Sectional Draw 2023

[JQWL]

Just now, scarab527 said:

If you're playing the other best team in your Sectional, isn't that the de facto Sectional Championship? Again, seems like its really only a semantic issue. If a team is that shook up about losing in the de facto Sectional Championship as opposed to the official Sectional Championship, I think they've got their priorities in the wrong place. 

 

Is it the IHSAA's responsibility to ensure more reps for Freshmen/Sophomores, or is it the coach's? The IHSAA's responsibility in this is to run a football tournament in the most expedient way possible. 

Well the coach can't practice with any of his kids once the season ends. So it's kinda out of his hands.

My kids do a lot of travel baseball, softball, and basketball. The organization that runs the tournament, seeds the tournament based on pool play. This happens in every single tournament. I doubt anyone would sign up for a tournament if the organization said, You will play pool play Saturday for no reason then we will randomly put you in a bracket. It's easy to seed a tournament.

[Footballking16]

4 minutes ago, scarab527 said:

If you're playing the other best team in your Sectional, isn't that the de facto Sectional Championship? Again, seems like its really only a semantic issue. If a team is that shook up about losing in the de facto Sectional Championship as opposed to the official Sectional Championship, I think they've got their priorities in the wrong place.

Not sure why the IHSAA wouldn't just prioritize the regular season to begin with? What's your rationale or opposition for not seeding the sectionals other than "cream always rises to the top"?

Again, it's a simple fix.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Footballking16

[scarab527]

1 minute ago, WestfieldRocks said:

So don't put them in the same sectional. Why do sectionals have to be predetermined prior to the regular season anyway? Seed the sectionals, then go from there.

Because with the all-in format you essentially have to put Sectionals together geographically to reduce travel time. And if you did away with the all-in, it would make more sense to just do away with Sectionals altogether and go with a bracket like you see Illinois. I am not opposed to this, my point is that with the current all-in format seeding Sectionals is in my opinion pointless when it comes down to it. 

[scarab527]

2 minutes ago, JQWL said:

Well the coach can't practice with any of his kids once the season ends. So it's kinda out of his hands.

My kids do a lot of travel baseball, softball, and basketball. The organization that runs the tournament, seeds the tournament based on pool play. This happens in every single tournament. I doubt anyone would sign up for a tournament if the organization said, You will play pool play Saturday for no reason then we will randomly put you in a bracket. It's easy to seed a tournament.

My point is that development should be happening during the season, when the coach knows he has practices and games. If we did away with the all-in, I would not be opposed to seeding the tournament. But with the current format I do not see the need to seed. 

 

3 minutes ago, Footballking16 said:

Not sure why the IHSAA wouldn't just prioritize the regular season to begin with? What's your rationale or opposition for not seeding the sectionals other than "cream always rises to the top"?

Again, it's a simple fix.

I am not opposed to a format like Illinois/Ohio where you have to qualify and are seeded in a bracket. However with our current all-in format and Sectionals I just don't find seeding to be necessary other than to placate a few teams who are salty they lost in the de facto Sectional Championship as opposed to the official Sectional Championship, which I do not find to be a compelling reason. 

[JQWL]

3 minutes ago, scarab527 said:

My point is that development should be happening during the season, when the coach knows he has practices and games. If we did away with the all-in, I would not be opposed to seeding the tournament. But with the current format I do not see the need to seed. 

And my point is more development can happen when your season is longer.

[Slobberknocker]

How is gate revenue handled in sectional games? Do they split it or does host school get it all?

[scarab527]

Just now, JQWL said:

And my point is more development can happen when your season is longer.

Then win the games in front of you.

Even then, we're talking about max 2 weeks extra development. And how much time are coaches going to spend working with young guys when they have playoff games to prepare for? In my experience, most coaches focus less on their young guys as the season moves deeper into the playoffs. The playoffs are not about developing younger players on your team. 

[JQWL]

1 minute ago, scarab527 said:

Then win the games in front of you.

Even then, we're talking about max 2 weeks extra development. And how much time are coaches going to spend working with young guys when they have playoff games to prepare for? In my experience, most coaches focus less on their young guys as the season moves deeper into the playoffs. The playoffs are not about developing younger players on your team. 

You've obviously never coached anything.

[scarab527]

1 minute ago, JQWL said:

You've obviously never coached anything.

Lmao you obviously don't know me. 

I'll take I won the argument since you've resorted to (wrong) ad hominem attacks. 

[WCGrad92]

5 minutes ago, Slobberknocker said:

How is gate revenue handled in sectional games? Do they split it or does host school get it all?

