not have been. Case in point- Briar Woods... They were playing 4A football with 5A numbers for multiple years..look at their last state championship in Div. 4 they played Heritage-Lynchburg who has an enrollment of a little over 1,000+ kids who is now 3A under the system when Briar Woods had over 2000+ kids and currently 5A . Now don't get me wrong Coach Pierce is a great coach and friend of mine and he had great players who went out and played hard and won those championships under the old guidelines but I think everyone could say that that shouldn't happen.
#2-People were complaining about how an 8-2 or 9-1 team didn't make the playoffs. I couldn't agree more! How could you VHSL throw your shoulders up and say sorry you can't go compete for a championship because there were four other teams in your region who either went 10-0 or won their prospective districts and gained the automatic bid to playoffs. shouldn't happen...so then VHSL finally found heart to expand playoffs from 4 teams to either 6 or 8 depending on region..well then people complained about that because yeah those old teams who had pretty good records made playoffs but it also opened up scenarios where teams with losing seasons would make the playoffs like when Pulaski Co. Made playoffs at 1-9 one year... To me nothing against Pulaski Co. Because they qualified under those guidelines at the time but that makes Virginia HS football look like a joke.
#3-People were complaining about teams wanting to play up or down... For better competition, less travel/proximity, rivalries, more college exposure for kids..whatever..should not be allowed... You play similar schools with your enrollment...if you are that much better than your competition whether it be because of athletes, coaching, facilities, whatever..,.congrats... It's the job of schools like you to work harder than you and beat you!
Now let's look at the solutions the VHSL implemented to answer these questions:
Answer to #1 the VHSL stepped in and said that you are going to play in Class 1A-6A and it will be based on enrollment and will try to even out the classes to best of ability and this will be based on ADM every 2 years...they then proceeded to come up with this "Conference" system to setup postseason play for every other sport other than football... Which are no more than glorified "districts" but make old "district" play obsolete...I couldn't believe they would do away with the importance of "district play" that breeds rivalries and excitement and easy takes care of travel costs/gate receipts/ all-district teams/not to mention a badge of pride to win your district which used to give you free access to playoffs!
Answer to #2 the VHSL developed a 32 team playoff for each class which basically boils down to only something like 15-20 teams per a class not making the playoffs...talk about totally watering the playoffs down...now it's a given that teams with 2-8 all the way to 4-6 "losing seasons" would be making the playoffs...which makes VHSL look bad because everyone knows why $$$ making scheme...and you get some bloodbath first round games...even though there were some upsets in there and you even had some teams who advanced deep in playoffs who had losing regular seasons...begs me to ask question did they have tough schedule or did everyone else above them have a cupcake schedule? Now it's not who you play it's that you just win so you can make playoffs...which has caused some stronger teams a hard time scheduling games...in the other sports I felt like the conference were not needed because they had a system where the best teams made regionals anyway..still don't understand the philosophy about how a team can lose in the postseason and still move on and have possibility to win State Championship is crazy in my opinion...that's like giving someone a second chance or do-over... They don't do that in football... Man that's not fair..we need to change that to be equal to all other sports....haha got yah going...that's the problem with our sports society today in the US...everyone needs to play, everyone deserves a trophy, and everything has to be fair...unfortunately that's not how life is...so why do we set up that sense of entitlement in our youth?
Answer to #3 the VHSL mandated that all schools must play in enrollment division...clap, clap, clap...think this was right move and though it made a couple of schools mad but oh well...life's not fair and you can't please everyone!
Suggestions to right the wrongs:
Do the VHSL think they know everything and go about like we are the best at everything? Who did research on this style of playoffs. Conferences, doing away with districts but forcing everyone to play district schedule,playoff points, etc...Did we look at other state models and take things into suggestion? Well I'm going to give one..take a look at other methods... I hold a bias towards my native IL playoffs system... Each school is put in a conference which is similar to our districts based on proximity/location and similar enrollments. They play each other and any non-conference games until postseason. They then take all 5-4(only play 9 games regular season because of pending weather up north) and all conference champions...they then find "bubble" schools who make playoffs with a 4-5 record (very few) with high points because of strength of schedule...until they have enough teams to make up 6-now 8 classes of 32 team playoffs...then they take highest 32 teams who make that system and that becomes your 8A class...next 32 teams is 7A...etc etc... Oh yeah their enrollment numbers are gender specific as well...So for football, male enrollment is the numbers they go by! Now they can do that because they have way more schools plus private schools are included-another point see below)...So technically you don't know what division you will be in until playoffs... If you make it...now some schools are a definite but some schools may fluctuate depending on change of enrollment...for example my high school was 4A for a bunch of years but now have dropped to 3A because of drop of enrollment ...that way enrollment is based off of number of kids each year and then you don't get into problem of our 2 year cycle nonsense...oh god forbid the schools have to give ADM numbers every year! also the playoffs are way more exciting because the teams that deserve to be there state-wide are playing for the championship! After they select the 32 they then split them into a North/South Region and then seed those teams 1-16 and they play till they meet at state championship...cures issues with our problem of 4-5 hour bus rides, travel expenses, and lost instruction/education time!
Do not cave into letting private schools play in VHSL public school leagues and playoffs...even if they say they will abide by state rules and regulations...like recruiting, housing, etc....they will still do it...then you have IL issues where the private school powers who can and do recruit take home the state championship every year unless they have a down year...but IL has curbed it a bit lately because they add an "adjuster" to enrollments of private schools, especially all boys schools, where they add a multiplier and raises their male enrollment which puts them in class comparable to competition.
