Proposal for Seeding Soccer Playoffs

[GriffinCoach]

Guys,

I'm seriously looking into trying to get my principal to make a proposal on behalf of soccer at the next LHSAA meeting to seed the soccer playoffs.

Here's what I need. First I'd love to hear your ideas on this thread as to various methods you think will work. Be realistic. The LHSAA and principals aren't going to approve something too "out there".

ALSO...if you could give my email to your coach and let him know I'm considering doing this so he/she can also email me their ideas as well. My email is [e-mail]

I've looked over the football way of having Power Rankings and it appears it could work for soccer as well. You can research this at www.lhsaa.org and go to "sports" then "football" then the "by laws".

The main opposition this proposal will face (I think) is that principals and maybe some coaches don't want to have their teams travel all the way across the state to lose 17-0. Can you blame them? We don't make money like football does.

So having thought on this briefly...I think that we could use the football way of figuring Power Ranking Points (or something similar). At the end of the year we chose our playoff representatives the same way we do now with 1st and 2nd in district automatically advancing and then the wildcards etc.

Here's where it would change. Half of the teams that qualify for the playoffs (16 in Div. I and 8 in Div II) would then be seeded according to the Power Rankings. The bottom half of teams according to the Power Rankings would not be seeded, but matched up with one of the top half according to Geography. This is sort of a compromise between the way it is and changing it totally. At least in this system you wouldn't have the top 8 teams playing any other top 8 team and at the same time you limit the amount of travel a team may have to make in the first round. Of course how they are matched up according to Geography would have to be spelled out.

What are your thoughts on this?? I really want to come up with a good system to propose.

Please tell your coaches about this idea and pass on my email to them so they can give me their thoughts as well.

Thanks,
Larry Chambless
Dutchtown Soccer

[You]

i like the idea a lot and think that there should have been a seeding system in place a long time ago. Look at St. Thomas Aquinas's playoff schedule this year. they were ranked #2 in D3. First round they played #7-Episcopal. Second round they played #3-Newman. Semi's they played #1-St Louis. Now something is wrong with that.

One problem with this that i see is it takes away the reward of winning your district. while this is fair because some districts are stacked and the #4 or#5 team in those districts (like Lafayette's) would breeze through some of the other districts in the state, it makes Ruston's district schedule almost useless. If i am confused about what you are saying please post but this is one problem i see.

[Tellme]

Dude, I like the idea a lot because it is unfair what happens to teams with the current system (i.e. yourself having to play BF in the first round and STA v. STL in DIII). If this is to happen however, it cannot work the same way as the football system. You have to remember that almost all high school football teams play exactly ten games because there are only ten weeks one game a week etc. In soccer, we have basically three months of open season where a team can play 10 games (i.e. Newman) or can play 35. How can we use power rankings with such disparity in number of games. Just food for thought, good luck with this system.

[GriffinCoach]

Answer for "YOU" - Being First in your district wouldn't be all for nothing. That's what would get you into the playoffs. But lets be realistic...that's all it should do. I mean first in a district with three weak teams shouldn't be equal to being first in a district with 2 top ten teams. So what this does is being first gets you in, but after that the Power Rankings take over.

Answer for "TellME" - Actually I did think about football playing only ten games, I just forgot to mention that part in my LENGTHY post...haahaa

Remember this is still in the rough stage of forming it, but I think by taking the points you accrue and dividing them by the number of games you play should solve any problem there is with teams playing different amounts of games.

Your next thought might be that a team that plays just district games and wins may have a high ranking then, but this isn't so, because a team is awarded points for not only a victory but also for playing "up" a division AND for the number of victories from their opponent. So you are rewarded for playing "harder" teams, EVEN if you lose you get the points for their wins.

Good questions..keep it up!

[m]

Alot of people on this board have been wishing for a seeding system in soccer for the past few years. I think that something needs to be done to correct the way the brackets are currently drawn out now. They say they do it now the way they do to cut down on travel time, but in DII this year they took South Terrebonne and made them go all the way to Shreveport and took Neville and brought them all the way to Houma in the first rounds. It would also prevent things happening like they did last year in DII with D'town, Franklin, Vandy and STM all being in the same half of the bracket. The only reason it was sort of different this year is because Franklin and Vandy are in the same district. However, I think it would be difficult to use the exact same system that football uses because of what has already been mentioned and that's all teams don't play the same amount of matches. Some teams play almost 40 matches in a season and others only play maybe 15 if you're lucky. Then there is the Coaches poll that you could use to seed, but lots of people disagree with that poll. It's the only poll we've got though. I agree that seeding needs to be done, the question is how to go about doing it.

Nevermind about the number of matches played thing...I see you've already answered it.

[Tellme]

I understand what you are saying, and that is smart. My only problem is that what if a team like say Dutchtown decided they wanted to play Westgate five times, NISH three times, & Riverdale four times. They are all "harder" teams, and as a result, D-Town would get loads of points. While an honest coach would never do this, I am sure there are those out there who would try this. How do we prevent this?

[GriffinCoach]

I hadn't thought about this one, but on first glance I think a clause could be put in that limited the points you recieve by playing someone more than once.

