Coaches call for changes in FHSAA playoff plan
For the eight years she’s been Oviedo’s girls volleyball coach, Jen Darty has known exactly what her teams have had to do to reach region play: advance to the district final.
It’s not a perfect system, she acknowledges, but it’s comfortable and easy to grasp.
That changes if the Florida High School Athletic Association’s recommended realignment and playoff revision is voted on and approved by its board of directors on Monday.
The proposal would give automatic region tourney berths to only the 16 district tournament champions within each classification above the 1A rural division for girls volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and softball.
The other 16 playoff berths would be determined by computerized team rankings formulated by MaxPreps, a Californiabased online platform for high school schedules, scores and rosters.
FHSAA staffers say the “wild card” concept will inject excitement into the playoff bracket announcements. But putting playoff hopes in the hands of MaxPreps, which has historically had missing scores and other glitches, adds angst for coaches.
Similar concerns are still expressed by football coaches in Year 2 of changes for their sport that eliminated district runners-up in favor of at-large berths determined by a playoff points system the FHSAA developed.
The proposal for other sports would use MaxPreps rankings from the tail end of the regular season to select the wild cards and seed teams for district, region and state tournaments.
“I feel like they are forcing MaxPreps too much,” said Darty, who is also Oviedo’s athletic director. “For the district tournament, it makes more sense for me to do what we currently do and have each team play [each district opponent] in the regular season. Put them into a bracket based on how they did against each other vs. using a computer-based ranking with no understanding of where the ranking came from.”
The issue with Darty’s hope is that the FHSAA proposal is built largely on the idea that its longstanding policy of mandating district games has forced teams to schedule illogical weekday road trips — sometimes at the expense of abandoning natural rivalries that would provide bigger crowds and better gate receipts.
The FHSAA plan frees teams to fill out their own schedules and adjusts realignment so each class above 1A has an equal number of teams (just under 100 in the seven-class proposal). Districts would also be balanced, unlike the current alignment that has two or three teams in some districts while others hold 10, 11 or 12 — all with two playoff berths.
Using geographical proximity as a priority to align teams, as is done in the current format, makes balancing the districts virtually impossible.
“Membership wanted to lessen travel and even out the districts,” FHSAA administrator Justin Harrison said on Tuesday. “Requiring any type of a district schedule would not allow for either of those.”
Hagerty boys basketball coach Josh Kohn has drawn up compromise suggestions that would keep the tradition of advancing all district tournament finalists to region play while using MaxPreps for seeding and selecting at-large qualifiers.
“The team that has its best player injured for awhile or has a couple of football players who came out late. … MaxPreps can’t account for that,” Kohn said.
The FHSAA proposal calls for 32 region berths per class. Kohn suggests expanding to 48 or 64.
His 48-team format would add 16 at-large slots — based on MaxPreps ratings. District runner-ups would host at-large teams in region play-in games. Winners would play at district champions in region quarterfinals.
In the 64-berth scheme there would be eight atlarge teams per region. District champions and runners-up would host wild cards in opening-round games. Winners would advance to the round of 32 with higher seeds at home.
“Because we’re not sure about MaxPreps, why not this as a good compromise to start?” Kohn said. “You can’t argue about the district champ and runner-up. Those two bids are earned. Use MaxPreps to allow more teams in and see how that works.”
The wild-card concept would have worked well for a Lake Highland Prep girls volleyball team that was rated No. 1 by MaxPreps in 5A until it was stunned by Montverde Academy in a district semifinal last week.
In the current system, 35-percent of the boys basketball teams above 1A reach region play across nine classes (208 of 594 teams).
In the FHSAA’s sevenclass proposal, that ratio drops to 32 percent (192 of 594).
Kohn’s 48-berth suggestion would up the number to 48 percent (288 of 594).
His 64-team format would advance 384 teams, 65 percent.
Darty likes Kohn’s alternatives, and she likes the idea of seeding the playoffs so the favorites don’t meet until the later rounds. But she believes a committee is needed to add “the human element” to the numbers MaxPrep spits out. And that’s coming from the coach of a team currently rated No. 1 for all classes by MaxPreps.
The reported last week that the FHSAA’s five-year contract with MaxPreps as a schedule and scores platform calls for $85,000 in annual payments to the association. But it does not require the use of MaxPreps’ computerized rankings.
A MaxPreps representative is scheduled to be on hand to speak and answer questions at Monday’s meeting, which starts at 9 a.m. at FHSAA headquarters.