5 teams in the VHSL playoff era have won three straight state titles:
Hampton, Phoebus, Briar Woods, Salem and L.C. Bird.
With the exception of Bird's first title (In D6), these feats have all been accomplished in D4, D5 or 4A and 5A. No one has ever pulled it off in another division or classification.
I was wondering if you think this is a statistical fluke or if it's just easier for a program to stay on top in these classifications.
If I were to tell you without you knowing anything that 5 programs had done this, you could calculate the probability that they would all be in 4A and 5A would be 1 in 243, but that's bad statistics. Noticing a correlation from data you've already inspected proves nothing (you'll almost always be able to find something and more often than not, it's a statistical anomaly rather than a cause and effect thing), but I can at least throw out a conjecture and see what you think.
If you're a school with a top notch PROGRAM, you're going to be consistently about as good as you can be given the talent you have. In 6A, there are schools with so many students that the schools who are not quite a top notch program. Perhaps at these enrollment levels we're at a level where every year some school is going to have so much talent that they can just out-talent you and the average program will just have too much even for the better program.
In 3A and below I wonder if you don't get the opposite effect. Some years, even with the best Program in the world, the probability gods just don't send you enough talent.
Perhaps 4A and 5A is the sweet spot where a really good program can count on enough talent coming out every year to implement their successful system, but another program showing up that has so much talent it just overwhelms you is rare enough to make a 3 state championship run a little more likely in those classifications.
Don't get me wrong, here. I'm not saying there aren't dynasties in 6A, 3A, 2A and 1A. No denying the greatness of programs like C.D. Hylton, Powell Valley and Southampton when they were in their glory days, but even at their best, those storied programs never pulled off three-peats.
Do you think it's a statistical fluke, do you think my theory has merits, or is there something else you think I'm missing. I really don't know, but when I see a statistical anomaly like this, I like to try to explain it, but humans are apt to see patterns where none exist.
Hampton, Phoebus, Briar Woods, Salem and L.C. Bird.
With the exception of Bird's first title (In D6), these feats have all been accomplished in D4, D5 or 4A and 5A. No one has ever pulled it off in another division or classification.
I was wondering if you think this is a statistical fluke or if it's just easier for a program to stay on top in these classifications.
If I were to tell you without you knowing anything that 5 programs had done this, you could calculate the probability that they would all be in 4A and 5A would be 1 in 243, but that's bad statistics. Noticing a correlation from data you've already inspected proves nothing (you'll almost always be able to find something and more often than not, it's a statistical anomaly rather than a cause and effect thing), but I can at least throw out a conjecture and see what you think.
If you're a school with a top notch PROGRAM, you're going to be consistently about as good as you can be given the talent you have. In 6A, there are schools with so many students that the schools who are not quite a top notch program. Perhaps at these enrollment levels we're at a level where every year some school is going to have so much talent that they can just out-talent you and the average program will just have too much even for the better program.
In 3A and below I wonder if you don't get the opposite effect. Some years, even with the best Program in the world, the probability gods just don't send you enough talent.
Perhaps 4A and 5A is the sweet spot where a really good program can count on enough talent coming out every year to implement their successful system, but another program showing up that has so much talent it just overwhelms you is rare enough to make a 3 state championship run a little more likely in those classifications.
Don't get me wrong, here. I'm not saying there aren't dynasties in 6A, 3A, 2A and 1A. No denying the greatness of programs like C.D. Hylton, Powell Valley and Southampton when they were in their glory days, but even at their best, those storied programs never pulled off three-peats.
Do you think it's a statistical fluke, do you think my theory has merits, or is there something else you think I'm missing. I really don't know, but when I see a statistical anomaly like this, I like to try to explain it, but humans are apt to see patterns where none exist.
