We asked four questions for our “Coaches Confidential” series, which grants anonymity to high school football coaches in Central Indiana. The second of the four asks:
Are you in favor of seeding the football tournament? If so, what is the best way to seed?
In favor
“I’m in favor of seeding via the Sagarin Ratings.”
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“Yes, seed the entire state north and south per Sagarin Ratings. IHSAA will never go for this, have been through it several times in my career. Even if 90% of the schools voted in favor of this, it would not pass I do not believe.”
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“Yes, seed at the semistate level in 5A and 6A and the regional level in A to 4A. It would give you a 16-team tournament.”
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“Yes. I think what the IFCA proposed is the best way . I would love to do a complete seed of north and south but that is not realistic with travel, money and the format of the IHSAA tournament. There still needs to be a geographic-based tournament if we stay all-in. Seeding at the regionals and not letting anyone have a set slot of home and away checks all the boxes.”
***
“Yes, using Sagarin Ratings seems to be the best option.”
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“Yes. Without blowing up the current system, the best way to move forward would be to seed the top two in each sectional and ping pong ball the rest of the teams. Use Sagarin and maybe a coaches committee to determine the seeds. In 5A and 6A, should remove the regional round and should have eight-team sectionals.”
***
“As a small school who gets their butt kicked every year in the playoffs, I am in favor of seeding the tournament. It does feel good to know that there is a chance that we could match with a team that may have ended the season with an 0-9 record lower than ours and have that hope that someone else might knock off the best teams in our sectional. However, that mentality is not what sports are all about. Sports are designed to ensure that the best team won. That through your culture, hard work and overcoming obstacles, your team is the de facto top. Winning a sectional through chance that someone else did the dirty work of knocking off the top team — is that OK? I think a lot of people may seem so, however in my opinion if you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. Rise to the occasion and see, and if not, it’s a great lesson for the program.”
Coaches Confidential: How would you feel about a one-time transfer rule?
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“Yes. I am in favor of seeding the entire north/south like a true tournament. I think regionals being seeded would be best so there is not extreme travel. Such as an Evansville team having a first-round sectional game on the north side of Indianapolis.”
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“Yes, by region.”
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“Seed within each sectional. Eight teams ranked 1 through 8 on wins/losses and strength of schedule only. Then once that is completed, re-rank the regional.”
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“Yes, I believe that we should be seeding at minimum the 6A tournament and use the Sagarin Ratings to determine the matchups. I feel that travel is less of an issue now and it would help eliminate some issues that come with the current system such as early matchups between highly ranked teams and sectionals that are made up of all or a majority of teams from the same conference.”
***
“100% yes. For 6A seed 1-16 in the north and south based off an average of computer rankings and head-to-head matchups.”
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“Yes, I am. I believe we should use a computer algorithm (probably MaxPreps since it accounts for out-of-state opponents) that seeds each team in the sectional. Keep everything else the same, but just seed the sectionals.”
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“Yes, seed the north 1-16 and south 1-16 by win/loss record and strength of schedule.”
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“Yes. I thought the proposal from the IFCA last year was the best idea I have seen.”
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“Yes, using the Sagarin Ratings would be a start. Obviously, there are some holes that would need to be addressed such as strength of schedule but seeding the tournament would allow for a more balanced playoff setting up some great matchups in the championship games.”
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“Yes, start by seeding the top two teams in each sectional and then blind draw the rest. Keep the same postseason setup in regard to sectional, regional and semistate. In a perfect world, we would seed the north and south 1-32, but that’s unrealistic with the amount of people who for some reason love the blind draw.”
***
“In my eyes the blind draw is a slap in the face to the coaches, athletes, and programs alike. We train and practice 12 months a year, continually looking for ways to improve ourselves and when it comes to our postseason success or failure, we leave in the hands of a blind draw. How does that make sense?”
***
“I would be fine seeding it within the classes. You’re going to travel anyway, use the Sagarin.”
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“Yes, sectionals should be seeded using the Sagarin Ratings.”
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“Yes, I am in favor, and it should be done by rating board/strength of schedule.”
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“Yes. Combine coaches poll and Sagarin. Wrestling does it through meetings. Class 6A should be the only one to do it at this point and it should be all 32 not north and south or it won’t make much difference than the blind draw. North coaches will never go for it and small schools don’t want it and schools with advantages don’t want their cheese moved. Unfortunately, too many selfish hurdles to clear for the right thing to happen.”
***
“Yes, at least 1 and 2 seed for each sectional.”
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“I saw coach Kelly from HSE showed an example of what the tournament would look like if it was seeded based on Sagarin Ratings and I thought that was a good layout.”
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“I think we give each section a seed based on how hard that sectional is, then each team in that section gets seeded and we play from there. That way you don’t have to travel too far too early.”
***
“Yes, I do believe we should redo the classes and rezone. Seeding would be an excellent idea. Playoffs should not be automatic. A 10-game regular season, point system. Private schools should have a Division 1 and 2, their own playoffs. Keep the six classes but make the sectionals actually location based. State tournament should be regional semifinals, regional finals, semistate, state finals.”
