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still too many teams in the playoffs???

Jun 13, 2006
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If only the nsaa could have a way to avoid blowouts in the SEMI-FINALS! !! Nice job nsaa. Now bring back the qualifying round and a 32 team postseason bracket. What's the difference between getting beat by 27 points in the first round or the semi-finals? ?? I don't get it........
 
People were very vocal about one of the positives to a 16 team bracket was the elimination of first round blowouts. That objective was not met….not even close. The round of 16 in C2 was a mess. The round of 8 in C2 wasn’t much better. No matter how many teams you bring to the playoffs, the best teams are going to blow people out. It doesn’t matter if they are playing a 2-6 team or a 7-1 team, the best teams are just that good.

Average margin of victory in last night's semi-final round:
Class A: 31 points
Class B: 17.5 points
Class C1: 27 points
Class C2: 15 points

I've said it before and I will repeat it now. It makes absolutely no difference how many teams you take to the post season. The best teams will win and they will win convincingly. They will blow everyone out until they play another team that is of the same caliber. Sometimes that happens in the semis, sometimes in the finals, sometimes they never meet their match.

Last year's finals scores:
North 23, Westside 21
Skutt 30, York 0
Cozad 47, A-G 21
D-T 32, Aquinas 13
E-M 20, Hemingford 18
FCSH 63, Stuart 14

There were 2 close games out of 6. It wasn't because "bad" teams made the finals. Skutt, Cozad, D-T, FCSH were just that good. The same will be true this year in the finals. There will be 3 or 4 games that are over at halftime.
This post was edited on 11/15 9:34 AM by hailvictors2

This post was edited on 11/15 11:04 PM by hailvictors2
 
16 teams in the playoffs is the perfect amount. The blowouts are going to happen. I don't know why we seem to expect every game to be 28-27 just because its a playoff game. They are competitions and the scores sometimes get out of hand because both teams are good and trying to win and turnovers often play a big part. If you look at College Football Bowl games and NFL playoff games they aren't always nailbiters. In competition anything can happen. A team can win 34-14 against a team on a certain night and the next time it could be a nailbiter or the score reversed. As soon as we can get the class D schools to 16 we are good. The 32 team playoff format is a joke for sure but I like the 16.
 
I understand that nobody wants 2-6 teams in the playoffs. But 6-3 teams should not be left out of the playoffs because of a technicallity. If it is all or nothing, then we should have too many teams in the playoffs rather than not enough. The nine game schedule didn't do a whole lot of good. Especially since there were 6 teams that played 8 games. What a mess.......and its all for nothing.
 
utilitywood, please provide your reasoning for 16 teams rather than 32 if you don't care about blowouts.
 
16 teams in the playoffs allows all games but the finals to be on Friday nights. It's much easier on the teams for preparation to have 1 game a week instead of the Wed - Mon - Friday - Tues (or whatever nonsense schedule is used).
 
Wrong. You would still have friday games if you eliminate the bye week like they did this year. So the qualifying round would be the ninth week when class A plays their final regular season game. Everything is in sync and problem is solved.
 
So an 8 game schedule with 1st round on Friday? That'd work but then half the teams only get to play 8 games.
 
There are already teams that only get to play 8 games. All the teams out west. So who cares if more only get 8.
 
That was a great game. E-M made a few great plays to win it. Very, very fun game to watch. However, since class D-1 and class D-2 have a 32 team postseason bracket that game has no nothing to do with this thread. I would like to bring that back to C-1 and D-2.
 
I have been reading and listening to both sides of this argument. Definitely not a cut and dried solution. I would rather see teams get in that maybe shouldn't than leave a team out that should be in. I believe Gothenburg in C1 would fit this bill. They had Cozad (a quarterfinal team) beat and gave up a long pass with about 30 seconds left to lose a hearbreaker early in the year. They were playing really good football at the end of the year and I believe they could have made some noise in the playoffs. Just a thought.
 
