New district format

[woodsiding]

Article about whether the state should be six or eight districts. Wash and Kennedy both have a quote. Wash says go with an 8 team district where more games matter. Kennedy says go with 6 team district where you aren't punished for trying to schedule a tough non-district and keeps more teams in it longer.

The west and Central part of the state want the 6 team district to negate some extra travel, can't say I blame them.

http://www.metrosportsreport.com/in...a-football-6x8-or-8x6&catid=184:about-msr

 

[screwloose]

The Western schools are being very narrow-sighted here. You can place teams in districts geographically and cover almost every desired match-up, even with eight team districts. Most likely, the state is going to use their "tier system" for ranking schools and sorting them. It's really not that difficult and hopefully someone in Boone realizes that.

It would be very unpopular, but by the "tier system" every metro school in Des Moines could be in the same district. Some slight finagling might need to take place, but as a whole, you could get all the districts with relatively equal strengths - historically speaking. Even if you spread the Des Moines metro schools over two districts, you're only going to miss one match-up and that's exactly how it was set that last two years. You could even get all the Missouri River schools into one district. Of course, with that option, you have to decide who from Polk County will foot the bill for those three travel dates to the river each season.

The state has already shown they have some rules in place, keeping certain schools from being in a district with others...
== Marshalltown, Mason City and Indianola aren't placed in districts with Missouri River schools
== Waterloo/Cedar Falls schools aren't placed in districts with Quad Cities, Muscatine, Ottumwa or Burlington.
== Dubuque area schools aren't place in districts with Muscatine, Ottumwa or Burlington.

My guess, the state curtails to both. The West will be four districts of six and the East will be three districts of eight. Each half will still get eight qualifiers, independent from the other.

 

[paxregis]

I don't see the IHSAA splitting the difference with two systems. It seems unlikely they would want to schedule meaningless games between CB/SC and DM metro schools in weeks 3 & 4, as would be necessary under a four 6-team district format.

It's possible to keep the far west and easterly central schools in separate districts while maintaining tier integrity.

District 1: SE Polk, Dowling, Ames, SC East, CB Lincoln, Ft Dodge, DM Roosevelt, SC West.

District 2: Centennial, Valley, Lewis Central, Urbandale, DM East, Des Moines Lincoln, CB Jefferson, SC North

District 3: Ankeny, Waukee, Indianola, Johnston, DM Hoover, Marshalltown, DM North, Newton

District 4: Cedar Falls, CR Washinton, Dub Senior, Linn-Mar, Wat West, W. Dubuque, Mason City, Wat East

District 5: IC West, Pleasant Valley, CR Kennedy, CR Prairie, Clinton, Dub Hempstead, Dav North, Dav West

District 6: Bettendorf, Muscatine, IC City, North Scott, Dav Central, Ottumwa, Burlington, CR Jefferson

 

[woodsiding]

I would think as a coach in the west, if there's any chance that Dowling is in your school's district, you would want to push hard for a wildcard system.

 

[makelovenotwar]

Paxregis and Woodsiding, is there a reason to move the Cedar Rapids teams to different districts? Similar question with the Dubueque schools. What am I missing?

 

[areukiddingme]

Why are the Western Schools being narrow minded? The IHSAA would not promise regional districts, so why agree to districts of 8 that only leaves 2 non district games and following history of IHSAA they seem to split up city schools into different schools. So Sioux City or Council Bluffs schools would have no choice but to play other city schools in non district leaving no games left for other rivalries or big gate games.

Why does 4A have to be so different? in class 8man -3A they do NOT split teams up based on Tier 1,2,3, they simply go geographically. So why not in 4a?

 

[screwloose]

I don't see the IHSAA splitting the difference with two systems. It seems unlikely they would want to schedule meaningless games between CB/SC and DM metro schools in weeks 3 & 4, as would be necessary under a four 6-team district format.

It's possible to keep the far west and easterly central schools in separate districts while maintaining tier integrity.

District 1: SE Polk, Dowling, Ames, SC East, CB Lincoln, Ft Dodge, DM Roosevelt, SC West.

District 2: Centennial, Valley, Lewis Central, Urbandale, DM East, Des Moines Lincoln, CB Jefferson, SC North

District 3: Ankeny, Waukee, Indianola, Johnston, DM Hoover, Marshalltown, DM North, Newton

District 4: Cedar Falls, CR Washinton, Dub Senior, Linn-Mar, Wat West, W. Dubuque, Mason City, Wat East

District 5: IC West, Pleasant Valley, CR Kennedy, CR Prairie, Clinton, Dub Hempstead, Dav North, Dav West

District 6: Bettendorf, Muscatine, IC City, North Scott, Dav Central, Ottumwa, Burlington, CR Jefferson

Nobody thought they would have gone to district play on one half and left the other half in conferences either, but they did. Your districts look okay, except that Newton will be in 3A. 2016 will be the oddball year with 47 teams, then 2017 IC Liberty will become the 48th in 4A. So, in your model, I would think Mason City would move from D4 to D3 replacing Newton, CR Jefferson would move from D6 to D4 to fill that hole and IC Liberty become the ghost/final team in D6.

