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Time to fix the broken 6A tournament


Guest DT

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http://www.ossaa.net/docs/2018-19/Classifications/FB_2018-19_1819Classifications.pdf

 

Given the mega schools stranglehold on the 6A tournament, it is time to revisit this classification and propose changes that create a more balanced and fair process to determine the big school state football champion.

I lived in Oklahoma for several years and Okies take their high school football very seriously.  Oklahoma has a lot of similarities to Indiana in terms of size, population distribution and city structure.  Their post season tournament is class structured, with the major difference being that not all schools qualify for post season play.

Oklahoma has a mega school problem similar to what we see in Indiana.  A small cluster of schools in Tulsa dominate the big classification, with Jenks and Union basically being the Ben Davis and Warren Central of Oklahoma.  Other mega schools like Broken Arrow and Owasso (Carmel and Center Grove) are also regularly in the mix.

Like Indiana, Oklahoma's largest classification is 6A.  Unlike Indiana, Oklahoma has split its largest class into two divisions.  6A Division 1 for the top 16 schools in enrollment and 6A Division 2 for the schools 17-32 in enrollment.

I would like to see Indiana adopt this structure for the all in post season 6A tournament.  All 32 6A teams will play 10 regular season games, take a bye week, then play a 4 week tournament in two separate divisions to determine 2 state champions in the biggest classification.  This model will allow the 6A title games to remain on TG weekend.  We would likely see 4 games on Friday and 3 games on Saturday.  

6A is the most exclusionary class in the tournament given the massive enrollment discrepancies we see today.  The new classification based on current enrollment would look  like this :

Class 6A Division 1

 Carmel High School 1282 1299 1174 1245 5000 AAAAAA 1 2211 Ben Davis High School 1225 1094 1035 1008 4362 AAAAAA 2 3444 North Central (Indpls.) High School 946 1000 948 878 3772 AAAAAA 3 4333 Warren Central High School 981 993 911 851 3736 AAAAAA 4 5555 Penn High School 788 867 876 814 3345 AAAAAA 5 6777 Pike High School 860 853 824 769 3306 AAAAAA 6 7 9 14 22 Fishers High School 853 815 848 734 3250 AAAAAA 7 8666 Lake Central High School 795 837 819 768 3219 AAAAAA 8 9888 Hamilton Southeastern HS 836 778 787 717 3118 AAAAAA 9 10 10 12 14 Avon High School 735 802 699 655 2891 AAAAAA 10 11 11 10 15 Noblesville High School 785 752 716 629 2882 AAAAAA 11 12 12 11 13 Crown Point High School 684 730 678 671 2763 AAAAAA 12 13 13 13 11 Franklin Central High School 716 716 639 588 2659 AAAAAA 13 14 16 18 23 Brownsburg High School 685 705 621 618 2629 AAAAAA 14 15 14 9 9 Portage High School 658 691 576 595 2520 AAAAAA 15 16 15 17 18 Center Grove High School 662 606 622 610 2500 AAAAAA 16 17 19 20 16

Class 6A Division 2

Lawrence North High School 640 666 572 591 2469 AAAAAA 17 18 20 23 21 Perry Meridian High School 607 641 519 584 2351 AAAAAA 18 19 18 21 24 Homestead Senior High School 592 598 571 587 2348 AAAAAA 19 20 17 15 10 Lawrence Central High School 603 623 586 528 2340 AAAAAA 20 21 24 28 36 Carroll (F.W.) High School 602 592 580 506 2280 AAAAAA 21 22 21 19 17 Merrillville High Sch 570 578 544 522 2214 AAAAAA 22 23 26 26 26 Southport High School 576 583 522 504 2185 AAAAAA 23 24 25 25 30 Warsaw Community HS 540 579 536 521 2176 AAAAAA 24 25 34 40 47 Westfield High School 577 538 560 471 2146 AAAAAA 25 26 22 22 20 F.W. Northrop High School 506 531 519 541 2097 AAAAAA 26 27 27 24 27 Valparaiso High School 561 556 499 466 2082 AAAAAA 27 28 29 30 34 Chesterton Senior High School 536 531 516 493 2076 AAAAAA 28 29 23 27 28 Jeffersonville High School 515 554 541 456 2066 AAAAAA 29 30 33 32 25 Lafayette Jefferson High School 591 511 483 446 2031 AAAAAA 30 31 28 29 32 Columbus North High School 515 548 497 457 2017 AAAAAA 31 40 42 39 31 F.W. Snider High School 470 474 455 451 1850 AAAAAA 32

The MIC plays great football, but the 6A tournament has basically become the MIC Conference Championship Game.

