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Post by CentralTechFootball on Jun 9, 2017 11:33:14 GMT -6
Greetings Coaches, I am a teacher-coach in Toronto, Canada, in a large school board up here. Obviously - It is an ENTIRELY different world and there are a lot of 'issues' as I perceive them, but it is what it is. I would like to ask for some feedback/experiences/advice on possible ways to Tier a league, that have worked for your programs in the past, when geography and/or size of school are not possible dividers. Pertinent Background - We have not run our leagues by school-size classification for many many years. There simply are not enough programs of particular size to make that effective. Basically, any size/enrollment that fields a football team, is entered into the same league. However, our league is then tiered into 1/2/3 based on coach's decisions on their programs competitiveness in the preseason.Yes this can and has created some colourful 'debate' due to sandbagging, real or perceived, and various other issues when the coaches get to essentially 'pick their tier' etc... HENCE - this year at our Board Athletics AGM they are proposing to 'force' the Tier 2 champs and finalists (in all sports - baseball is also dealing with same issue heavily) each season to move up, the following Fall. I agree with the spirit of this sort of proposal, but with the majority of our football programs across the Board being run by 2-3 teacher-coaches at best and there being a LOT of enrollment upheaval the past few years across our city, this is bound to be a very controversial motion. THAT BEING SAID - as the 'football coaches' we run our league and do also have the ability to structure things and incorporate rules like this, if we choose at our separate Coach's meeting. I think this will be the best avenue for positive change and that is why I write. I am wondering if any of you could share any effective ideas and/or experiences OUTSIDE of 'school size' or geography by which leagues you have been involved with have tiered.... I appreciate your input, TL/DR - How have you seen league TIER/RELEGATION rules work in your experiences where 'enrollment'/school size is not the criteria? Please share  |
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Post by carookie on Jun 9, 2017 19:25:20 GMT -6
In Southern California, they recently re-classified all playoff brackets based off of success; similar to your 1/2/3 except with 13 classifications ranging from 17 teams (the best, D1) to 60+ teams (the lowest d13). So basically leagues are based off of logical factors (location and school size) but leagues are often divided when playoffs start. Many leagues are made up of teams from all different classifications.
Now, the big problem I have with this (well, I have several problems with it but the BIG one) is that they reclassify every year; essentially they are punishing success. If a mid sized school which has had limited success (lets say D7) gets a good group of kids in, and they start winning their sophomore year they get moved up (say D6), and then they still win their Jr. year and get moved up (now D4). So by their Sr. year this group of kids is forced to match up against schools with a lot more kids and have a built in advantage, and thus have a worse chance at winning a title. What should have been something great for a school, having that special class that makes a run, is ruined.
So my long winded point i:, do not allow schools to move up and down based off of preseason results or just a small sample size of success (or failure). Allow schools that improve to enjoy the fruits of their success before forcing them up. I would argue that a 4 year sample size would be significant in evaluating a program in regards to placement in division.
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famar
Sophomore Member
Looking to learn as much as I can from this site and all of the coaches here.
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Post by famar on Jun 9, 2017 19:48:42 GMT -6
I'm in New Jersey. The league that my current school is in merged with a superconference this past season. The divisions within each league are based for the most part on enrollment/geography/tradition, but they are realigned every two years and your record the previous two seasons factors into which division you are placed in. However, for playoff purposes it is still based entirely on enrollment.
Before we merged with the superconference, we tried a 2 year experiment in 2012 and 2013. In an 18 team league, they ranked the teams 1 through 18 based on the number of wins from the previous two seasons. Teams 1-9 were placed into the "Big School" division, and teams 10 through 18 into the "Small School" division. It resulted in the biggest school in the league with about 2500 students in the small school division and the two smallest schools which had 400 and 600 students in the big school division. After that we went back to using enrollment.
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Post by carookie on Jun 9, 2017 22:15:29 GMT -6
I'm in New Jersey. The league that my current school is in merged with a superconference this past season. The divisions within each league are based for the most part on enrollment/geography/tradition, but they are realigned every two years and your record the previous two seasons factors into which division you are placed in. However, for playoff purposes it is still based entirely on enrollment. Before we merged with the superconference, we tried a 2 year experiment in 2012 and 2013. In an 18 team league, they ranked the teams 1 through 18 based on the number of wins from the previous two seasons. Teams 1-9 were placed into the "Big School" division, and teams 10 through 18 into the "Small School" division. It resulted in the biggest school in the league with about 2500 students in the small school division and the two smallest schools which had 400 and 600 students in the big school division. After that we went back to using enrollment. We currently have similar type things going on in southern California. Its all a scam to A) allow the governing body to act as if they are trying to balance things out for corruption and recruiting, B) ensure lesser talented big money big population schools get deeper into the playoffs and make more MONEY |
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Post by **** on Jun 10, 2017 9:14:23 GMT -6
Enrollment has to be factored in. Need a cap on how low a school can drop. Not sure how many kids would be in a school but as an example it should be something like.
Class 1 can have no more than 500 students in the school.
Class 2 no more than 1000. (If a school with less than 500 kids want to compete up they can)
Class 3 1000+. (If a school with less than 1000 kids want to compete up they can)
A school with 1750 kids should not be competing in class 1 against schools with 250. Adjust numbers to whatever would be normal in Canada. If biggest school is 2000, level 2 cap is 1300, level 1 cap is 650. Etc...
