Districts Passed

ramblinman wrote:

lefty120 wrote:I'm just hoping that in the future, if districts stick, there's a way we can put together some sort of meaning on those games.  

Can't recall if it was here or at Edgy's, but someone wondered if more meaning could be added to the first two games by counting them for seeding purposes.  That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Relative to qualifying, what if there are two teams at 6-1, one at 5-2, and two at 4-3?    Why can't the first two games be used as part of a tie breaking system relative to qualifying and seeding?

I like where your head is at there!! Just give them some sort of meaning.

The problem still is, and will be until these things are all addressed, that the IHSA allowed this proposal to be put in front of the town hall meetings and then to the voting public with so many unanswered questions that, at the end of the day, they're going to have to figure out. Which will inevitably anger many people.

I'll say it here; with two more seasons before this is implemented, the proposal that was just passed will NOT be the proposal that's implemented in 2021. There's no way! There's going to have to be several things added to it to eliminate stuff being thrown together at the last minute once the seasons are already under way. And I'm not even including in there making the first 2 games mean something. Then the question becomes, does the IHSA have the power to do that? Change a proposal that was voted on by the membership and just add or subtract to it as they see fit?

center wrote:Here is an example why a school like ours would vote for it.

Here are the current enrollments for the Big Northern:

Dixon 742 (almost 5A)
Rock falls 645 4A
SV 596 4A
GK 588 4A
Lutheran 575 (multiplier 4A)
Mendota 555 4A
N Boone 503 3A
Byron 470 3A
Bago 454 3A
Oregon 398…….

We are the 398. In the past several years our conference has decided to vote in Dixon, another private school who has some state caliber programs other than football, and Johnsburg. The Johnsburg that beat Phillips in football and left the BNC anyway.

So our conference decisions were not helping us.

As a parent of THE Valley student athletes I never understood letting in dixon and rf. Who voted in these expansions, sup's, AD's, principals??

ramblinman wrote:Why can't the first two games be used as part of a tie breaking system relative to qualifying and seeding?

I have a couple potential reasons, though how good they are is open to debate.....

#1- Why should seeding for a 7A playoff depend on the results of the first two games if there is no standard for scheduling?  One 7A team plays a 5A creampuff while another plays a solid 7 or 8A program.  Using these games, if you are going just based on wins and losses you have the same problem that caused many of the schools to vote for districts in the first place, just on a smaller scale.  If there was some sort of Strength Of Schedule factor thrown in, then I would be more for it in this scenario, but I see it causing problems still in #2, though not for near as many teams.

#2- It has the potential to finish off current rivalries that might be on life support now due to districts.  If a 6A Bloomington team can't catch back up to 7A Normal Community, for how many years should they take that seeding hit just because it is a rivalry?  If a SOS factor is thrown in, why should Normal Community take the seeding hit for scheduling a smaller program?

I certainly agree with the theory. Anything that makes all stakeholders take games 1 and 2 seriously, I am for, but only if the above two points can be figured out somehow.

+1 to you sir! Excellent points.

Huck wrote:

ramblinman wrote:Why can't the first two games be used as part of a tie breaking system relative to qualifying and seeding?

I have a couple potential reasons, though how good they are is open to debate.....

#1- Why should seeding for a 7A playoff depend on the results of the first two games if there is no standard for scheduling?  One 7A team plays a 5A creampuff while another plays a solid 7 or 8A program.  Using these games, if you are going just based on wins and losses you have the same problem that caused many of the schools to vote for districts in the first place, just on a smaller scale.  If there was some sort of Strength Of Schedule factor thrown in, then I would be more for it in this scenario, but I see it causing problems still in #2, though not for near as many teams.

#2- It has the potential to finish off current rivalries that might be on life support now due to districts.  If a 6A Bloomington team can't catch back up to 7A Normal Community, for how many years should they take that seeding hit just because it is a rivalry?  If a SOS factor is thrown in, why should Normal Community take the seeding hit for scheduling a smaller program?

I certainly agree with the theory.  Anything that makes all stakeholders take games 1 and 2 seriously, I am for, but only if the above two points can be figured out somehow.

Don't really have much of a response to your point #2. As to point #1, what you describe can happen right now without districts in that a 7A program can schedule cream puffs for non-con games and have them count in terms of qualifying and seeding. At least with the district concept, those cream puff games wouldn't count toward qualifying.

That was kind of my point about #1. I think, for some schools, part of passing districts is to get away from that type of scheduling.

ging wrote:i said this many years ago, but the ihsa needs to stop using enrollment as the only way to classify teams.  

someone needs to develop a system that classifies teams based on enrollment AND the strength of the program over the course of several seasons.  there have been computer rankings for years that, while not perfect, could be used to provide guidance for this.

You mean like a success formula?

I thought they had that?

But only for certain teams.

illinipete wrote:

center wrote:Here is an example why a school like ours would vote for it.

Here are the current enrollments for the Big Northern:

Dixon 742 (almost 5A)
Rock falls 645 4A
SV 596 4A
GK 588 4A
Lutheran 575 (multiplier 4A)
Mendota 555 4A
N Boone 503 3A
Byron 470 3A
Bago 454 3A
Oregon 398…….

We are the 398. In the past several years our conference has decided to vote in Dixon, another private school who has some state caliber programs other than football, and Johnsburg. The Johnsburg that beat Phillips in football and left the BNC anyway.

So our conference decisions were not helping us.

As a parent of THE Valley student athletes I never understood letting in dixon and rf. Who voted in these expansions, sup's, AD's, principals??

The BNC has a “board of controls” which is basically the principals vote. I assume most principals consult their AD’s. I can tell you that many voted opposite what their coaches wanted.