I want to say each team gets 1 dollar and the rest goes to IHSAA, so having a home game gets you no more money for gate.  Concessions sales could be good though

[JQWL]

2 minutes ago, scarab527 said:

Lmao you obviously don't know me. 

I'll take I won the argument since you've resorted to (wrong) ad hominem attacks. 

Literally not a single person on this thread agrees with you and you think you've won an argument.

I'll say this, if you have coached anything, it's hard to tell.

[scarab527]

2 minutes ago, JQWL said:

Literally not a single person on this thread agrees with you and you think you've won an argument.

I'll say this, if you have coached anything, it's hard to tell.

I'll say this, with coaches like you, it's not hard to see why Paoli has never won anything. 

[foxbat]

21 minutes ago, scarab527 said:

If you're playing the other best team in your Sectional, isn't that the de facto Sectional Championship? Again, seems like its really only a semantic issue. If a team is that shook up about losing in the de facto Sectional Championship as opposed to the official Sectional Championship, I think they've got their priorities in the wrong place. 

 

Is it the IHSAA's responsibility to ensure more reps for Freshmen/Sophomores, or is it the coach's? The IHSAA's responsibility in this is to run a football tournament in the most expedient way possible. 

Agree with you here when it comes to sectionals.  In the eight seasons, from 2009 - 16, LCC and Pioneer finished the season ranked #1 and #2 in 1A four times and #2 and #4 in 2012 and #1 and #3 in 2016.  In 2013-2014, they couldn't meet because LCC was in 2A via SF.  In other words, in four of six seasons, they were #1/#2 in the state.  Here's how that went down:

• 2009 - #2 LCC eliminated #1 Pioneer in the first round of the sectional
• 2010 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in the sectional championship
• 2011 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in the first round of the sectional
• 2012 - #2 LCC eliminated #4 Pioneer in the sectional championship
• 2013 - No meeting, different classes
• 2014 No meeting, different classes
• 2015 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in regionals
• 2016 - #3 Pioneer eliminated #1 LCC in regionals

And there's a longer history of these two teams ending each others' seasons earlier in the tournament than just these, but these are the recent ones where you had #1 and #2 meeting in sectionals.  Matter of fact, Pioneer knocked off LCC in 2017 and 2018, although it was #1 vs. #2, on the way to being SF'd for the 2019 and 2020 ... and they haven't met since.  In all of those years, I don't recall any of the Pioneer or LCC players or coaches worrying about the fact that they were meeting first game of sectionals, last game of sections, etc.  I always remembered them always talking about #1 vs #2.  Probably would have been fine playing against each other at the church picnic with a chance to play #1 vs. #2.

[WCGrad92]

Please keep the convo civil.....

[scarab527]

15 minutes ago, foxbat said:

Agree with you here when it comes to sectionals.  In the eight seasons, from 2009 - 16, LCC and Pioneer finished the season ranked #1 and #2 in 1A four times and #2 and #4 in 2012 and #1 and #3 in 2016.  In 2013-2014, they couldn't meet because LCC was in 2A via SF.  In other words, in four of six seasons, they were #1/#2 in the state.  Here's how that went down:

• 2009 - #2 LCC eliminated #1 Pioneer in the first round of the sectional
• 2010 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in the sectional championship
• 2011 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in the first round of the sectional
• 2012 - #2 LCC eliminated #4 Pioneer in the sectional championship
• 2013 - No meeting, different classes
• 2014 No meeting, different classes
• 2015 - #1 LCC eliminated #2 Pioneer in regionals
• 2016 - #3 Pioneer eliminated #1 LCC in regionals

And there's a longer history of these two teams ending each others' seasons earlier in the tournament than just these, but these are the recent ones where you had #1 and #2 meeting in sectionals.  Matter of fact, Pioneer knocked off LCC in 2017 and 2018, although it was #1 vs. #2, on the way to being SF'd for the 2019 and 2020 ... and they haven't met since.  In all of those years, I don't recall any of the Pioneer or LCC players or coaches worrying about the fact that they were meeting first game of sectionals, last game of sections, etc.  I always remembered them always talking about #1 vs #2.  Probably would have been fine playing against each other at the church picnic with a chance to play #1 vs. #2.

Exactly. Big games are big games no matter what round they come in. Neither team is thinking about the semantics of what round it is being played in during the lead up to or during the game. 