Would be good for overall fan interest to get some new schools into LOS with a chance to hoist a state championship trophy.

 

 

 

 

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52 minutes ago, djbowzz said:

To do 4 games in a day the first game would have to start at 8am or the last game start at 11pm midnight...  That would be the first strike against this idea...

Then we play all weekend.

1a/2a/3a  Friday

4A/5A  Saturday

6A-1   6A-2 Sunday

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19 minutes ago, DT said:

Then we play all weekend.

1a/2a/3a  Friday

4A/5A  Saturday

6A-1   6A-2 Sunday

I'm not a big fan of the NFL, but even I know that this would likely be counter-productive.

Realize that states like Texas and Oklahoma which have more classes and/or teams tend to run their games on at least a couple of weekends to get them all in.  Indiana suffers from the fact that, unlike Oklahoma and Texas, it doesn't play 6-man or 8-man variants of football and thus has less classes that could be spread out to make it potentially viable.  Oklahoma has nine classes and Texas has twelve.  Texas plays over four days starting on a Wednesday and ending on a Saturday and Oklahoma actually plays over two weekends.  I think the Texas model is highly unlikely for Indiana ... at least as it stands in Thanksgiving week.  I also think there would likely be more pushback on splitting it over two weekends ... especially considering that some folks don't even like the bye week that 6A currently gets in sectionals.

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4 minutes ago, Gipper said:

It seems like the goal posts are being moved.  A separate class was created for the largest schools in the state and it should remain that way, not everybody gets a trophy...

Guess that depends on your definition of "largest schools in the state".  

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Page 37 of the 1018-2019 IHSAA directory

9-13 No Sunday Athletic Participation There shall be no interschool athletic Contests, school Practices or school sponsored clinics held on Sunday. Calling One (1) or more team members together on Sunday for studying scouting reports, viewing films of games, any kind of participation, etc. will be considered a violation of this rule.

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2 minutes ago, Tommy said:

 

Page 37 of the 1018-2019 IHSAA directory

9-13 No Sunday Athletic Participation There shall be no interschool athletic Contests, school Practices or school sponsored clinics held on Sunday. Calling One (1) or more team members together on Sunday for studying scouting reports, viewing films of games, any kind of participation, etc. will be considered a violation of this rule.

Rules were made to be changed.

 

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5 hours ago, djbowzz said:

To do 4 games in a day the first game would have to start at 8am or the last game start at 11pm midnight...  That would be the first strike against this idea...

Michigan does it.  10, 1, 4:30, 7:30

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Class 6a is broken and needs to be fixed. We can all agree on that. If there is anyone who doesn't believe that, then you need to have your head examined........fact. Is there a better idea? If there is, bring it to the table. Splitting 6a into two divisions is the only way to go. If the IHSAA is satisfied with a school of 5000 playing a school of 2000 for the state championship, then shame on them. 

25 minutes ago, Robert said:

Michigan does it.  10, 1, 4:30, 7:30

It can be done. No one likes the idea because it came from DT. 

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35 minutes ago, BTF said:

Class 6a is broken and needs to be fixed. We can all agree on that. If there is anyone who doesn't believe that, then you need to have your head examined........fact. Is there a better idea? If there is, bring it to the table. Splitting 6a into two divisions is the only way to go. If the IHSAA is satisfied with a school of 5000 playing a school of 2000 for the state championship, then shame on them. 

It can be done. No one likes the idea because it came from DT. 

Why so much DT hate?

Maybe I should just take my ball and go home.  

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So, my question,   What happens if this got passed, and you end up with 2 MIC 6A Champs, because according to your breakdown,  that is probably exactly what would happen.

 

SO then it would be,  well the MIC cant play anymore, because they win all the time.

Not bashing the idea, just a thought.

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