***
“Yes, Sagarin Ratings.”
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“Seed at regional level in 5A/6A and at the sectional level 1A through 4A.”
***
“Yes. Ohio does it and has for decades. They used a formula that rewards teams for wins, opponent wins, quality of opponent, size of school opponent, etc. They don’t have issues with it; you know where teams stand every single week, you get seeded, you play. It isn’t that hard. Good teams get rewarded for winning and playing good teams. Seeing a number 1 vs. 2 matchup in the opening round gets sickening because one of those teams should be playing deep into November and they’re going to be done mid-October. You go 0-9, you don’t deserve to pray the odds are in your favor with a ping-pong ball and you draw the 1-8 team. These kids and programs that achieve great things in Week 1-9 deserve to be rewarded for that. It is hard to win. There has to be some carrot on a stick for doing it above just (getting) wins.”
***
“Yes. Form a seeding committee of 12 members. Split the state up into four regions with three representatives in each region. Each region would have a retired coach, a current AD and a media/sports rep. Throughout the regular season they would rate their region and evaluate. After Week 9, the committee would meet and seed the tournament.”
***
“Yes. In 4A through 1A, seed the sectionals or the regionals. In 5A/6A, seed the regionals.”
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“Seed the teams with a 1-3 rank. Biggest thing is best teams meet in the championship of the sectional bringing a bigger attendance. It is sad when two top-5 teams meet in game one of the sectional.”
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“Yes. Strength of schedule.”
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“All sectionals need to be seeded with at least the top two teams being placed in opposite sides of the bracket. Due to so much scheduling and conference variety, the best way to seed the teams is using the Sagarin Ratings.”
***
“Yes. I would start by seeding the sectionals using Sagarin Ratings. Class 5A and 6A could probably seed the whole tournament (north and south), but I think that would be super difficult in 1A to 4A.”
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“In favor. Class 6A had a great proposal, seeding north and south.”
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“100 percent.”
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“Yes, the tournament needs to be seeded — maybe just sectional only.”
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“I think the sectional should be seeded and the entire 6A tournament.”
**
“Yes, 1 through 16 in north and 1 through 16 in south.”
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Yes. The best way is to simply use the Sagarin Ratings on John Harrell’s site and seed the top eight teams in each Class 1A to 4A. Regional pairings would potentially be No. 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5. Same thing in 5A and 6A. Seed top four teams and regional pairings would potentially be No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3.”
***
“Yes. Should have done the 6A pilot this year. Problem is, why were ADs allowed to vote that are not 6A ADs?”
***
“Yes. Or at least seeding sectionals or regions. Using Sagarin rankings or some sort of unbiased metric. Or have a panel of directors for each class that will watch the teams in their assigned region to be informed enough to make decisions on seeding.”
***
Yes. And I think 1 through 16 north and 1 through 16 south. Random draw the site for first matchup. That gives everyone a chance to host. If team A plays on the road in the first 6A round vs. team B and team C plays at home in the first 6A round vs. team D, then team A can play at home vs. team C.”
Opposed
“No. However, if you are to do it, you have to get rid of conferences throughout the state and go to districts. Similar to how Texas (does it) — so many teams per district, they all play each other, all teams play that same district as the ‘sectional’ with it being seeded highest to lowest. All teams still make it. If you leave it up to the coaches’ discretion/Sagarin Ratings, there is always someone who thinks they got screwed. After districts, the best teams come out into regionals, semistate and state. Very easy way to do it without the use of computers.”
***
“I like the current format. Everyone gets the 10th game, and all the bad teams are out after Week 10.”
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“I believe the random draw is fine. You still have to win the games.”
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“No, I like matchups early in the sectional with the potential of a sleeper to advance.”
In middle
“It really doesn’t matter to me because you’re going to have to play the best team in your sectional at some point, whether it is the opening round or championship round. Although, I do understand the reasoning behind those who are in favor of seeding.”
***
“Only if all the teams are seeded.”
***
“Yes and no. I do truly believe that the tournament format still determines the best team, it just doesn’t always happen in the state championship game. I do believe that seeding the tournament does put more emphasis and importance on the regular season. The format now does not reward you in the tournament for a strong regular season.”
***
“I have lots of questions about this. I see the value in it, but not sure how it could be done with consistency and accuracy across the classes. Also have not seen any kind of proposal that I could fully get on board with. They struggle with this at the FBS level of college football, and they have the ability to see everybody and have far more analytics available. I think at the high school level, it becomes very difficult to seed team sport teams. There are obvious examples every year of where it would be beneficial, but that’s a very small sample. There are a lot more teams in every class that would be very hard to seed.”
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“I am in favor of seeding or a blind draw.”
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“Most coaches are in favor of this, but it just seems impossible to get it done. We have too much work to do for me to put too much thought into this. We’ll just play who they tell us to.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649 .
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Coaches Confidential: In favor of seeding IHSAA football tournament? A resounding, 'YES.'
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