IHSA competitive balance committee minutes

[Cross Bones]

I've toyed with this over the years. Each time, I come up with something different.

The big unknown is always who is in the NIPL to begin with. Is it some private schools or all of them? Are non-boundaried public schools in or out?

For the sake of discussion, let's agree that it's private only and it's all of them. In a scenario like that, there are roughly 50 football playing private schools, so you can't have more than 3 classes of 8-team brackets in order to make it so that roughly 50% of schools qualify. That's why I like the concept of a 10-game regular season so that everyone gets that extra game and only the top half who qualify get to play up to three more playoff games.

How to qualify and classify those 24 teams into three classes is something where enrollment will need to be taken into consideration, but it wouldn't be the sole factor. You know me...I want to balance playoff classes as much as possible so that the 8 most competitive teams are in the top class. I don't want a situation where people could say that a team in one class was so good that they could have won the class above. I also want to try to avoid a situation where the least competitive teams in the top two classes would lose by first round blowout in the class immediately below it.

Qualification, classification, and seeding are unknowns at this point. I'd love to see a system that incorporates SOS and coaches' input in some way, and I think that's more easily accomplished with 50 football playing schools than with ten times that number. I know you don't like this, but I'm not against some sort of success factor. I'm against it in its current format within the IHSA because it discriminates between non-boundaried and boundaried schools. I'd be open to it in a NIPL context if it applied to all schools. Regular season record and enrollment are factors that ought to be heavily weighted relative to other factors.

The above is limited to an athletic association of private schools only. If you add all non-boundaried football playing public schools to that mix, there would be increased flexibility to expand the number of classes and/or the number of qualifiers in each class.

Im somewhat jealous of what an opportunity this would actually be for private schools to have the best possible playoff bracket. Like you I would prefer classes based on competitive level which I think is possible here because they're already in conferences with each other for the most part so we already know.

I would hope that public counterparts would be more open to non-con games so the playoff wouldn't just be a repeat of the regular season though. Thats one of the things I wouldnt like about a split.

 

[Anon622286]

I've toyed with this over the years. Each time, I come up with something different.

The big unknown is always who is in the NIPL to begin with. Is it some private schools or all of them? Are non-boundaried public schools in or out?

For the sake of discussion, let's agree that it's private only and it's all of them. In a scenario like that, there are roughly 50 football playing private schools, so you can't have more than 3 classes of 8-team brackets in order to make it so that roughly 50% of schools qualify. That's why I like the concept of a 10-game regular season so that everyone gets that extra game and only the top half who qualify get to play up to three more playoff games.

How to qualify and classify those 24 teams into three classes is something where enrollment will need to be taken into consideration, but it wouldn't be the sole factor. You know me...I want to balance playoff classes as much as possible so that the 8 most competitive teams are in the top class. I don't want a situation where people could say that a team in one class was so good that they could have won the class above. I also want to try to avoid a situation where the least competitive teams in the top two classes would lose by first round blowout in the class immediately below it.

Qualification, classification, and seeding are unknowns at this point. I'd love to see a system that incorporates SOS and coaches' input in some way, and I think that's more easily accomplished with 50 football playing schools than with ten times that number. I know you don't like this, but I'm not against some sort of success factor. I'm against it in its current format within the IHSA because it discriminates between non-boundaried and boundaried schools. I'd be open to it in a NIPL context if it applied to all schools. Regular season record and enrollment are factors that ought to be heavily weighted relative to other factors.

The above is limited to an athletic association of private schools only. If you add all non-boundaried football playing public schools to that mix, there would be increased flexibility to expand the number of classes and/or the number of qualifiers in each class.

I'm surprised you want a 3 class system for only 50 schools. Seems pretty watered down to give 3 state championship trophies across 50 schools.

 

[ramblinman reborn]

I'm surprised you want a 3 class system for only 50 schools. Seems pretty watered down to give 3 state championship trophies across 50 schools.

It may not be ideal, but it is realistic given the situation. The only other options are one or two classes. The competitive and enrollment gulfs between the smallest and least competitive private schools and the largest and most competitive are just too wide for anything less than three classes, in my opinion.

 

[JCHillmen10]

I'm surprised you want a 3 class system for only 50 schools. Seems pretty watered down to give 3 state championship trophies across 50 schools.

That would be the million dollar question. 3 does seem like a lot for that number of teams. but 2 is just too small for the small distribution of real competitive teams. Two classes would leave enrollments well into the 1000s likely squaring off against enrollments in the 400s in a playoff system, which seems quite a stretch.

Ideally, the CPS and CCL could get together as non boundaried and create a canvas of 100-150 football playing schools to distribute into classes. Most CPS schools could join up with Leo and Ottawa Marquette type schools in a 1A. Morgan Park, Simeon, etc could join into a 2A or 3A with more competitive Catholic schools.

If it is just 50 private schools, both 2 classes and 3 classes are entirely insufficient for providing a meaningful playoff, but would still lean toward 3 being much better than 2.

 

[ramblinman reborn]

I would hope that public counterparts would be more open to non-con games so the playoff wouldn't just be a repeat of the regular season though. Thats one of the things I wouldnt like about a split.

