100% dude. No more entitlement. The current system allows way too many kids to participate. I think if you can't finish in the top 2 of your conference, you shouldn't be allowed in the playoffs. Where does MC give back its 2024 participation trophy?
Playoff Projections Post Week 3
- Thread starter wildkit_fan
- Start date
So we're starting this debate earlier than normal this year? Comparing basketball and baseball to football is like comparing apples to donuts. The football season is significantly shorter, baseball and basketball also starts with regionals. You want to see a first round game where MC is playing an 0-9 CPL team?
Like I've said, the IHSA system isn't perfect, but I think people get too hung up on a teams seed. Forget about the numbers next to the team and just play the games. You think it hurt Loyola being a 12 seed last year? You thing being the 19 seed slowed MC down? The best teams are going to win, where they're seeded in the current system is irrelevant.
Also, at what level of college football are teams guaranteed post-season play regardless of record?
What are you talking about? At what point did I say anything about me wanting to see 0-9 teams in the playoffs? All I said was the idea wasn't that farfetched as there are several examples of post-season play where everyone makes it regardless of record.
It sounds like you really dont understand the point of seeding. Mis seeding doesnt hurt the team thats seeded too low (ie #12 Loyola, #19 MC, ESL this year with whatever seed they get) nearly as much as it hurts their opponents. The seeding system is dumb, and pointless, when we get ESL as the 22nd seed in 6a and we have a 2nd rd matchup of what may be the 2 best team in 8a.
In d3, some conferences (most) get auto-bids to playoffs, while some conferences do not. In FBS, conferences have agreements with bowls for their teams. This is to recognize that not all conferences and schedules are created equal. I'm trying to make this argument without calling out any particular schools, but taking one step up for that... convince me that a 5-4 team from West Suburban Gold is more deserving of a playoff spot than a 4-5 team from Southwest Valley Blue.
The concern about 1st round games is misplaced in my view. Already the majority of 1st round games (at least in big schools, I don't follow small schools closely) are blowouts. So, MC would need to bring in 3rd stringers in 2nd qtr instead of 3rd qtr? The best players & coaches continue to congregate more and more at certain schools. Those schools will blow out any team that's not in that select group, that's just reality.
I don't believe you understand the current process on how seeding is determined in other sports.
Right now, this is how it works. Coaches seed their own sectional. That sectional is predetermined by the IHSA based upon geography.
So, if you are seeding 8A, which is 1-32, that means the whole state votes.
Then, who gets to vote? Just playoff teams and all their coaches? How do you know what the cutoffs are?
And when you have this info, when do people vote?
Right now it takes it is a three-day process at best for sports like basketball and baseball to just vote and then the IHSA to count those votes and come up with pairings. And remember, these sports have their bracketing done TWO weeks before playoffs begin.
Right now, pairings are done early Saturday afternoon and then released to the public on Saturday evening soon after that.
If you wanted the coaches to vote, best case scenario would be that the pairings would be ready by Wednesday of the following week.
Now weak conferences.
There will always be conferences that are better than others. You should know better than most coming from the CSL. Other than Maine South, and the past few years Glenbrook South, the conference has not been traditionally strong for a long time now. But they do deserve to have teams in the playoffs.
Schools do load up on weaker teams in order to get more wins and qualify. That part has been going on for years and in all sports. Teams will play weaker competition to pick up wins to inflate their victory total to ensure a better seed in the playoffs. Or in the case of football, qualify for the playoffs.
So, how do we tweak a system that I feel works well, but still has some huge flaws.
First and foremost, in my opinion, you go to 1-32 seeding statewide. And you do it for all 8 classes. Right now is not soon enough.
Next, you let the top 16 seeds decide if they want to host a first-round game. Or, better yet, let the lower seeds host the first round games. Attendance is sparce at those games anyway. Then, beginning with the second round, the higher seed hosts all games.
These two items, in my opinion, can fix many issues to begin with. I don't want to have this thread with hijacked with another Public-Private debate.
Right now, this is how it works. Coaches seed their own sectional. That sectional is predetermined by the IHSA based upon geography.
So, if you are seeding 8A, which is 1-32, that means the whole state votes.
Then, who gets to vote? Just playoff teams and all their coaches? How do you know what the cutoffs are?
And when you have this info, when do people vote?