Perhaps you only get the points for winning and not for "their" wins. I think this may work. This way it would pay to play someone else the next time because you are guaranteed to make points off the new opponents wins.

[soccer1288]

So your saying they do a strength of schedule thing?and that somehow effects the power rankings?

[m]

Would a DI team be penalized in power rankings for playing a DII or DIII team? This would lead most DI teams not to play teams like Vandebilt and St. Louis because they would lose power points. In football you don't get points if you play smaller schools???

[el Jefe]

The geography logistics are not that important in Div. II & III since they only have 2 wildcards in their playoffs. Why not match em all up based on strength of sched. or power rankings. This would encourage teams to play other good teams and to play well at every outing.

However any of these changes would require an up to date power ranking system in place. Is there such a system now???

[GriffinCoach]

Hey "m" - Div. I schools wouldn't be penalized for playing the other divisions. The points you get for playing up are only "2 points" in football. However, Div.I schools aren't ranked with Div. II schools in the power rankings so all division one schools are compared to each other so none of them would received the "2 points" when they play down and they wouldn't be penalized either AND at the same time they would still get the points for the number of "wins" that the Div. II school would have it they were to play them which would be large in the case of GOOD Div. II teams.

[crespo]

I see a problem with teams reporting scores. In football you can get the scores of every team on Sat. now in soccer there are teams trying to figure out what teams records are, are they counting preseason games or jamborees. What should we do with tournaments or tournaments champs. Every team will need a state ranking 1 thou whatever, to determine your power ranking.

I see alot of trouble and potential problems. Why are you so mad right now. I think the system is fine right now. I mean you would still have to beat the best teams to win the title anyway. So if you face the best team in the first round or the semis what is the diffenece.

Soccer would have to elect a commish. to run the whole thing. Then we would be arguing about the commish's decision, and it would be the same old story.

[McScruff]

I don't think anyone is mad, crespo. Just looking for ways to make the playoffs better. Yeah, its true that in order to win the championship you have to beat good teams anyway, but nobody wants to see top teams playing in the first couple of rounds for several reasons. First of all, the whole idea of the playoffs is about building momentum toward the championship. Right or wrong, better teams should be afforded the luxury of building that momentum by playing a progression of weaker teams to stronger teams. Otherwise, why even have the regular season. Why not just take all the teams and randomly pick 32 for the playoffs and then just have whoever play whoever? I mean that would suck. Also, in the first round, there are 16 games. Games between top teams deserve more of a spotlight than that. St. Paul's/Brother Martin, for example, could have gotten more build up than it got had it not been played until the quarters.

[coach62]

The idea of seeding is good, but only the top team should be seeded. I have coached in several States and most of them had a 500 record qualification to playoffs, this gives the stronger Districts a better chance for the stronger teams to qualify rather than teams in weaker Districts where teams can qualify with losing records.
The one thing I would like to see is there has to be a winner mentality in soccer over here. 3points for the win, 1 point for the tie. It seems to work everywhere else in the World!
If two teams play hard and are evenly matched there is no reason not share the points.

[Inman]

I have proposed a number of things through my principal and hope to see some of them passed. First of all, I want 5th place teams to be eligible for wildcard consideration. Fontainebleau went 7-7 in a good district and got left out. Two years ago, St. Paul went 9-5 and got left out. Something is wrong with that.

[coach62]

That's why I say you have to have a 500 record to qualify, your wins have to at least match your losses.
What's the point of playing hard in 14 game District and finishing with a 7-7 record and someone else finishes with a 2-3 record in an a smaller District and they qualify?

[ShreveDad]

I think the goal should be to get as many of the 32 best teams into the tournament. Whatever it takes to do that should be done.

[goat]

i agree shrevedad. i don't know how the format should be done(there have been some good suggestions on this thread), but we need to seed the teams and have the best 32 teams in the playoffs.

[ShreveDad]

Only guarantee the district champs a spot. Then try and figure out who the next best 23 teams are. There may be a few district champs that are not one of the best 32, but they deserve a spot.

[Inman]

I have a couple of proposals that my principal is supposed to put forth:

I. Allow 5th place teams to be eligible for wildcard consideration. Fontainebleau went 7-7 in our district and was left out. The same thing happened to St. Paul two years ago when they went 9-5.

II. Have a comittee of LHSSCA members seed the playoffs. The final bracket would be subject to approval by the LHSAA. They do this something close to this now in volleyball so a precedent has been set.

III. Establish a power point system as follows:

5 points for the win
3 points for a tie

1 point for your opponents division in reverse order(Division I = 3 Points, Division III = 1 point)

1 Point for playing a team ranked in the top ten of the state poll(at the time of the contest)

1 bonus point for playing a team in extended play at a tournament (quarterfinals etc.)

IV. Allow jamborees to consist of 120 total minutes instead of the current 40 minute total.

V. This pertains to what my team went through....allow foriegn exchange students that are denied entry to their "home based school" to attend the nearest public school and be pronounced eligible to paticipate athletically.

Roman numeral III may not be proposed because it was "unclear". I still put it up for consideration anyway.

Will any of these pass...probably not, but you have to try.

Coach Inman - Covington High