If you use the first two games for seeding purposes, you still have most of the same issues they have now.

mc140 wrote:If you use the first two games for seeding purposes, you still have most of the same issues they have now.

Well if the big problem right now is conference shopping to get five wins, you won't have any of that.

Coach53 wrote:My personal favorite of the new Districts is the one with Plainfield and Edwardsville...Makes TOTAL sense

And that is the reason I am not a fan of this thing. Our furthest drive right now from Plainfield North is to Minooka, which is 15 miles. Potentially, we could be traveling to the St. Louis area 2 or 3 times in a season. Currently, our conference has ten teams from five towns. I just think of all of the teams we would be passing by on our commute if these projections panned out.

Been working on the old District mapping using the newly released 2 year Enrollment Figures. Im down to 520 Playoff Eligible football Playing Schools so only 1 Class will have 9 Team Districts I think I elected for Class 5A For those.

7A was the Death Map as I was down to 2 Schools to have to fill that South Bracket with Alton, Granite City, Collinsville, Belleville West. Those Schools were Moline and Bradley Bourbonnais. The Time travel to those 4 schools were about the same so the tie breaker was the trip to Quincy which was much closer for Moline so they got the dirty south 7a Bracket. Map work here.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1azV5TKUn8nf2Wf1v6efq5sW8xUOQbKgh&usp=sharing

The Districts issue may not be settled just yet. Some folks who voted for it are having second thoughts.

https://www.whig.com/20190130/creation-of-football-districts-may-lead-to-other-changes#

I was going to post this and while I stick to my original premise that most schools will like districts once they see it play out, one of my questions was answered in this article: co-op schools do actually get two votes assuming both individual schools are members. That doesn't seem too fair.

No problem with Co-ops having 2 votes. These schools could break up and go on their own at any point. Decisions like this will impact them down the road. I have more concerns with non playing schools having a vote.

Well, the non-playing schools might add football at any point and a decision like this will impact them down the road.

It's to bad there isn't a rule where the IHSA must approve a school leaving a conference. More oversight from the IHSA is never a good thing, but I'd rather have that and avoid the unknown districts.

Having said that, I'd rather deal with unknown districts than having all this conference shuffling continue

Id rather see Conference shuffling back in football and all other sports go Independant. With the other sports and their 30+ Game regular season they are going to have to travel somewhere at some point. Conferences play what 10 to 12 games a year. There are going to be some long trips somewhere just quit blaming football over it.

Bighitter11 wrote:Id rather see Conference shuffling back in football and all other sports go Independant.  With the other sports and their 30+ Game regular season they are going to have to travel somewhere at some point.    Conferences play what 10 to 12 games a year.  There are going to be some long trips somewhere just quit blaming football over it.

I don't think the travel is what drives the conference shuffling. It's the getting to 5 wins and becoming playoff eligible

I would like some data to confirm all this Conference jumping. I certainly dont remember it being a big deal back in the 6-3 Qualify Days.

Steve Soucie and I went back and forth a bit in December about that statistic.  While he couldn't give me hard facts, he said he was 95% sure that less than 15% of the football playing schools in 2018 had changed leagues in the last 10 years.  I'll defer to his knowledge as should most people.  When you look at the 523 schools that played football last year, 78 is 15%...that's an awfully big number when you think about it.  I'd have to agree with him in that assumption.

As for the football programs dictating the conference changes, I've stated several times that of course they do and should.  Football doesn't have an automatic bid like an 0-25 basketball or volleyball team does. I'd again say, with the exception of a few that H.I. brought up earlier in this thread, overall, almost all of the athletic departments that have changed conferences in the last 10 years, have improved due to the football team driving that change.  Has travel increased for some, yes it has.  But I'll say that number is so small, there's no way you can justify the massive shift in how football is run due to that.

After calming down a bit in the last month, I firmly believe there will be something done about this before it's implemented in 2021.  It was terribly irresponsible of the IHSA to have this on the ballot with so many unanswered scenarios.  I'm not against district football or doing things differently; but I'm against change just to satisfy a small number of schools that honestly, the IHSA could step in and help if they really wanted to.  

I proposed to our principal, who is our official rep, that the IHSA help these schools that are struggling with scheduling and finding a league home.  There's not than many of them.  The IHSA doesn't want to do that, but they'll allow a major proposal like this to get on the ballot, let non-football playing schools vote for it, and then just throw it in with so many loop holes that will need to be closed.

Last thought; some have said all schools should be allowed to vote.  My only thought on this is schools that A. co-op, or B. don't have football are not likely to go the other direction.  Co-op schools are not splitting up and continuing to play 11 man football...they're going to 8 man.  And when was the last time a school started up a program?  Honest question.  Schools are so rarely doing that, I don't think that's a legitimate consideration here.  Just my two cents though and there is an argument on the other side too I admit.

As for Central Illinois, the following teams- to my knowledge- have changed conferences in the past decade

Clinton
Argenta Oreana
St T
Warrensburg Latham
Blue Ridge
Mahomet
Monticello
Tolono Unity- twice I believe
St Joe- twice
St Thomas More- 3 times maybe
Rantoul
Olympia
Lincoln
Cerro Gordo
Arthur Lovington
Macon Meridian
Taylorville
Villa Grove
Tuscola
Decatur MacArthur
Decatur Eisenhower
Sangamon Valley- twice I believe
Maroa Forsyth
Central A&M
Tri County
Mattoon
Cumberland- twice
Decatur LSA
Shelbyville
Sullivan

That's just off the top of my head.

That's a good list...is it safe to say that some on that list, and you would know this better than I, would fall into the category of basically staying in the same league but changing 1-2 teams and re-naming the league itself? I know not all would fit that statement, but are there some?