[JustRules]

Others have mentioned the sectional champion will be the same regardless of seeding which is possibly true. The order of teams you face could affect the outcome of games, but it would likely be the result of external things like injury or weather and that is random. Every other competition (sport or otherwise) I've been involved with rewarded those who were successful in earlier competitions with the possibility of more competitions in an elimination event at the end. Using the Brownsburg and Ben Davis example, they should both have the ability to advance deep (not one or the other but both). It's a matter of how you define deep. Geographical limitations and trying to reduce (but not eliminate) costs for travel that mean the sectional final round. Or it could be deeper if you went to organizing/seeding at the semi-state or regional level for 5A and 6A especially. Everyone's season will end earlier than they wanted other than the 12 state final teams. But if your season ends week 2 because you lost to another very good team you had to face due to a random draw but a team like Pike or Avon who struggled throughout the season gets to prepare for one more game while you are sitting home, that's what defies logic. Let's say Avon played Brownsburg and Pike played Ben Davis and Avon upset Brownsburg because they played out of their minds in a rivalry game, then it's less of an issue. The team that beat you on the field got the extra week and you only have yourself to blame. But if they got the extra week because of some random draw, that's crazy.

And I also think that's the main reason the coaches collectively haven't gotten behind a seeding or qualifying tournament. Enough of them are or have been in the position of Avon and Pike right now. If they are having a bad season, they hold out hope they will draw the other bad team and possibly get that elusive sectional game win. Sure it will lead to a slaughter in the next game but your kids get a tournament win and another week to practice.

As for the meaningless regular season, I prefer to say a seeding and/or qualifying format would just make the regular season more meaningful. The current regular season is not meaningless. But there would be a tournament excitement around many games this Friday if making the playoffs or fighting for a seeding spot was on the line. Our game last week featured two pretty good teams but both around .500 this year. Neither is battling for a conference title, but they are in the middle of their class. A win would improve their chances of making the tournament and a loss makes that much more difficult. Both teams played hard and the coaches played to win, but deep down both teams knew the outcome had no impact on who or where they would play in the tournament. If you've been on the field for playoff game you know they feel different. This week we have one team that would be playing for a top 8 seed in their class and the other possibly needs to win to qualify for a top 32 spot in their class. They could possibly lose to the better team and not drop out, but they could also move up and get an easier opponent if you seeded all the way through. That's what gives the regular season more meaning. And aligns with every other competition that exists in the world.

The final litmus test I give people is to explain this process to friends and family in other states or people in Indiana who don't follow high school sports closely. They will think you are joking. Nobody would ever come up with a system like that. 9-0 could travel to 0-9 in the first round? Two 1-win teams could play in the first round and then host the winner of two undefeated teams in the next round? I'm a huge proponent of a qualifying tournament with some level of seeding. I like the proposal of 8 teams in a sectional (5A and 6A would go to 8-team regionals) and you play the other 7 during the regular season. Add a 10th regular season game so the same number of games are played as today. Each team then gets 3 non-sectional games that are rivalry or regional or showcase (i.e. teams from other states). Some sectionals will be less than 8 so they get an extra non-conference game and 1 team gets a bye. In the first 2 rounds, 1 hosts 4 and 2 hosts 3. Or you pair 2 sectionals and call the first 3 rounds the regional tournament. #1 from one sectional plays #4 from the other and so forth. That rewards the teams who were more succssful during the regular season more of an opportunity to get to a regional final. They still have to win it on the field to get there though.

[foxbat]

46 minutes ago, JQWL said:

Well the coach can't practice with any of his kids once the season ends. So it's kinda out of his hands.

My kids do a lot of travel baseball, softball, and basketball. The organization that runs the tournament, seeds the tournament based on pool play. This happens in every single tournament. I doubt anyone would sign up for a tournament if the organization said, You will play pool play Saturday for no reason then we will randomly put you in a bracket. It's easy to seed a tournament.

I don't think this is necessarily true.  My boys play LOTS of travel baseball as well.  The biggest reason that we care about pool play is not getting stuck with the 8:00 am game on Sunday and maybe playing one less game on Sunday if you get one of the byes.  Outside of that, the boys like it for the "prestige" of saying that they were ranked #*whatever*.  Ultimately, when the parents and coaches talk Saturday night about what's coming Sunday, invariably, the statement is always made, "It doesn't really matter where we get seeded because we have to win them all tomorrow to get the championship." 

Also, with the way baseball tournaments are nowadays, the seedings tend to be somewhat random or near random anyway based on pool play.  As an example, my son played in the USSSA State Tournament this last season.  There were 45 teams registered with two pool play games.  There is no way that you can convince me that seeding with two games played mattered at all to the Sunday activities other than by luck of the draw unless you were an 0-2 team that got run-ruled two games in a row.  In another tournament, with a two game pool, we got rained out of our second game, and game was called for weather in top of 3rd and we were awarded the win because, as home team, we were ahead with three innings completed.  With the other team not scoring any runs, we had a 100% win rate and zero runs allowed in tie-breaker seeding and were given the #1 seed for the next day.  That #1 didn't really mean much, although the kids loved it.  Our team philosophy, and the kids know it too, is ultimately to win the tourney, you gotta beat whomever you play when the bracket starts.

