Who has the WORST HS State Playoff System???

NY... Long Island and City do not take part. So over half the states population does not particate.

Massachusetts used to. They didn't have a playoff system. Picked 2 teams to be in the "Super Bowl".

DING! DING! DING! Ticobrown is the winner! That appears to be a screwed up system just from a first glance. A few questions though:
1) What are the ranges in enrollment that classify teams?
2) How many playoff games are played to determine a state champion?
3) What determines who makes the playoffs?

There is large a percentage folks in Kentucky who badmouth our 6 classification system, based on male student population. Probably wouldn't be such an uproar if we didn't take the top four teams from each baseline grouping (we call them 'districts'). The first two rounds match 1 seed to a 4 seed. There are some disturbing scores in those matchups a lot of times. We used to be 4 classes, but the public/private issue forced our state athletic association to make some type of change, and now we have six classes. Of course, if you are in 4 team district, you know you are making the playoffs---whether you win a game all year or not.

Dang NJ sounds like a district or region title not a state title. Seems in a state that size it would be easy to have a state wide playoff. There are what about 400 schools playing football and they have 20 state champs. Thats, no offense, stupid. We have about 600 playing for 4. System seems to work well here in PA.

Indiana has 5 classes, and everybody gets into the playoffs. 9 week regular season and 6 weeks of playoffs. 3 unseeded, blind draw games for sectional championships, followed by regional, semi-state, and state finals. Class determined by population. Massive disparity exists in the top class where some Indianapolis schools are 5A and have more boys in school than the entire student population than lower 5A schools. P/P and open enrollment schools have no multiplier or adjustment. Indianapolis schools and p/p's win championships more often than not. We have just over 300 football playing high schools in the state. Just listing facts to see out of state perspectives on our system.

I am not sure how it is now, but Kansas used to have a terrible system. Only your last three games counted toward a playoff and the best team of the three got in. That means there would be teams at 9-1 have a bad game and not go to the playoffs.

PA's system is great, but at the same time it SUCKS because the private catholic schools get to participate in the playoffs. Not that I am putting them down, but man, when you can recruit it makes all the difference.

Puts the public schools (especially the smaller ones) on the back burner. I'd like to see this policy changed: I would like any school that is in PA and is a privat school with open enrollment be an automatic 4A school. That would help.

You cannot point just to championships that were won. The playoff rankings are affected. Private school A can recruit from anywhere (open pool of kids), public school B can't (static pool). How is that in any way a fair shake for making the cut for playoffs? Open enrollment=non-level playing field. It is what it is.

Just saying it's not like they are dominating. The district I work in has open enrollment, one school here has become a power house in the state cause of it. No one seems to care. I coach at a A private school, went 5-5 this year not to many complaints about us recruiting this year.

CA is worst by far... a committee decided who plays in the games, so teams always complain when they dont get in. there is an open bowl now for overall best team regardless of enrollment that gets a little fuzzy...

and the enrollment of Norcal Schools vs SoCals schools is ridiculous. the enrollment cut offs are so much higher for the Socal schools. last year in one of the divisions the socal school beat the norcal school but the socal scholl had over 1,000 more kids... its all messed up and the bowl games are always in Socal... the entire set up favors the Socal schools

tico, we suck big time here. our system is rediculous. you guys are right, we DONT have any "state" champs.... we have "sectional" champs. absolutely absurd considering you only need 2 more weeks of football to settle the whole thing. add to that the fact that each team has a BYE week for cryin out loud, and our state champs still have only played a total of 12 games. im embarrassed for our state. .................
to answer another question, our group sizes are roughyl as follows <500=group1 , 501-800=group2 , 801-1100=group3 , 1101 and up=group4. teams qualify based on a power point system. you earn points based on the size of the school you beat and how many wins that team has. so if you beat a group 3 team with 4 wins, you earn oduble the group size (6 pts) plus 4 residual points for a total of 10 points. the top 8 teams from each section qualify for the tournament, provided they have a .500 record or better.

I have never been one to buy into the argument that private schools have a great advantage over public schools. A question about this matter:

How is a private school any different than a public school that has open enrollment? As far as I know, the choice of wheather to have open enrollment or not is made within each school district. Therefore, any complaints about not being able to draw from the same size talent pool as other schools should be directed right at the administration of that school district.

Most public schools can't accommodate open enrollment. Nor do they allow open enrollment for the safety of the kids in the town whose families are paying taxes in that town.

Sure a family can pay to send their kid to any school, public or private. It's usually not based on the idea of going their to play a sport. I don't think its the ability to get 1 or 2 guys from another town that argument is based on. It's the ability to get anyone from anywhere and as many as they want.

A lot of kids go to private school with the primary focus of playing football. They are also approached by many private school "recruiters/coaches" as early as 7th grade. Most recruited kids can't even afford to go to the school, but find a way through alumni sponsorships and other tricky ways. I've been in a few private school systems so I know it's not a myth.

Private school recruiting does hurt a lot of public programs by taking their best athletes away. Sometimes that 1 or 2 kids are all a school needs to be competitive. And they get recruited to a private school and sometimes barely see the field.

the problem of recruiting players has pretty much reached a boiling point here in jersey. it absolutely DOES affect competetive balance. there are many small towns who have public scool programs that compete in the group 1 or 2 range. (smallest enrollment) now, if that town has even ONE big time player. if he plays for the town school hw can drastically change their season. as we all know, success breeds success, so future kids would want to stay and play at their respective public school. now, if this biug-time player chooses to go to a regional parochial school (most parochial schools send scouts out to pee-wee games ALL OVER the region), he only increases the quality of the private while leaving the public school to wallow with its small-town squad. its to the point now where kids travel all over the state to go to high school. this was NEVER the case in new jersey. to take things a step further, these parochial schools have kdis from other STATES sometimes. don bosco prep, a national powerhouse, is located in norther NJ right near the New York state border. they often have players from new york state on their roster. and some parochial schools located near New York City have players from brooklyn, ny on their roster. i cant understand how you cannot view this as a competetive advaantage.... its as clear as day. if parochial team "A" is located in jersey city, NJ.. but has players from 25 different towns, and a couple of kids from New York City, plays a public school team from jersey city whose roster is made up of the kids in that neighborhood.... how is that fair? how is that NOT an advantage? these parochial teams have become basically all-star teams made up of kids from the entire state. they should only play each other within the state and then go find national games. don bosco coaches have agreed with this and have made a concerted effort to play out of state powers. some of the other parochial coaches would rather just rack up victories over vastly overmatched teams by 60 or 70 points and then stick out their chests and brag about theri won/lost record. ive been on staffs for BOTH parochial and public schools..... i understand how both sideds operate.