Playoff changes for upcoming 2019 season

[Dave Keefer]

Per CIF-SS press release:

I want to take this opportunity to inform you of some significant changes that will be forthcoming in the sport of Football for 2019... With the full support of the CIF Southern Section Football Coaches Advisory Committee, we plan to implement the following:

You will notice that we have a larger group of schools in a combined Divisions 1 and 2. The reason for that is at the end of the regular season, similar to what we have done in Basketball, Volleyball, Water Polo and Tennis, we will have a Football Selection Committee choose the top 8 schools after Week 10 games have been played and place them into Division 1.

There will be an 8-team bracket for that division and the schools involved will have a Bye Week before beginning the Division 1 Playoffs. The remaining schools from the combined Divisions 1/2 who are not selected for Division 1 will be placed into Division 2, which will be a 16-team bracket.

Also, since the Division 1 bracket is 8 teams, we will create another division, meaning we will increase from 13 divisions to a total of 14 divisions next season.

The Football Selection Committee will utilize our At-Large selection criteria: head-to-head results from teams under consideration, overall won-loss record, strength of schedule, using the overall won-loss record of their opponents, strength of league, strength against common opponents, etc., to choose the 8 teams for Division 1.

Understand that competitive equity playoffs are not about filling brackets with teams who do not belong, which is what we have seen in the Division 1 Playoffs recently, resulting in non-competitive games and lopsided scores.

In this new format, the Division 1 bracket will contain only those teams whose power rankings justify their placement into that division using the most accurate information we have available to do so.

 

[gvgrizzlyfan]

Dave, I thought I read that the CIFss commissioner left the door open to recalculating playoff section selection, if they can run the data on time at the end of this season. Let me know if I read that right. For now, Lawndale moves up to D-3 from D-5 but will have to do it without their star RB lost to graduation and Culver City moves up to D-5 after winning the D-7 championship, but will have to do it without the services of the D-7 Offensive Player of the year, Kevin McGuire and D-7 Defensive Player of the year, Cortez Wright.

 

[Dave Keefer]

Dave, I thought I read that the CIFss commissioner left the door open to recalculating playoff section selection, if they can run the data on time at the end of this season. Let me know if I read that right. For now, Lawndale moves up to D-3 from D-5 but will have to do it without their star RB lost to graduation and Culver City moves up to D-5 after winning the D-7 championship, but will have to do it without the services of the D-7 Offensive Player of the year, Kevin McGuire and D-7 Defensive Player of the year, Cortez Wright.

My impression is that they will look at how the 2019 playoff selection goes and consider tweaking the method for the 2020 season. I could be wrong so I'll retrieve the CIF press release and post the entire message in my next post. Let me know your impression, Grizz.

 

[Dave Keefer]

Full press release:

A MESSAGE FROM THE COMMISSIONER
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

Today, we released playoff divisions for our Fall Sports. I want to take this opportunity to inform you of some significant changes that will be forthcoming in the sport of Football for 2019 and hopefully, 2020. With the full support of the CIF Southern Section Football Coaches Advisory Committee, we plan to implement the following…

2019 –
You will notice that we have a larger group of schools in a combined Divisions 1 and 2. The reason for that is at the end of the regular season, similar to what we have done in Basketball, Volleyball, Water Polo and Tennis, we will have a Football Selection Committee choose the top 8 schools after Week 10 games have been played and place them into Division 1.

There will be an 8-team bracket for that division and the schools involved will have a Bye Week before beginning the Division 1 Playoffs. The remaining schools from the combined Divisions 1/2 who are not selected for Division 1 will be placed into Division 2, which will be a 16-team bracket.

Also, since the Division 1 bracket is 8 teams, we will create another division, meaning we will increase from 13 divisions to a total of 14 divisions next season. The Football Selection Committee will utilize our At-Large selection criteria: head-to-head results from teams under consideration, overall won-loss record, strength of schedule, using the overall won-loss record of their opponents, strength of league, strength against common opponents, etc., to choose the 8 teams for Division 1.

Understand that competitive equity playoffs are not about filling brackets with teams who do not belong, which is what we have seen in the Division 1 Playoffs recently, resulting in non-competitive games and lopsided scores. In this new format, the Division 1 bracket will contain only those teams whose power rankings justify their placement into that division using the most accurate information we have available to do so.

2020 –
I have been clear since the beginning of competitive equity playoffs that this system will continue to evolve in the time ahead. The most significant step moving forward in determining the strength of programs is to apply the results of the current regular season to the previous two years power rankings, so we may develop new power rankings at the end of the regular season and create playoff divisions at that time.

This would truly enable us to have divisions that are as accurate as possible and would allow, specifically in the sport of Football, for every school who is guaranteed entry from their league to enter the playoffs.

As you know, with fixed brackets of 16 teams, unlike other sports that can expand their brackets to include wild-card games, there have been instances where some 3rd place teams did not get into the Football Playoffs in the past 3 years because we had too many teams that automatically qualified from their leagues resulting in some teams being left out.

Therefore, in the sport of Football, we would like to use the 2019 season as a testing period for the possibility of including current regular season results and potentially creating playoff divisions at the end of the regular season in 2020.

The only way that will be possible is if our member schools enter into CIFSSHome every score of every game that is played in the 2019 regular season by November 2, 2019. If that happens, we would be able to create updated power rankings and determine divisions at the end of the regular season for the first time.

That is the effort we would like to make this upcoming season, so we can review this process and see what playoff divisions would look like following that process. Thank you very much for your help and support, it is truly appreciated.

 

[gvgrizzlyfan]

Yes, I guess you are right Dave. They will look at the results they get at the end of this year in preparation for possibly installing that change for 2020.

 

[bjbrandon]

That's the system basketball has been using for a while. It makes Division 1 and 2 that much more elite at the top and the other divisions fall in line accordingly based off that. I am curious to see what changes they make for year two of it.

 

[sea1]

Actually, basketball went to an open division with eight elite
teams in the final open brackets, the CIFSS would have twenty or so teams during the season that were placed in the top tier,
CIFSS at the end of the regular season would decide the
eight elite teams for the open (big boy) division playoffs, all the rest,went to the D1 (JV)- just kidding) division for the playoffs.

 

[2i Tech]

I like the open Division for the top teams regardless of enrollment but think others should be based on the schools actual enrollment numbers and multiplier for parochial schools.

Keeps an Apple to Apple comparison based on school size !

 

[gvgrizzlyfan]

I don't think parochial's need help from the crutch of a multiplier, and some public's with open enrollment have advantages over other public schools that do not. Performance is the only true measure. That is what keeps an apple, to an apple.