 

[PNation]

The Iowa City School District said that they are going to hold off on Varsity Football until 2018

 

[screwloose]

Well, there we go. Welcome to 4A Newton...at least these next two years.

 

[La_Fleur]

Wasn't there talk that Norwalk was going to be 4A as well?

 

[paxregis]

Newton projects to be about 40 students higher than Norwalk, "winning" the final spot in 4A.

 

[screwloose]

I think one answer, that nobody from the coaches to the IHSAA seems to be looking at is to use eight districts of six teams, taking the eight district champions and then eight at-large/wild cards. More importantly, COUNT the non-district games. Use the old point system, give teams a "rivalry" exemption for up to two games. The rivalry exemption can have rules too. It has to be a lower class team but it has to be a school in a bordering county or petitioned through the IHSAA(like Harlan for the Council Bluffs schools). This way, the more remote schools can still play a 2A or 3A opponent and not get penalized the 5 points for playing a lower class team. There is a lot more scheduling flexibility with six-team districts, but only counting five regular season games for playoff qualification doesn't only seem unfair, but incredibly stupid.

 

[Sadey2011]

The association said there will be 48 teams in 4A next year. Top 48 enrollment wise, no matter who it is. I think 6 districts of 8 teams makes the most sense.

 

[tnobd]

The IHSAA needs to use the long term solution of 8 team districts in 4A. 8 teams gives credibility to the regular season schedule. The district schedules need to be "grind." By eliminating 16 teams from the post season the emphasis for the alignments should be toward forming relatively stable districts if possible. I would use a 4 year cycle in 4A districts unless a school loses enough enrollment to move down a class. The longer district alignments will give the outstanding players a chance for more recognition rather then being all districts in two different alignments.

I don't see why the isolated 4A schools cannot schedule at least one 3A school or lower in class for better gate receipts the first two weeks of the season without penalty?

Realistically though, 16 qualifiers will drastically change the look of the 4A playoffs. It will belong to the suburban schools in the fall.

 

[ORSKY1]

I guess I would also recommend the 6 district 8 team format with 2 automatic qualifiers and the next 4 qualifiers by points. I would limit the points calculation to the 7 district teams played and allow the 2 additional games to be with rivals of their choosing.that would not penalize the team for playing lower class games. In this scenario the tie breaker could not include overall record for obvious reasons.

 

[screwloose]

The more I play with divvying up the 48 teams between six of eight and eight of six, short of the IHSAA putting all Missouri River schools in one district, I don't see how a six district format is going to work. Let me explain...

First, you're going to have those six teams making up 3/4 of one district. And recent history has shown that most of these teams have not been very good. Sioux City East and Council Bluffs Lewis Central have been good. Sioux City North and Council Bluffs Lincoln had a few good years, but very recently have been bad. Sioux City West and Council Bluffs Jefferson have been bad for some time. And you have to wonder how much beating up on these others has inflated Sioux City East and Council Bluffs Lewis Central's reputation.

Second, if the state did put all these schools into one district, that means two schools from central Iowa are going to get stuck footing the bill for six trips to the Missouri River for two years. And those two schools are not going to be pleased with that alignment.

Third, if they split the six Missouri River schools across two districts, each of those six are going to lose AT LEAST one non-district game against the others not in their district. And geographically, these are near automatic opponents if you think about it. Maybe not better than local 3A teams, but as good as it gets for 4A competition.

Fourth, the Des Moines metro schools would all have to be in the same district also, to ensure all those round-robin match-ups. Everybody else would be fighting to be part of that eight-team alignment, if that happened. With only two non-district games, you can't cover the round-robin if they're split, even 3-2.

The eastern half of the state will be no better off. The Black Hawk County schools will likely be in one district, as will the Dubuque County schools. Sure, they could be split across two districts with teams from Linn & Johnson Counties and Clinton and Quad City schools from the Dubuque schools. The bigger issue is that you have isolated schools like Ottumwa and Burlington on the eastern half and it will be compounded by the fact that either Newton or Marshalltown is going to be pushed east also. Mason City could be thrown in with the Black Hawk County schools instead, but the rest of their district would consist of Dubuque or Linn County schools. And that travel would be even worse than what they have to central Iowa.