Right now it takes it is a three-day process at best for sports like basketball and baseball to just vote and then the IHSA to count those votes and come up with pairings. And remember, these sports have their bracketing done TWO weeks before playoffs begin.
Right now, pairings are done early Saturday afternoon and then released to the public on Saturday evening soon after that.
If you wanted the coaches to vote, best case scenario would be that the pairings would be ready by Wednesday of the following week.
Now weak conferences.
There will always be conferences that are better than others. You should know better than most coming from the CSL. Other than Maine South, and the past few years Glenbrook South, the conference has not been traditionally strong for a long time now. But they do deserve to have teams in the playoffs.
Schools do load up on weaker teams in order to get more wins and qualify. That part has been going on for years and in all sports. Teams will play weaker competition to pick up wins to inflate their victory total to ensure a better seed in the playoffs. Or in the case of football, qualify for the playoffs.
So, how do we tweak a system that I feel works well, but still has some huge flaws.
First and foremost, in my opinion, you go to 1-32 seeding statewide. And you do it for all 8 classes. Right now is not soon enough.
Next, you let the top 16 seeds decide if they want to host a first-round game. Or, better yet, let the lower seeds host the first round games. Attendance is sparce at those games anyway. Then, beginning with the second round, the higher seed hosts all games.
These two items, in my opinion, can fix many issues to begin with. I don't want to have this thread with hijacked with another Public-Private debate.
I think they can keep current system to qualify for the playoffs, but they need different criteria to seed them. Like you said, all conferences deserve atleast a spot in the playoffs but all conferences arent created equal. We should never have a Loyola v MC or Byron v Montini 2nd rd mathcup.
You were implying that it's not a terrible idea to have all teams make the playoffs, which would be awful.
If a top tier team like MC, Loyola, ESL, etc. is seeded lower than what they should be it doesn't matter. If you think it effects the teams their playing, then do you think Loyola's first round opponent last year, Belleville East, would have made a deep run had they not played Loyola in round one? What about Harelm, MC's first round opponent last year?
Below 7A seeding means even less because those classes are split north/south.
I agree that there are some marquee matchups that happen sooner than we would like to see them, but you have to play those teams anyway and the more I think about it the more I'm in favor of a couple of big games per round versus 2+ rounds of pure blowouts before we see a decent game.
So what is your solution for seeding in the playoffs? People complain but have no suggestions for a fix. Should we do what Indiana does and put everyone in the playoffs and then do a blind draw to see who plays who?
Did seeding keep any of the best teams from winning titles last year? Illinois is a very top heavy state when it comes to elite programs so regardless of where those teams are seeded they'll win. If that means their first round opponents lose in the first round instead of the second round I'm fine with that.
You keep saying it doesn't matter, which means you dont fully understand the concept of seeding. You seem to be a proponent of this randomness of games, but also are completely against allowing anymore than 32 teams in the playoffs. It doesn't make sense to me. There is no bracketed or seeded tournament where the goal should ever be to have "big games" in the early rounds.
Ive offered many suggestions. Use the current system to qualify. Then use AP voting, Massey, Calpreps, etc to seed. It would be an enormous improvement if they used those for the top 8 seeds, for example, and seeded the remaining 24 teams using the current system.
Playoffs and seeding should never about about randomness. Its actually designed to be the exact opposite of that. And it is not a predictor of who will win a given matchup, but more of a reward for what was accomplished in the regular season. The eventual winner of the tournament/playoffs is irrelevant and doesn't justify the seeding process. The fact you keep bringing up the outcomes of particular matchup and champions is sort of proof you dont really understand what the seeding process is for.
Again, I don't think you are comprehending how long it takes to get this accomplished.
The 256-team field is not complete until about 4 PM on Saturday. And that's if all the Saturday games get reported right after they are completed. That does not always happen.
Then, the field needs to be broken into the 8 classes. After that, the seeding takes place. All of this is done by about 6 PM. Released to the public shortly after.
Now, you want to add a step and have coaches vote. No way that takes an hour.
The IHSA can't get all its coaches to vote in other sports for seeding in those sports. You would be lucky to be done in 6 hours, probably closer to 12-18 hours before you had all the votes in. If that is possible at all.
Now you are into Sunday, which means they won't be tallied until Monday and then released. As a coach and a team, you just lost 2 days of prep work.
And no way am I trusting Massey, MaxPreps or AP (which I used to vote in. And trust me, it was hard getting everyone in AP to vote each week).
