I was just reading some older posts and came across one mentioning what the user describes is a program with great history going down to 6 man football. I personally could not recall the history of the program. After some research I thought does going to state often define a program or is it more important to win when your team qualifies? Below is a list of 4 traditionally Class D schools compared over the last 16 years. How would you define each program?
School A- 15 trips to the state, 5 wins, 2 in one season
School B- 8 trips to state, 11 wins, 2 state runner ups
School C- 14 trips to state, 24 wins, 2 state runner ups, 1 championship
School D- 16 trips to state, 34 wins, 1 state runner up, 2 championships
Snuggie's opinions:
School D=Perennial Powerhouse (averaging 2.1 wins per trip to the post season and has medals to go along with it)
School C=Fellow powerhouse, but a notch below School D (hardware as well and averaging 1.7 wins per post season).
School B=A school you wouldn't mind sending your kid to play football at, but without more information, I have no context to make a decision. If those 2 state runner ups were back to back at the beginning of this 16 years, then it would seem like they had a good couple of classes and a coach to back it up. If there was 7-10 years between those runner ups, and they missed the playoffs for consecutive years in between, then that is a different issue. If my math is correct, this school won 8 of their 11 games in 2 post seasons and managed to muster up getting 3 wins out of the other 6 years? That's not good.
School A=To be honest they sound like the best team from a bad district. Probably go undefeated in their district and get a seed in the 2-5 range then get bounced in the first round by a team that played a tougher schedule.
Obviously if you're going to pick one of these for the 16 year stretch you'd rather have, you're going to pick D, because they are in it every year and do well and have actually won championships. C is a less elite version of D, so there's no reason to pick that school. It comes down to would I rather make the playoffs every other year in a 8/16 years, and get beyond the first round only 2/8 years or would I rather go to the playoffs damn near every year and get bounced in the first round? School B has probably had a more successful 16 year stretch than A because of the runner ups, but if I was getting ready to send my kid to school and I had to choose one of them, I'd probably choose A because B seems like its feast or famine. You can't win the championship if you don't make it, and B has only made it 50% of the time.
And that boys and girls is my long-winded response to this question.