Most people are going to hate it, but I'd be very surprised if we don't have eight of six. There's just too much schedule flexibility with that set-up. And like I mentioned before, if they only take the champions and then eight wild card/at-large teams, a situation could be avoided like what would have happened in District 2 last year. Two six win teams would have been left out for a five win team from a weaker District 4 who happened to finish second.

 

[paxregis]

Des Moines public high schools don't really care if they play all of the other schools. You can get the games that matter with the six districts I laid out above. East gets Lincoln in district and can play North non-district. Hoover has North in district and can play Roosevelt non-district. Roosevelt can use their other non-district game to play Lincoln. That covers the games (along with East-Southeast Polk) that those fan bases really care about.

 

[screwloose]

My fear is that whatever the state chooses to do, it's going to be dumb. Whether it be eight districts and they take the top two from each. Or they take just the champions from eight districts or six districts and use only district results for determining the at-large pool. Counting only five games(eight district format) or seven games(six district format) for possible at-large teams is mind-bogglingly stupid to me. So what if a team has one or two games against lower class teams, I think all nine games should count. If not, why are they even considered part of the regular season? They'd be glorified scrimmages.

I'm all for the six districts of eight alignment, as long as they can get all the rivalries covered that teams want to play and still allow for some scheduling flexibility for local games against 3A/2A opponents. But all the games need to count. Look at District 2 last year, Lewis Central and Sioux City East deserved playoff spots more than Urbandale(2nd in District 4), but that wouldn't have happened if you only look at district results.

How can you compare teams district results when they aren't playing in the same pool? How can anybody say it's fair? If they're going to drop back to 16 teams and make the playoffs mean something, some kind of an accomplishment, the best 16 need to be represented.

 

[paxregis]

I agree that overall record should be a tiebreaker between wildcard teams with identical district records. Using the 13-point system rewards second place teams in weak districts. A compromise could be the old 4A points system, using the overall record of your seven district opponents to calculate the points.

 

[tnobd]

Good morning Pax and Screwloose:
Great topic!

I don't think you can make a district system as fair as the old point system, no matter how hard you try. However the old point system was based on the premise that large public high schools had an advantage over smaller schools in the other classes. I don't think that is the case with the exception of Cedar Rapids, the suburban schools in Des Moines, and suburban Davenport teams at this time. Unless these two urban areas find exceptional coaches and upgrade their facilities, they are not going to develop the talent they have walking their halls. IMO there are some surrounding 3A schools in those areas that would compete with the Des Moines or Davenport metro schools. Even Newton probably wishes they were still playing the Des Moines metro schools as an independent 4A high school. That is why I support the one or two non district opponent schedule against other classes. Other states have those match ups, at no penalty to the larger class teams.

I mentioned a few threads back that the Western 4A schools would find difficulty in forming a large district. I think Pax mentioned that the IHSAA would continue to mix the Sioux City and Council Bluffs schools into the Central Iowa districts to reduce travel costs?

I favor the 8 team district format because they most resemble a conference. I think the 4A coaches fought the district system because they liked using the same system they had for all the other sports. If you use 6 member districts you are playing 4 exhibition games. Since there is now 16 playoff qualifiers, the quality of play in the regular season should be made more important. Schools that now know they will struggle to ever qualify for the post season should be a factor in a large district race. The other classes had 8 team districts until the drop in enrollment in rural areas forced them into 7 team districts.

What about this compromise? Use a 7 team district in Western Iowa along with only one automatic playoff qualifier in all districts. The rest of the playoff qualifiers could use a revised point system similar to the original one that was probably created in 1972. You could also rotate a different 8th member into the Western district every two years from Central Iowa.

I liked the old 4A conference format that existed between 2000 until SC Heelan/ Newton left and created a chain reaction change in alignments in the CIML and the MRAC. The only problem with the conference system was the tendency to exclude isolated 4A high schools such as Ottumwa, Burlington, Mason City and Ft Dodge.

Screwloose, I think this argument has gone full circle over the years. I wonder if you think the solution is to return to the conference system in 4A football? I certainly do, If the district system had not been instituted in 4A ball I think my team would have been part of an 8 team Metro conference in Des Moines with Indianola and Marshalltown. It would have been far more competitive for us then the Eastern Iowa districts we now play in.

I would be interested to see what all the 4A head coaches think about this topic?

 

[screwloose]

That is why I support the one or two non district opponent schedule against other classes. Other states have those match ups, at no penalty to the larger class teams.

I favor the 8 team district format because they most resemble a conference. I think the 4A coaches fought the district system because they liked using the same system they had for all the other sports. If you use 6 member districts you are playing 4 exhibition games. Since there is now 16 playoff qualifiers, the quality of play in the regular season should be made more important. Schools that now know they will struggle to ever qualify for the post season should be a factor in a large district race.