If a team plays in a conference and goes 1-4, maybe they should have gone 4-0 in their non conference games to make the playoffs. I'm just not going to worry about you you misplaced fears about fairness.
Is it fair that CPS gets 20-25 teams each years and loses nearly every first round game while other teams, possibly more talented, are sidelined?
Maybe not. But this is also about growing the game of football and keeping it alive in other places. Having CPS and all its schools in this field is more important than not having them there.
How about looking at the solutions that I detailed in an earlier post? I don't believe they are difficult to understand and hard to implement.
And the reason I mention Private/Public was that somehow, that always gets into the discussion. I wanted to keep that out, so we can focus on just this.
And on another note. Love your projected pairings. It takes lots of works. If I can help with sorting out teams or you need some info on them, don't hesitate to ask.
Ok, let's use MaxPreps for 8A. I know it's still early in the season, but they would have 0-3 Marist as the #8 seed if the season ended today. So just seed the top 8? In other words you don't care about 1-32 seeding top to bottom, just the elite teams so you can see the matchups you want to see when you want to see them. Seeding the top 8 will then lead to arguments as to who the #8 team is.
What is random? It's the most objective system there is. Teams are seeded by wins and then playoff points. Period. It's transparent and every team knows what they need to do to get in the playoffs and where they are likely to be seeded.
Shouldn't a successful regular season be rewarded? I get that not all conferences are not created equal, but there is no parity in the IHSA so how do you weigh conference wins in one conference versus another conference. How do you rank non-conference games? How do you factor in closed conferences? An objective system seeded 1-32 for all classes is the best option.
Illinois isn't the only state that operates this way. Texas, the be all, end all for HS football seeds their playoffs by classification size and record. How good a team actually is doesn't factor into the equation.
Ratsy, where is the outlook posted? IHSA site? Not used to navigating the new site format.
Here you go.
IHSA - Illinois High School Association
The official site for the Illinois High School Association, providing schedules, scores, and news for high school sports in Illinois.
www.ihsa.org
So you use the one service who I did not even mention in my post to counter my argument? The current IHSA system has ESL as a 22 seed. Marist being #8 seems alot more reasonable and accurate to me.
I am talking about the randomness you prefer of possibly the 2 best teams playing in rd1. That is not at all how any seeded tournament should work. There was actually a pretty big bball tournament in the metro east that lost one of its biggest draws in large part due to that.
Yes. A very successful season should be rewarded with an autobid to the playoffs. Not a 1 seed. Very similar to the NCAAT. Non conf games and closed conf teams get ranked and compared all the time. Why are you acting like that would be an impossible task.
The purpose of seeding a tournament is to encourage the best teams not to meet until the end of the tournament. Otherwise, why are we seeding at all. Here is last year's 8A actual bracket vs. a bracket where seedings are based on Massey ratings. Hard for me to think people believe the former makes more sense than the latter.
Yes, teams can be rewarded for a successful regular season, but shouldn't teams also be rewarded for having a competitive schedule. That's why NCAA basketball committee (despite all its flaws) heavily considers who you played, not just your record, and also why Army was not in CFP last year.
There is no easy or perfect way to compare conferences, schedules, etc. which is why (despite drawbacks), I'd support a system where all teams (who choose) have opportunity to participate in playoffs.
Thank you, My page hadn't updated from previous day. I see it now. Not sure Im a fan of the new layout.Here you go.
IHSA - Illinois High School Association
The official site for the Illinois High School Association, providing schedules, scores, and news for high school sports in Illinois.
What happens when say a 4 win team cuts through the playoff field like a hot knife through butter and wins its second consecutive participation after winning the previous one being a 5 win playoff team?
Glad you pointed out that I used a service that you did not, it only goes to further speak to my point of these services being too subjective and not accurate. Another example, using Massey, they currently have Oswego as the #8 overall team in Illinois, which would be good for #4 in 8A. MaxPreps has them at #42 overall and #15 in 8A. So which service should Illinois trust to have the more accurate algorithm? Side note, I used MaxPreps because other states use them to seed their playoffs (I believe Arizona is one) and they rank each class where Massey does not.
Sorry, can't use ESL in this discussion since 6A is seeded north/south, not 1-32. While I love what wildkit_fan does by seeding all classes 1-32 as it should be, that's not how it will end up come playoff time, ESL will be in the south in 6A. TBD on what the dividing line will be and who else will be in the south with them. Even if that were the case I wouldn't get too worked up about seeding after week 3.
