VISAA Division Numbers

[Chief62]

Ok, VISAA has D2 with 17 teams in it. Besides North Cross who is playing up, what is the smallest team and the largest team? What is the percent difference between smallest and largest D3 school? My guess is that there were logical breaks in the numbers and thus the different sized divisions. We all know D2 always breaks at STAB enrollment number on the high side but are there teams on the low side that should have been D3? If we stay at 17 teams in D2 because of natural breaks, fo you go to a six team playoff with 6 playing 3 and 4 playing 5, with the 6/3 winner playing the 2 seed and the 4/5 seed playing the one seed in a semi finals?

The D3 playoffs do seem a bit threadbare this year. And D1 is always a mess because of EHS-Woodberry.

 

[LetsSee]

They aren't going to a 3 week playoff due to boarding schools. Those schools open later and a 3 week playoff runs into thanksgiving.

 

[MetroVCC6]

Covenant, Isle of Wight, and Portsmouth Christian are the smallest schools in Division II; all three have 109 boys in grades 9-12. Greenbrier Christian has 110. The next largest is Atlantic Shores with 119. For evening the divisions in terms of number of teams per division, it would have been better to put those four smallest D-II teams down in Division III.

The smallest school in Division I is Bishop Sullivan (220) and they have 40 more boys in grades 9-12 than the largest schools in Division II (Randolph-Macon and STAB both have 182). I think that break-point is right-- that's the largest gap between any two VISAA schools until you get to the top, where the Catholic schools in NoVa are just so much bigger than everyone else and, at that point, it doesn't make a big difference in terms of competition. Woodberry is the only school in the top 5 in enrollment who would even make the Division I playoffs this year if they could (O'Connell, PVI, JPG, and Ireton are the other top 5 in enrollment and O'Connell and PVI have more than double the enrollment of Bishop Sullivan).

These numbers are available on the VISAA web site.

http://www.visaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/VISAA-Football-Divisions-2016-2017.pdf


Short version of the above:
I think they could have bumped some of the smaller schools in D-II down to D-III to keep things more even, but I think they get the divide between D-I and D-II right.

 

[Chief62]

It would be tough on the really small D3 schools but they are not beating Catholic, Fuqua, or historically BSH already. I think Catholic beats all four this year and Fuqua would give them a run for their money.