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| PHOTO BY ROBERT WILLETT - THE NEWS & OBSERVER |
About a year ago I posted an extensive outline on how the selection process and seeding would occur for the 2010 playoffs. Rather than go through this process all over again, I'll simply point you to the following story, [T-Minus One Month = Playoff Time], and caution you to take note of the following. First, this was done a year ago, so disregard all talk about specific teams, as it deals completely with the 2010 season. Second, there is discussion about dropping a non-conference game for those that played an endowment. Obviously that has changed since a year ago and I would direct you to one of the following two posts [When Does 4 Wins Not Equal 4 Wins?] and [Multiple Endowments, Oh My!] to get up-to-date on that angle. Once you've gotten through those items, the rest should be good to go for this year. But before you delve deep into that post (the T-Minus One Month post), if you scan down all the way to the end (of that post), you'll see a footnote of sorts. Essentially, it's a footnote about conference winning percentage and how it plays into the process and the fact that the wording and set-up in the NCHSAA handbook [NCHSAA Handbook Football] is a bit ambiguous on this area. I would add that as you read this year's handbook, you'll leave essentially in the same state, a bit confused and not so sure. But, I took the time to look through last year's playoffs and I think I may have this down now, based on the data from last year's bracket.
The reasonably debatable question is about how conference winning percentage plays into the selection process IF more than 64 teams qualify based on the following two criteria. First, the number of automatic qualifiers are selected (1-3 place finishers in a single classification conference and 1-2 place finisher in split classification conference). Second, all teams not in that first group that reach the four win plateau. At this point, if between the two of those situations we have more than 64 teams the handbooks says that they will move to conference winning percentage to select who makes the playoffs. What is unclear in the wording is how exactly that is done.
To be more specific, it would be easy for someone to read what is written in the handbook and say that if you have more than 64 teams selected then they move to conference winning percentage to select everyone. It's simply ambiguous. So I looked back over last year's playoff bracket to get a definitive answer and here is what I determined.
I determined every team that made the bracket, recorded their 11 game record, 10 game reportable record, conference record, conference winning percentage and conference finish. I did the best I could to also determine conference finish if there were ties based on news reports and how the seeding worked out. At that point I found the following to answer one of the questions on this topic. Do they simply look at conference winning percentage only, once you reach the over 64 team group? In other words, do automatic qualifiers become not really automatic qualifiers? This is going to the extreme, but I wanted to check. What I found is that TC Roberson High School qualified for the playoffs from a split conference. They were the second place finisher out of the three 4A teams in a split conference and therefore made the playoffs as an automatic bid. Their conference winning percentage was 0.333 which would not have been good enough to make the playoffs if conference winning percentage were the only variable, so it appears that when conference winning percentage comes into play (as we know that it did last year), it does not affect those teams that were 'automatic qualifiers'. From this information it appears safe to say that when we move over the 64 team plateau, the conference winning percentage only plays into the at-large teams.
The next question and maybe the more important one in this discussion is if the conference winning percentage only affects which of the at-large teams are selected, then is it only conference winning percentage that matters or do overall reportable wins also play into the discussion. I took every team that was as I could determine an at-large selection a year ago and I first ordered them from best to worst with regard to conference winning percentage. I then looked through the list to see who made the playoffs versus who didn't make the playoffs and what I found was evidence that in fact this is NOT how the process works. In other words, conference winning percentage is NOT the first metric observed when looking at selection for the at-larges. If you follow this protocol then teams like Knightdate (with only three overall wins, but a conference winning percentage of 0.4285), West Johnston, Myers Park, Independence would have made the playoffs and teams like Purnell Swett, Millbrook, Southeast Guilford and Southwest Guilford would have all been left out of the playoffs.
Observing this I went back and re-ordered all of the at-large teams based on OVERALL reportable wins FIRST. In other words, the teams with the HIGHEST number of reportable wins were placed at the top and the teams with the lowest number of reportable wins placed at the bottom. I then went through and ordered each grouping (ie the 8 win reportable teams, the 7 wins reportable teams and so forth) based on conference winning percentage. In other words, within the 6 win reportable group, I put the teams in order of their conference winning percentage. When I followed this methodology, the results proved to be exactly as we observed in who was and was not selected. East Gaston, the first team in the 5 win reportable grouping and with a 0.500 winning percentage was the last team in. The first team out was Myers Park, also with 5 reportable wins and a 0.4285 winning percentage. The next team out, local Athens Drive, also with 5 reportable wins and a 0.375 winning percentage. In this situation all of the teams with 8, 7 and 6 reportable wins made the playoffs, including a total of 9 teams that had winning percentages of 0.4285 or lower, which I just reported above, did not make the playoffs from the 5 win grouping. From this information, it appears clear that conference winning percentage does play into the process, but you have to be careful about how that is interpreted.
I would suggest that when thinking about this process the following thought process take place:
Selection Process of 64 Teams:
1) Select all 1-3 place finishers in a non-split conference, select all 1-2 place finishers in a split conference - these are the automatic qualifiers.
2) Fill out the remaining selections with at-large teams. The first selection criteria for this grouping is that these teams have four reportable wins. (In the situation where more than 64 teams would be selected based on criteria 1 and 2, conference winning percentage will be a determining factor - see 2a).
2a) If more that 64 teams qualify based on steps 1 and 2, conference winning percentage will be used as follows. First, take ALL at-large teams that qualified with four wins or more and order them in sub-groups based on overall number of reportable wins. In other words, teams with eight reportable wins would be in one grouping, teams with seven reportable wins in another and so forth down to the teams with four reportable wins. Place these sub-groupings in order from the most wins to the fewest (four win sub-group). Take the teams in a single sub-group and order them by conference winning percentage from highest to lowest. In other words, in the eight win grouping one may have three teams, the top team in that sub-grouping should correspond with the team with the highest winning percentage, while the third team in that sub-group should correspond to the team with the lowest winning percentage. Follow this protocol for each sub-group down to the four win sub-group. Examine the sub-group with the most reportable wins, if the number of teams in this sub-group is LESS than the available slots for at-large teams, then all of these teams are selected for the playoffs, regardless of conference winning percentage. If after selecting these teams, slots are still available, the sub-group with the next fewest number of reportable wins will be evaluated. Again, if the number of teams in this sub-group is LESS than the available slots for at-large teams, then all of these teams are selected for the playoffs, regardless of conference winning percentage. However, at some point, it is possible that when evaluating a given sub-group it will be determined that the number of teams in the sub-group is GREATER than the available slots remaining for at-large teams. AT THIS POINT, conference winning percentage becomes the DETERMINING factor in establishing the cut-off point for selection. Beginning with the first team in the sub-group in question (recall all of the teams in this sub-group will have the same number of reportable wins, conference winning percentage will be the metric that orders them from first to last within this sub-group), the question of whether or not an available slot in the playoffs will be evaluated. If it is available then the team will be selected. The next team in this sub-group with the next highest conference winning percentage will be evaluated and so forth until the final teams are selected. At this point the 64 teams will be established.
Sure, it's alot, but you know what - I would say that it leaves no doubt in how the process works. The one caveat, this is what I observed last year and what appears to have happened in years prior, but as for this year - well, although I didn't observe anything in the handbook that would indicate differently, I'll just say for all those coaches out there, it's kinda like pass interference and intentional grounding in high school football - the rule book is fairly vague and in the end you are at the mercy of the white hat!
Photographs courtesy of newsobserver.com (The News & Observer)
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