Playoff Update - 84 Remain

PHOTO BY DEAN STRICKLAND - THE NEWS & OBSERVER

This is one of those things about the football season at every level, but especially in college and high school where it seems to fly by before it even started, that makes you sometimes wish you had a 'bloated' major league baseball type season - or...perhaps not.  

Another week is gone and we sit with just two remaining regular season weeks to go and teams are working hard to position for not only playoff qualification, but also for top seeding as we close out the 2011 regular season.

As we did a week ago, we'll run through some brief playoff elements, specifically with regard to the classification AAAA teams in the state.  As always, we'd like to point out the assistance we received from one of the top resource sites in North Carolina when it comes to overall team statistics.  If you haven't checked them out, then please take a moment and do that before the season is out.  References, citations, footnotes - whatever your modus operandi is with regards to giving credit - are a good thing, so I wanted to give a shout out to the Asheville Reynolds contingent that have for so many years done an awesome job with their website [www.gobiggreen.net].  Almost all of the information that I used to put together this post was compiled based on their site.

Playoffs Out of Reach?

Heading into last weeks' games, Garinger HS and Southwest Guilford (due to a post-season ban) were the only two teams that looked certain to not be in a position to make the playoffs.  A total of four additional teams; Sanderson, Smithfield Selma, Ben L. Smith and East Mecklenburg were in positions where we reported it looked as though they would need to win out to have the opportunity to at the very least qualify for the playoffs.  All four ended up losing last week and with that, it appears that all four are officially eliminated from post-season consideration as they each have two games remaining on their schedules and are not in position to reach the four win plateau or compete for a top three finish in their respective conferences.  Joining these six squads as we enter this week of play are an additional 10 teams that currently have one overall win on the season, with either one conference win or less and only two games or less remaining on their schedules.  It appears, that even if they were to win out, they would certainly be below the four win qualifying plateau and will be unable to reach a top three finish in their respective conferences.  They include: Person, North Mecklenburg, Enloe, McDowell, Providence, Apex, Riverside, Pine Forest, Terry Sanford and Southern Alamance.  Even though the playoffs may be out of reach for each of these teams, with two weeks to go, many of them will be playing squads jockeying for playoff position and a few wins here or there by these squads could make things interesting for the remaining AAAA teams.

Talking Playoffs and Conference Winning Percentages

PHOTO BY ROBERT WILLETT - THE NEWS & OBSERVER

There are a number places that one can find themselves mired down and completely and utterly confused when thinking about whether a particular team will make the playoffs or where they might be seeded if in fact they do make the field of 64.  But, of late I've seen a recurring discussion about where conference winning percentage plays into the mix and from the discussion I've seen it appears that the confusion simply continues.

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.

Multiple Endowments, Oh My!

PHOTO BY LIZ CONDO - THE NEWS & OBSERVER

The following is an addendum to our post from yesterday entitled 'When Does 4 Wins Not Equal 4 Wins?' [Link to previous story].  Suggest you read that post prior to delving into the additional information below.

In further discussions since the original story was posted I was made aware (and went back to read the handbook a few more times) that in fact teams can actually have more than one endowment game (assuming NCHSAA approval)!  The key here is that any team can only have a total of 11 games in the season (there are only 11 weeks of playable dates).  If you play an 11 game schedule, you must have one of those games as an endowment.  If you play a 10 game schedule you can still have an endowment game.  So here are some additional points.  According to the NCHSAA football handbook, you must report a 10 game schedule at the end of the year.  So, if you are a team that has played only 10 games without an endowment, easy, you report that entire record, no games are dropped.  If you played a 10 game schedule and one of those games was an endowment, then you also keep that 10 game record. You don't drop the endowment in this case.  Or at least that is what it appears the handbook is saying.  It does not explicitly say this, rather the exact quote is as follows:

"Each school will only report a record indicating a total of 10 games and must drop the designated non-conference endowment game, provided they played an 11th game (endowment)."  NCHSAA handbook - section on football, page 53. [Link to NCHSAA Football Handbook Section]

As I read that, it looks to be saying what I wrote above for teams that played a 10 game schedule and also had one of those games listed as an endowment game.  You keep all of your games, the dropping of the game only occurs when you've played 11 total games and of course in that situation, one of them would have been an endowment.

Now, if you played an 11 game schedule and one of those games was an endowment.  You drop that game, the endowment game, again getting you down to a 10 game reportable schedule.

Where it may get a bit more interesting is that you can potentially play 'two' or more endowment games.  But, you had to designate prior to the season beginning which of those 'multiple' endowment games you chose to drop, win or lose.  This gets even more interesting due to at least one example that I've unearthed.  Jordan, Wake Forest-Rolesville and Panther Creek.  According to both the Jordan athletic sports calendar [Link to calendar posting] and Wake Forest-Rolesville athletic sports calender [Link to calendar posting], their contest that opened the season was an endowment game.  Not a big deal you say.  Sure, means that both teams drop that game.  Jordan gets rid of one of their losses, WFR has to give up a win (although that is tough on their end as it would have been nice to give up that East Wake loss instead, which would of been how it worked given last year's rules).  But, enter Panther Creek.  According to the article run by J. Mike Blake in the Cary News on Wednesday, 10/5/2011 [Link to article], it is reported that Panther Creek will play an endowment against Jordan, later this month.  Interesting or maybe not.  So, could the Jordan at Panther Creek game be an endowment, but simply not be the endowment designated by Jordan, but was designated by Panther Creek?  That's what it appears to be, at least based on all of the information.  And, it's important to note that as the NCHSAA handbook reads, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with this situation - perfectly fine in fact.  Still, you can see how a very complex system is simply getting more complex and I can't help but think that this may lead to just a bit more confusion come Selection Saturday.  If everything runs smoothly, kudos to the NCHSAA and athletic directors and coaching staffs across North Carolina for being tuned into these new changes!

Photographs courtesy of newsobserver.com (The News & Observer)