12 hours ago, Ram said:

How does the largest schools compare to the smallest schools in basketball? 

 

The fine print:  This is normally where people start saying that football is different because the more students you have, the more opportunity you have to have great talent.  Which is horse crap. 

How many players does it take for a basketball program to be really good / competitive?  5, 6, 7???   Football it takes 11 to field the team right?  this is simple math.  a small school can be dominant with 7 players in basketball.  Football doesn't allow for that.   That is why most of the time bigger schools are more dominant than smaller schools.....simple numbers game.  smaller teams on the field of competition allows for smaller schools to be more competitve.  

10 hours ago, Ram said:

Theoretically, I would say roster size is more important than enrollment size.  I think that would be the perfect way to determine what teams went into what class.  After all, I have stated above that is what makes the biggest difference.  You don't see a Class 1A team with 20 on the roster making it past the first round in the playoffs.  

But, this is a number that is easily manipulated.  Say, the the cut off for Class 1A and Class 2A is 40 on the roster.  A school would purposefully keep their roster at 39, maybe cutting players to keep the roster below 40.  As much as I would think this is the most appropriate way to classify teams, it would hurt my soul to see kids prevented from playing the sport of football just to allow a team to play in a lower class.  

Now, I'm not saying that schools don't purposely keep enrollment below a certain number to stay in a particular class, which I know they do.  Don't even argue with me on this point, because I know it to be true. 

Simply put, I'm not sure what the best answer is in application, but in a perfect world it would be based on roster size.

You probably are too young to remember some of the thumpings Bellevue put on Raceland in the late 70s, early 80s. Bellevue had about 425-450 kids in HS and about 50-60 players on varsity, 30+ freshman team. Now they are around 200-250 and not getting the parochrial school kids.

If you are going to limit the amount of teams going into the playoffs, it has to be strictly based on district record. There are plenty of smaller schools that play up every game before district start. You can limit it to the top two teams and we will still have blow outs.

5 hours ago, Stepchild68 said:

500 Record to make the playoffs.  Up to 3 teams per district.  1 seeds get a buy.  Bowl Eligible teams have to win 6.....

 

That sounds reasonable except if it were in place, you wouldn't see teams scheduling tough out of district games during the season. 

You play tough games during the year to prepare for the post season, regardless of if you win or not. If you have to win half, a lot of coaches will opt not to play those games.

The issue is teams not deserving to be in the playoffs. Allowing them to opt out doesn't change that. 

On 11/6/2022 at 9:55 AM, Voice of Reason said:

Why is that a problem for people in football but they don't care about the 2 win basketball team losing by 75 in the playoffs? Or the 1 win baseball team losing 25-0 in the playoffs? 

Football is the most popular sport by a huge margin. More people care about football playoffs because more people care about football in general. 

40 minutes ago, TheDeuce said:

The issue is teams not deserving to be in the playoffs. Allowing them to opt out doesn't change that. 

I think that teams getting left out that are deserving is a big issue too, and this never happens under the current system.

8 hours ago, Stepchild68 said:

How many players does it take for a basketball program to be really good / competitive?  5, 6, 7???   Football it takes 11 to field the team right?  this is simple math.  a small school can be dominant with 7 players in basketball.  Football doesn't allow for that.   That is why most of the time bigger schools are more dominant than smaller schools.....simple numbers game.  smaller teams on the field of competition allows for smaller schools to be more competitve.  

It is a numbers game.  But, most dominating football programs do not have 11 great players.  Just like most great basketball teams don't have 5, 6 or 7 great basketball players.  

In basketball, depth will only take you so far because everyone has 15 players.  In football, having 90 players on the roster is a distinct advantage over a team that has 30 on the roster. 

5 hours ago, 9068 said:

You probably are too young to remember some of the thumpings Bellevue put on Raceland in the late 70s, early 80s. Bellevue had about 425-450 kids in HS and about 50-60 players on varsity, 30+ freshman team. Now they are around 200-250 and not getting the parochrial school kids.

I remember the games from 86 on.  I know Bellevue was a strong program. They were still strong in the 90s. 

2 hours ago, TheDeuce said:

Football is the most popular sport by a huge margin. More people care about football playoffs because more people care about football in general. 

Oh God, here comes the other perpetuated mistruth:  Kentucky is a basketball state.  

Here is my "Simple Fix" for High School Football. 