What about this compromise? Use a 7 team district in Western Iowa along with only one automatic playoff qualifier in all districts. The rest of the playoff qualifiers could use a revised point system similar to the original one that was probably created in 1972. You could also rotate a different 8th member into the Western district every two years from Central Iowa.

Screwloose, I think this argument has gone full circle over the years. I wonder if you think the solution is to return to the conference system in 4A football? I certainly do, If the district system had not been instituted in 4A ball I think my team would have been part of an 8 team Metro conference in Des Moines with Indianola and Marshalltown. It would have been far more competitive for us then the Eastern Iowa districts we now play in.

tnobd, I chopped and kept the parts of your post I was going to address, so bear with me. You brought up a lot of very valid views.

Your point about supporting one or two non-district match-ups against lower class teams with no penalty is exactly the thing I talk about when I say "rivalry exemption" or similar verbiage. Obviously, this would be worked into some version, if not the same, of the old 4A Point System. I can see where playing a lower class team could be an advantage to schools who play an exclusively 4A schedule. In the old Point System, the difference between a win and a loss was 20 points and that doesn't account for the 5 point bonus for that opponent having a winning record. So those schools playing lower class teams would appear to have an edge. But typically, those schools playing the lower class teams are going to be the isolated 4A areas or Missouri River schools, which aren't the typical 4A powers. The line between 4A and 3A is dramatically closer than it once was, except for perhaps the top 6-8 schools in 4A. The only one of them that would even play a lower class opponent would be Bettendorf, and they'd play Davenport Assumption(who's no slouch).

Your second and fourth points about large districts and conferences, again I totally agree. The thought of any regular season games being nothing more than glorified scrimmages baffles me. I think the conference set-up was better. The whole east-west split was a gigantic bitchfest the state should never have caved on. If they hadn't, we'd still have some sort of conference set-up today. Most of the rivalries would still be intact. And if the state still wanted to get involved with scheduling for non-conference games, like they do now, it would have been okay in my eyes.

There are six schools on the Missouri River. If they were their own conference again, they would need 20 games for non-conference. If each of them played one lower class team, and they all usually do, that would leave 14 games to be picked up from the old CIML schools. If you exclude those teams they don't place in districts with them now(Marshalltown, Indianola, Mason City, Ottumwa, Newton), there's still 14 teams left. Each could pick up one game on a two-year rotation and satisfy their scheduling needs. This isn't rocket science. If a dummy like me can figure it out, you'd think those brain surgeons in Boone could.

As for you seven team district in western Iowa and then an 8th rotating member, I'm not following what you're saying there.

 

[tnobd]

My suggestion was to create a 7 team district with the 6 CB/SC schools with Ft Dodge and have another 9 team district. They could have a cross over game between these two districts. That option could also work if the IHSAA did not force a 48 team format. The other option was to rotate a different Central Iowa member into that Western district every two years.

 

[screwloose]

That would be putting a pretty good travel strain on Fort Dodge. Council Bluffs is a minimum 2.5 hour trip from there. Sioux City is just under 2. Same would be said for any of the Des Moines metro schools, especially to Sioux City. For Fort Dodge and one metro school to foot the bill themselves over two years seems largely unfair.

 

[BigHawk]

That would be putting a pretty good travel strain on Fort Dodge. Council Bluffs is a minimum 2.5 hour trip from there. Sioux City is just under 2. Same would be said for any of the Des Moines metro schools, especially to Sioux City. For Fort Dodge and one metro school to foot the bill themselves over two years seems largely unfair.

But think of the strain it is causing the Sioux City schools...........in four years East High has made 14 trips to des moines or the burbs. We are Iowa as well.......not fair to ask SC to do more than the other schools.

 

[paxregis]

You still can't get around the fact that Sioux City & Council Bluffs are isolated from the rest of 4A. Even if they put those schools in one district and divyed up Central Iowa in to three 6-team districts, the Western schools would still need to play Des Moines metro schools in weeks 3 & 4, since potential smaller class opponents would already be into their district schedule.

 

[aheyn297]

Arizona uses a very similar system to the 6 district layout, and it works fairly well from what I've seen. All the district champions get an automatic berth to the 16-team playoff, while the rest are determined by the MaxPreps rating system, which works well for working in strength-of-schedule. The only drawbacks would be requiring every school in IA to input stats to MP, and the obvious task of sorting out the Missouri River schools.

 

[Husker Dogg]

I agree I don't see very many Des Moines schools making trips up to Sioux City OR to CB for that matter. Lets give us our own district and be done with it. Don't Complicate things.