Never said that is what I preferred. I said given the current system it can happen sooner than we'd like. Also, this is just a projection after week 3. Loyola will likely end up 8-0 or 7-1 which will give them a higher seed. If you think they should be higher then they should have played ESL in week 2 or found another opponent so they had a full 9 game schedule.
Seeds are determined by playoff points after record, if you want a higher seed, play better teams in the regular season. Every year people complain about who gets in and who gets left out of March Madness as well as arguing over seeding and the NCAA's solution is just to keep increasing the size of the tournament. I don't see that as feasible for the IHSA football playoffs.
Should the IHSA go to whatever seeding system you desire how do you weigh non con games vs. closed conferences who don't play any non con games? How do you seed those who played out of state opponents? These are things that get discussed here, but are not factored into in terms of playoffs at this time.
For example, Montini, Morris and Rochester are the three top 4A teams, who all play out of state opponents, how do we know which one was the best out of state opponent?
In this example, the teams that made the semi's were seeded 1-LWE, 2-Loyola, 6-York, and 9-Naperville Central according to Massey. These teams were seeded 1-LWE, 12-Loyola, 7-Naperville Central, and 14-York by the IHSA. So regardless of the number in front of the team the top teams still advanced and both semi's were great games.
Teams are rewarded for having a tougher schedule, that's what playoff points are, the total number of wins by your opponents.
I will throw my 2 cents in.
First and foremost 1-32 all classes. I'm not going to throw a fit with a change by using Massey/Max/some unknown algorithm. BUT I also agree with 4A and no matter what not everyone is going to be happy, there will be issues with a new system. I truly don't care that much about how they seed just that it is 1-32. If we are trying to make the playoffs better I would also add SF to all schools but that is a different conversation.
First and foremost 1-32 all classes. I'm not going to throw a fit with a change by using Massey/Max/some unknown algorithm. BUT I also agree with 4A and no matter what not everyone is going to be happy, there will be issues with a new system. I truly don't care that much about how they seed just that it is 1-32. If we are trying to make the playoffs better I would also add SF to all schools but that is a different conversation.
Im a friggin dinosaur... When I was in HS there were only 16 teams per class in the playoffs meaning you had to go 9-0 or 8-1 to make the playoffs. Im not in favor of allowing teams in the playoffs that can't win 4 games and having 55+ PPs!!!!
It’s very unlikely the same 4 teams would have made the semi’s which is kinda the point. Would wager on LWE, Maine south, Marist & Loyola in the Massey bracket.
Opponent wins is pretty weak indicator of SoS, since your opponents may be racking up wins by playing a weak schedule themselves. So you benefit your own team by scheduling weak non-conference and you benefit in playoff points if your fellow conference members also schedule weak non-conference games. Incentives are terrible.
ESL is still certainly a good example of the flaws in the system. They would be the #22 seed if not for another flawed system of seeding that almost everyone wants to eliminate with the North/South seeding.
When explaining the unfairness of the current system you just said a few posts prior you are perfectly fine with seeing these top teams play in the early rounds.
Playoff Projections Post Week 3 - Page 2 - Forums
Updated with week 3 results and updated projected wins per Massey formulas. Note- I am not including the projected wins of out of state opponents (too much work to track that down), so if IHSA includes out of state opponent team wins (do they? and what if those teams play more than 9 games?), my...
The ncaa tournament does not reward teams for playing a weaker schedule by giving them better seeds over teams that play a tougher schedule. Esp when the records are similar. Their system is exactly what I have suggest IHSA adopt in some form.
I think you are talking yourself in circles. Your first sentence you quoted Massey, Maxpreps and other services to provide support of the point you are trying to make. And at the end, you ask how would we ever determine how good other football teams might be. Almost as if you have never heard of the same services you used just a few sentences ago.
It’s very unlikely the same 4 teams would have made the semi’s which is kinda the point. Would wager on LWE, Maine south, Marist & Loyola in the Massey bracket.
Opponent wins is pretty weak indicator of SoS, since your opponents may be racking up wins by playing a weak schedule themselves. So you benefit your own team by scheduling weak non-conference and you benefit in playoff points if your fellow conference members also schedule weak non-conference games. Incentives are terrible
No. Teams are not rewarded for having a tougher schedule at all. They are rewarded for winning. Its why 9 win CPL teams get a 1 seed and 5-4 CCL teams do not.