[JQWL]

11 minutes ago, foxbat said:

I don't think this is necessarily true.  My boys play LOTS of travel baseball as well.  The biggest reason that we care about pool play is not getting stuck with the 8:00 am game on Sunday and maybe playing one less game on Sunday if you get one of the byes.  Outside of that, the boys like it for the "prestige" of saying that they were ranked #*whatever*.  Ultimately, when the parents and coaches talk Saturday night about what's coming Sunday, invariably, the statement is always made, "It doesn't really matter where we get seeded because we have to win them all tomorrow to get the championship." 

Those two things are pretty important.

In regard to USSSA rules, Saturday is a little irrevelent if you consider some teams save pitching for Sunday and maybe you're down to your 3rd pitcher because you wanted an earlier seed and they saved theirs for the last game. My son was on a team and their coach was great at predicting when Sunday would be a washout. He'd burn his best pitchers to get the #1 seed and get a ring because Sunday was canceled.

[Lysander]

18 hours ago, BTF said:

Elaborate on that if you would.

I have beat this same drum since the split of 5A but I will start this the same way I start any commentary I have made about the “new” 5A since its inception.  In the new 5A, with the exception of Snider (and to a much more limited degree – Zionsville…there could be a couple of others…but I doubt it), the “new” 5A was formed of teams that did not exactly define football excellence.  I believed it then and I’ve seen nothing but further affirmation since its birth that it is the weakest class pound for pound.  It may crank out D1 players by the gross (I don’t know or care) but the teams themselves are generally underachieving as compared to the other classes.

So, how did this happen?  After much, b*tching and moaning, from most all of the “old” 5A teams against the mega-schools like Carmel, Ben Davis, Warren Central, etc., the IHSAA in its Solomon-like wisdom decided that actually cutting the baby in half was, in fact, the best solution.  So, we now have a 32 team 6A which it turns out has largely been dominated by a team that is one of the smallest 6A schools…hardly a “mega-school”.  That said, of the 32 remaining teams in 6A, minimally 20 of those teams have no better chance of winning 6A than the split 5A teams had of winning it previously….sucks to be them, I guess.

So now, the IHSAA, in its baby-splitting wisdom, forms a new Class 5A composed of the remnants of the old 5A at the same time as it establishes the Success Factor.  I didn’t have to be a genius to look at ALL the analytics and the easy evidence of these new 5A teams actually playing good 4A teams (with the exceptions above) to be able to state the obvious – the IHSAA had basically put together a 32 team class of punching bags for bumped up 4A teams.   

Invariably, by season end, the analytics usually had several 4A (and even 3A) teams that were by all measure better than the best current 5A team.  They might not have been bumped up at that time but they were, frankly, better.  5A was an absolute gift to Cathedral those first couple of years versus 4A.

So why did these new 5A teams merit an abortive 32 team class?  Beats me....just split the baby says the butcher rather than the surgeon....its easier.

It seems to me the smallest 1A teams might have a stronger claim to needing that first playoff weekend off.  My sense is that some of those schools might well have to struggle to put their best team out there by season end...maybe even a full team.  An extra week to heal would likely do them a lot more good.   

A 64 team 5A would simply be a much better Class.  It would be much deeper and more internally competitive in every regard and you wouldn’t ever end up with a 3 team pint-sized Sectional. 

To be clear, as ridiculous as I consider a 3 team “Sectional” to be, I consider 5A, in its current 32 team format to be entirely ludicrous…and generally not very good comparatively.

[BLACKGOLD2007]

It would be nice to be back in a class where there are schools around us that are within the same class. Until the formation of Elkhart, the next 6A school was Warsaw. Otherwise Penn was traveling to the far reaches of the DAC or Fort Wayne to play a similar sized school. 

Re-unifying 5A and 6A would be interesting. Keep the success factor idea, I would prefer a more relegation style system that drops and promotes teams yearly. (that would have to be based on Sagarin rankings or take final records and drop the bottom teams and promote the top teams (4 or 5 teams is a healthy change)

[Just a dad]

@BLACKGOLD2007 keep in mind that Sagarin does not include out-of-state games. With so many teams playing out-of-state competition you might want to lean towards calpreps. Not sure how each of them do their math but it would probably be best to incorporate each.