Nobody is allowed to drop down.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jun 10, 2017 18:29:07 GMT -6
The Manitoba system was quite effective for the thirty-three-odd teams involved.
The teams span from perennial national powers to schools that can't field 24 players.
At the AGM they come to a consensus of the ten teams in AAA, of whom six are no-brainers. Then the consensus of ten AA teams, of which eight are also totally uncontroversial, and the rest go into A. Scheduling a nine week schedule is now pretty easy.
Come playoffs, the bottom two AAA teams get moved into the AA playoff bracket, and the bottom four AA teams get moved into the A bracket, so the AAA and AA brackets have a tidy eight teams, and I can't remember how the A bracket worked but who cares.
I guess you could make the argument that too many teams get in, and if you're seeded in AA but prove stronger than expected you can't move up to compete for the real title but frankly it's highly unlikely a team would unexpectedly become good enough to compete for the AAA title, which has only seen three schools win in a long time, and I'm not even sure how many others have played for the championship. As to too many teams getting in, it's very very small price to pay for a pretty functional system.
I would say don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Get a system that works and accept the flaws it has. People will complain all day long about a straight enrolment system but it gets the job done and there's minimal arguing. There are other good options too, just don't get crazy.
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Post by 3rdandlong on Jun 11, 2017 14:22:42 GMT -6
I'm in New Jersey. The league that my current school is in merged with a superconference this past season. The divisions within each league are based for the most part on enrollment/geography/tradition, but they are realigned every two years and your record the previous two seasons factors into which division you are placed in. However, for playoff purposes it is still based entirely on enrollment. Before we merged with the superconference, we tried a 2 year experiment in 2012 and 2013. In an 18 team league, they ranked the teams 1 through 18 based on the number of wins from the previous two seasons. Teams 1-9 were placed into the "Big School" division, and teams 10 through 18 into the "Small School" division. It resulted in the biggest school in the league with about 2500 students in the small school division and the two smallest schools which had 400 and 600 students in the big school division. After that we went back to using enrollment. We currently have similar type things going on in southern California. Its all a scam to A) allow the governing body to act as if they are trying to balance things out for corruption and recruiting, B) ensure lesser talented big money big population schools get deeper into the playoffs and make more MONEY In some instances the best team in the division is in a really tough league and won't even make the playoffs because they can't get any higher than 4th in league. |
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Post by M4 on Jun 16, 2017 13:12:25 GMT -6
London splits their public league into 2 even divisions pre-determined based on previous years program results (each program is seeded 1-14 and then placed into either Right or Left division).
Season plays out with teams playing within their division.
Playoffs... 1 and 2 in each division move to A playoffs. 3 and 4 go to B. 5 and 6 go to C. 7 on each side is out.
This way teams have something to play for knowing that come playoff time you'll get seeded into a 4 team playoff vs equal teams.
It's worked well, that B and C championship has proven to be a motivator for up and coming programs should the coach sell it correctly.
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Post by carookie on Jun 16, 2017 13:38:28 GMT -6
London splits their public league into 2 even divisions pre-determined based on previous years program results (each program is seeded 1-14 and then placed into either Right or Left division). Season plays out with teams playing within their division. Playoffs... 1 and 2 in each division move to A playoffs. 3 and 4 go to B. 5 and 6 go to C. 7 on each side is out. This way teams have something to play for knowing that come playoff time you'll get seeded into a 4 team playoff vs equal teams. It's worked well, that B and C championship has proven to be a motivator for up and coming programs should the coach sell it correctly. Personally, I do not like these types of models; I feel as if they reward teams for failure and punish teams for success. Would you rather be the 14th best team coming out of a season or 15th? 15th gets you an easy schedule and a shot at making the playoffs, 14th gets you put up against the big boys and most likely a losing season. I get that there are some teams that are traditionally dominant, but basing it off a one year sample size and changing it each year punishes HS teams who have really good senior classes for one year, but the next year back to not so much (which happens all the time, as talent levels vary greatly from class to class). |
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Post by M4 on Jun 16, 2017 18:18:31 GMT -6
London splits their public league into 2 even divisions pre-determined based on previous years program results (each program is seeded 1-14 and then placed into either Right or Left division). Season plays out with teams playing within their division. Playoffs... 1 and 2 in each division move to A playoffs. 3 and 4 go to B. 5 and 6 go to C. 7 on each side is out. This way teams have something to play for knowing that come playoff time you'll get seeded into a 4 team playoff vs equal teams. It's worked well, that B and C championship has proven to be a motivator for up and coming programs should the coach sell it correctly. Personally, I do not like these types of models; I feel as if they reward teams for failure and punish teams for success. Would you rather be the 14th best team coming out of a season or 15th? 15th gets you an easy schedule and a shot at making the playoffs, 14th gets you put up against the big boys and most likely a losing season. I get that there are some teams that are traditionally dominant, but basing it off a one year sample size and changing it each year punishes HS teams who have really good senior classes for one year, but the next year back to not so much (which happens all the time, as talent levels vary greatly from class to class). The problem we were having in our city was a team who was relegated to the lower tier may have had a dominant senior class returning and that year was actually upper tier caliber but couldn't compete in the upper tier that season because they were relegated to the lower tier based on the previous years record. This model allowed those teams to play. Realistically though, nobody cares about the B and C playoffs, everyone knows their consolation. |
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