But you are rewarded for playing a tougher schedule, playoff points. Seeding starts with record and then goes to playoffs points. You take the 9-0 teams and then you take playoffs points to decide 1,2,3,4 etc depending on how many 9-0 teams in said class.
I'm not old enough to remember when you needed to win your conference to get in, but I do remember the 6 class system where you needed to be at least 6-3 to get in and I'm all in favor of going back to that.
lol, so 4 out of the top 5 make the semi's using the Massey projection? Way to go out on a limb and assume no upsets.
As I look through last year "opponents wins" matches up pretty well with SOS. Full disclosure I really can only evaluate teams from Chicagoland and 4A up as I am not very well versed with smaller divisions conferences ect.
lol, you assume the same 4 teams would have made it? you don't even have a limb to go out on
and thinking the 3 teams that played toughest (Maine South was very competitive for 3 quarters) against Loyola would have made the semi's is ont going far out on a limb, its just logical.
ESL is not #22 according to the IHSA, they are #22 according to wildkit_fan's projections using Massey. It holds no weight in week 3 and again, 6A is north/south so the absolute worst they could be seeded is #16 in the south. They will finish 7-2 or 6-3, the only variable is the IMG game. They'll likely fall in the 6-10 range.ESL is still certainly a good example of the flaws in the system. They would be the #22 seed if not for another flawed system of seeding that almost everyone wants to eliminate with the North/South seeding.
When explaining the unfairness of the current system you just said a few posts prior you are perfectly fine with seeing these top teams play in the early rounds.
You also said "the more I think about it the more I'm in favor of a couple of big games per round versus 2+ rounds of pure blowouts before we see a decent game". So yea, you actually have expressed that sentiment on more than one occasion just in your last few posts.Playoff Projections Post Week 3 - Page 2 - Forums
Updated with week 3 results and updated projected wins per Massey formulas. Note- I am not including the projected wins of out of state opponents (too much work to track that down), so if IHSA includes out of state opponent team wins (do they? and what if those teams play more than 9 games?), my...www.on3.com
The ncaa tournament does not reward teams for playing a weaker schedule by giving them better seeds over teams that play a tougher schedule. Esp when the records are similar. Their system is exactly what I have suggest IHSA adopt in some form.
I think you are talking yourself in circles. Your first sentence you quoted Massey, Maxpreps and other services to provide support of the point you are trying to make. And at the end, you ask how would we ever determine how good other football teams might be. Almost as if you have never heard of the same services you used just a few sentences ago.
Perfectly fine does not mean that is what I prefer, but rather that it is acceptable to me. Using the team I know, Morris, they've had some amazing games with the likes of JCA over the years and two of the most memorable happened in the quarters despite the fact that in both of those years Morris and JCA were head and shoulders above any other team in the class. Should they have been playing for the title? Absolutely. Were those games any less memorable because they happened 2 rounds before the finals? Nope. If they had been on opposite ends of the bracket, who's to say either team wouldn't have been upset prior to meeting.
Stop using the NCAA tourney as a comparative example. That's what everyone goes to and it makes no sense. The NCAA tourney has a full time committee that has an infinite amount of data points on all teams considered for the tourney, has the ability to watch as many games as they choose to for the "eye test", and they still get it wrong. When teams like Loyola makes the Final Four, did the committee get their seed wrong? Good luck finding a committee in Illinois that is willing to travel the state to see as many teams as possible throughout the year and have a central data source to compare stats, SOS, and SOR. You can't compare how a D1 college tournament is organized to HS football.
Yes, I mentioned Massey and MaxPreps because those are they types of systems you want to use and I provided an example as to how different and thus unreliable they are, which is why at the end I asked which system you suggest we use for opponents such as out of state games because I don't trust Massey or MaxPreps to provide accurate info.
Even funnier, the 2 8A games in the 1st round last year that were considered upsets by seeding (Maine South over Naperville North, and Warren over Palatine) were not considered upsets by Massey. The higher ranked Massey team won every 1st round game.
I would swap MS for NC in the semi's only because NC would play LWE in the quarters. Do you have Marist beating York or Warren in the quarters in your projection?
How is that funny? Everyone knew who the better team was in those games and were not upsets. You're focusing way too much on the number in front of the team.