[tango]

3 hours ago, Slobberknocker said:

How is gate revenue handled in sectional games? Do they split it or does host school get it all?

All schools in the sectional split the gate (less expenses). So a team that loses in R1 gets the same as the team who wins. The IHSAA gets none of the Sectional money. 

[Footballking16]

1 hour ago, BLACKGOLD2007 said:

It would be nice to be back in a class where there are schools around us that are within the same class. Until the formation of Elkhart, the next 6A school was Warsaw. Otherwise Penn was traveling to the far reaches of the DAC or Fort Wayne to play a similar sized school. 

Re-unifying 5A and 6A would be interesting. Keep the success factor idea, I would prefer a more relegation style system that drops and promotes teams yearly. (that would have to be based on Sagarin rankings or take final records and drop the bottom teams and promote the top teams (4 or 5 teams is a healthy change)

5A would look a lot more interesting if the 32 largest schools were 6A and 32 smallest schools 1A. 

[BLACKGOLD2007]

1 hour ago, Just a dad said:

@BLACKGOLD2007 keep in mind that Sagarin does not include out-of-state games. With so many teams playing out-of-state competition you might want to lean towards calpreps. Not sure how each of them do their math but it would probably be best to incorporate each.

True, but it seems that even though Center Grove has 5 out of state games, they are still the fourth best Sagarin rated team.  For example right now the bottom five Sag teams in 6A play only 1 out of state team.  While the top 5 Sag rated teams in 5A do not play one out of state team. 

 

[Komets2727]

2 hours ago, Lysander said:

I have beat this same drum since the split of 5A but I will start this the same way I start any commentary I have made about the “new” 5A since its inception.  In the new 5A, with the exception of Snider (and to a much more limited degree – Zionsville…there could be a couple of others…but I doubt it), the “new” 5A was formed of teams that did not exactly define football excellence.  I believed it then and I’ve seen nothing but further affirmation since its birth that it is the weakest class pound for pound.  It may crank out D1 players by the gross (I don’t know or care) but the teams themselves are generally underachieving as compared to the other classes.

So, how did this happen?  After much, b*tching and moaning, from most all of the “old” 5A teams against the mega-schools like Carmel, Ben Davis, Warren Central, etc., the IHSAA in its Solomon-like wisdom decided that actually cutting the baby in half was, in fact, the best solution.  So, we now have a 32 team 6A which it turns out has largely been dominated by a team that is one of the smallest 6A schools…hardly a “mega-school”.  That said, of the 32 remaining teams in 6A, minimally 20 of those teams have no better chance of winning 6A than the split 5A teams had of winning it previously….sucks to be them, I guess.

So now, the IHSAA, in its baby-splitting wisdom, forms a new Class 5A composed of the remnants of the old 5A at the same time as it establishes the Success Factor.  I didn’t have to be a genius to look at ALL the analytics and the easy evidence of these new 5A teams actually playing good 4A teams (with the exceptions above) to be able to state the obvious – the IHSAA had basically put together a 32 team class of punching bags for bumped up 4A teams.   

Invariably, by season end, the analytics usually had several 4A (and even 3A) teams that were by all measure better than the best current 5A team.  They might not have been bumped up at that time but they were, frankly, better.  5A was an absolute gift to Cathedral those first couple of years versus 4A.

So why did these new 5A teams merit an abortive 32 team class?  Beats me....just split the baby says the butcher rather than the surgeon....its easier.

It seems to me the smallest 1A teams might have a stronger claim to needing that first playoff weekend off.  My sense is that some of those schools might well have to struggle to put their best team out there by season end...maybe even a full team.  An extra week to heal would likely do them a lot more good.   

A 64 team 5A would simply be a much better Class.  It would be much deeper and more internally competitive in every regard and you wouldn’t ever end up with a 3 team pint-sized Sectional. 

To be clear, as ridiculous as I consider a 3 team “Sectional” to be, I consider 5A, in its current 32 team format to be entirely ludicrous…and generally not very good comparatively.

Fundamentally, I can agree with most of what you say, but to say 3A and 4A is better than 5A is just not accurate. The 3 team sectional in 5A resulted in an error on the IHSAA’S part that wasn’t fixed until the regular season started which was Dwenger moving to 4A, leaving the 3 team sectional in 5A. I am totally onboard with how incompetent the minions that run the IHSSA are and how they let this happen. 

I believe, as others have stated, that 6A and 1A should be 32 teams and the rest 64 teams. 1A football is great and I appreciate the huge difference between a 1A school having 30 kids on a team and a 6A team having 80+ kids on the roster. It’s like comparing NAIA football to D1 football

Good post sir!!!