I would hope the same. In a post-split environment, the ability for private and public schools to play each other in regular season non-conference OR conference games would be critical. The non-Chicago area private schools like SHG, PND, BCC, QND, etc. that are already in conferences with public schools would be hard pressed to schedule regular season games without public school cooperation (and IHSA approval) in that regard. Same with private schools that play an independent schedule like Althoff, Mater Dei, St. Teresa, Walther Christian, etc.

If the IHSA prohibits public schools from playing private schools in a post-split IHSA, those private schools not in conferences that play independent schedules and those private schools that had previously been in conferences with public schools will be hugely challenged to find in-state opponents to fill their regular season schedules. In that case, it might become common for private schools to play each other more than once per regular season. It happens in other high school sports like hoops, lacrosse, and baseball, and it may have to happen in high school football.

 

[Travelin Fan]

Th

I would hope the same. In a post-split environment, the ability for private and public schools to play each other in regular season non-conference OR conference games would be critical. The non-Chicago area private schools like SHG, PND, BCC, QND, etc. that are already in conferences with public schools would be hard pressed to schedule regular season games without public school cooperation (and IHSA approval) in that regard. Same with private schools that play an independent schedule like Althoff, Mater Dei, St. Teresa, Walther Christian, etc.

If the IHSA prohibits public schools from playing private schools in a post-split IHSA, those private schools not in conferences that play independent schedules and those private schools that had previously been in conferences with public schools will be hugely challenged to find in-state opponents to fill their regular season schedules. In that case, it might become common for private schools to play each other more than once per regular season. It happens in other high school sports like hoops, lacrosse, and baseball, and it may have to happen in high school football.

Think you’re right and I think you’d also see a rise in neutral sight games splitting the travel burden.

To one of your earlier points about “Montana and Alaska”, as a long since aged out athlete from a small population/large land mass area - yep…just drive. We had multiple conference opponents 2 hours away.

 

[LWN_Pheonix]

I am going to be honest here

I would have bet my entire life savings that this thread could not hit 3 pages without edgy deleting it

either Edgy has gotten soft on his trigger finger, or we have matured as a message board

 

[akz68]

I've toyed with this over the years. Each time, I come up with something different.

The big unknown is always who is in the NIPL to begin with. Is it some private schools or all of them? Are non-boundaried public schools in or out?

For the sake of discussion, let's agree that it's private only and it's all of them. In a scenario like that, there are roughly 50 football playing private schools, so you can't have more than 3 classes of 8-team brackets in order to make it so that roughly 50% of schools qualify. That's why I like the concept of a 10-game regular season so that everyone gets that extra game and only the top half who qualify get to play up to three more playoff games.

How to qualify and classify those 24 teams into three classes is something where enrollment will need to be taken into consideration, but it wouldn't be the sole factor. You know me...I want to balance playoff classes as much as possible so that the 8 most competitive teams are in the top class. I don't want a situation where people could say that a team in one class was so good that they could have won the class above. I also want to try to avoid a situation where the least competitive teams in the top two classes would lose by first round blowout in the class immediately below it.

Qualification, classification, and seeding are unknowns at this point. I'd love to see a system that incorporates SOS and coaches' input in some way, and I think that's more easily accomplished with 50 football playing schools than with ten times that number. I know you don't like this, but I'm not against some sort of success factor. I'm against it in its current format within the IHSA because it discriminates between non-boundaried and boundaried schools. I'd be open to it in a NIPL context if it applied to all schools. Regular season record and enrollment are factors that ought to be heavily weighted relative to other factors.

The above is limited to an athletic association of private schools only. If you add all non-boundaried football playing public schools to that mix, there would be increased flexibility to expand the number of classes and/or the number of qualifiers in each class.

Last time I checked, there are now 16 public schools getting a bye in each class during Week 10 due to the expanded playoff schedule setup. What about doing 9 games for both public and private and making Week 10 an open invite bowl like set-up for those 128 public schools and the 48 playoff qualifiers as privates for some outstanding public vs. private matchups and for bragging rights?

And then run the separate public and private playoffs from there.

I admit this is an unrealistic pipe dream, but this post made me think of how it could potentially take advantage of the new expanded playoff system.

Honestly I’m just thinking I’d love to see East St. Louis call out the #1 seed in the private playoffs to say let’s do this Week 10.

 

[4Afan]

Last time I checked, there are now 16 public schools getting a bye in each class during Week 10 due to the expanded playoff schedule setup. What about doing 9 games for both public and private and making Week 10 an open invite bowl like set-up for those 128 public schools and the 48 playoff qualifiers as privates for some outstanding public vs. private matchups and for bragging rights?

And then run the separate public and private playoffs from there.

I admit this is an unrealistic pipe dream, but this post made me think of how it could potentially take advantage of the new expanded playoff system.

Honestly I’m just thinking I’d love to see East St. Louis call out the #1 seed in the private playoffs to say let’s do this Week 10.

Except no team would pass up a bye and risk injury going into the playoffs.