I go with the 16 team format because at the end of the day there are only about 4-5 true contenders in each class anyways. 16 team format gives us enough "filler" teams. 32 lets a lot of below average football teams say that they were "playoff" teams.
 
I think there is a fundamental problem with the way the points are set up. It is way too easy to play bad competition to inflate your point totals to get in when it does not reward teams for playing tough competition in comparison. How about in volleyball, when a 32-1 Stanton team had a MUST WIN in district finals vs. a 19-8 Scotus team to get to state. They lost in 5 sets and were eliminated. There schedule wasn't that much different than other teams, but at 32-1, whether you play tough competition or not, you shouldn't be left out. Tweak the point totals for wins and losses and it will help, but having less teams in the playoffs hasn't seemed to fix the problem in my opinion.
 
I have been on the fence about 16 teams in the playoffs vice 32 in C1 & C2 all year. I read the last post about volleyball so took a look at the C2 football playoffs and who got in and who didn't and if there was anything that stood out. I chose C2 since I've seen more C2 games than any other class this year.

First looking at the finals on Tuesday with Aquinas and HCC playing - Aquinas one loss comes from a top 8 C1 school, HCC 2 losses come from two teams that made the semi-finals of C2, Aquinas and Battle Creek - A two loss team with quality losses (if there is such a thing) and get to the finals.

Two 6-3 teams got in:

Lutheran High Northeast - losses to 3 C2 semi-final teams, Aquinas, HCC, & Battle Creek - These three teams have 8 playoff wins.

Southern Valley - losses to 2 C3 playoff teams - unbeaten regular season Sutton, top 8 and unbeaten NP St. Pats, and 5-3 chase county. One playoff win to the teams they lost to.

Four 6-3 teams did not get in:

Arcadia Loop City - Losses to 5-4 Hershey, 6-3 West Holt, 8-1 Gibbon - only one playoff qualifier who did not win a playoff game.

Kimball - 5-4 Hershey, 6-3 West Holt, 8-1 Gibbon - again one playoff qualifier who did not win a playoff game.

West Holt - Losses to 3 playoff teams - LHNE, HCC, Battle Creek - 5 playoff wins to for the teams that beat them. But they lost head to head to LHNE.

Yutan Losses to 3 playoff teams - 8-1 Freeman, 8-1 Aquinas, 7-2 Bergan - with five playoff wins

Looking at the teams that got in and the 6-3 teams that didn't it is obvious to me that Yutan has an argument about why they should have gotten in and to a lesser extent West Holt. But overall the power points seemed to work pretty well.

I don't believe there is any system that is perfect unless everyone can play everyone which is not possible. You could do some tweaking with the second place team in each district playing the third place team in another district but even something like would leave a 6-3 team like West Holt out though Yutan would have gotten a chance.
 
I guess there are still to many teams in the playoffs when you get blowouts in the championship games.
 
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Through the C-2 game this morning, the average margin of victory in the finals is about 33 points.... For reference, the average margin of victory in the first round of D-1 (round of 32) was just under 40 points. The average margin of victory in the first round of D-2 (round of 32) was just over 35 points. All food for thought....
 
no matter what you still have to have two teams playing to crown the champion unless somebody knows something I don't. blowouts happen, did we not blow Florida out of the fiesta bowl years ago, it happens.
 
Yes, we do have to play the games, and I think that's the whole point.

Eliminating blowouts was one of the reasons for cutting the playoffs from 32 teams to 16 teams.

Eliminating 16 teams from playoff contention has not eliminated the blowouts.

It did however eliminate really cool stories about the low seed who somehow makes a run deep into the playoffs.
 
^^^I agree^^^

I have a feeling this BCNG/A-G game is going to have a large margin of victory as well. I'm not at all saying that the teams getting defeated in the finals are not worthy of being there. That is far from the truth. I would've loved to have been in their shoes. I am saying the blowouts will happen no matter how many teams are in the playoffs....32, 16, 8, 4, 2... The best teams will always rise to the top and likely do so by blowing everyone out along the way.
 
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