1. Combine districts into 8 (or 9) team regions.

2. Play every team in the region during the season. 

3. Top 4 teams earn playoff spots.

4. Seed east vs east and west vs west in first two rounds. Third round (semi-finals) seeded by RPI and played at agreed upon neutral site half way between participants.

Why I like my plan.

1. Makes teams "earn" playoff spot. I don't like just taking top 2 from each district because some districts are much stronger than others but their 3rd place team would miss the playoffs while a weak 2nd place team in another district got in. Taking the top 4 from each region, with them all playing each other is the fairest and best way to reward good teams.

2. Eliminates one week of playoffs. This puts the finals on Thanksgiving weekend, where they belong. 

3. Neutral sites for semi-finals is an idea that should have been implemented years ago. Additionally it could eliminate 8 and 10 hour round trips.

On 11/7/2022 at 8:00 PM, Ram said:

I think that is the common belief, but it is a conclusion without supporting evidence.  For example:  You have a school with 1,000 boys in the building.  950 of them can't walk and chew gum at the same time, it's some kind of geographical oddity.  So, you have 50 players that come out and play football.   This school down the road had 300 boys in the building and 92 of them come out for football.  Who wins in the annual rivalry game?  

I know some would say this is an absurd example.   But, it's not that far fetched.  In my area, Raceland is a 1A school that is supported by two small towns, Raceland and Worthington.  Raceland has a population of 2,000 and Worthington has a population of 1,500.  They have about 80-90 kids per class.  They dress 50-65 football players.  These players are not the kids of olympic athletes.  Down the road, Greenup County High School sits, it's enrollment is four times that of Raceland and they dress 50 players, or so.  Raceland normally beats Greenup County.  

Is this rare?  No.  Next door, Boyd County is the same.  Next door, Carter County's two schools are bigger, no different result.  It happens all over the state. 

Pikeville is the same.  NCC is the same, Campbelsville is the same, Williamsburge same.

Are there really small 1A schools?  Yes, there are.  But, what obstacles do those school face?  Is it purely due to enrollment?  I would say sometimes, but not most of the time.  

This is true for every class.  For example:  for years, Henderson County was the largest high school in the state.  Did they ever challenge Trinity and St. X for the 6A title?  Nope.  Why not, they were a lot bigger.   

Football towns.  Always have been. Always will be. It’s in the fabric at those places.  There are so many “county” schools out there that if the one county school system blew up and went back to individual community schools, the football program wouldn’t take a hit whatsoever (many coming from parts of the county where there wasn’t a football program before consolidation and for whatever reasons, wasn’t important to a large part of the families there then, and isn’t now).
 

There is a reason why Mayfield, Beechwood, Bowling Green, Highlands, Hazard, Pikeville, Danville, Owensboro, Somerset, Glasgow, Tilghman, Bardstown, Corbin and I could go on and on have been fixtures since Day 1 and they’ll be after we are long gone. 
 

Might they have some “down” spells here and there? Sure, but not for long. 
 

I’m not sure what the answer, personally I just think there is a huge gap across multiple factors between the haves and have nots. It’s the same reason why year in year out you can pick 4-5 programs in each class (if that many), give others the field and you’re gonna be right in the “pick’em” a lot more times than not.

5 hours ago, Calico Jack said:

Football towns.  Always have been. Always will be. It’s in the fabric at those places.  There are so many “county” schools out there that if the one county school system blew up and went back to individual community schools, the football program wouldn’t take a hit whatsoever (many coming from parts of the county where there wasn’t a football program before consolidation and for whatever reasons, wasn’t important to a large part of the families there then, and isn’t now).
 

There is a reason why Mayfield, Beechwood, Bowling Green, Highlands, Hazard, Pikeville, Danville, Owensboro, Somerset, Glasgow, Tilghman, Bardstown, Corbin and I could go on and on have been fixtures since Day 1 and they’ll be after we are long gone. 
 

Might they have some “down” spells here and there? Sure, but not for long. 
 

I’m not sure what the answer, personally I just think there is a huge gap across multiple factors between the haves and have nots. It’s the same reason why year in year out you can pick 4-5 programs in each class (if that many), give others the field and you’re gonna be right in the “pick’em” a lot more times than not.

I agree with you a 1000%.  This is the bedrock for the private and independent schools being so successful.   I think there is a since of "ownership" for those schools.  Sometimes, I stress sometimes, the county schools don't have that.  Sometimes, the county schools were a mash-up of multiple independent schools that had their own identity and that does not always translate to a consolidated county school.  I think it is still in the "classic BGP" forum, but there was a great discussion on why Ohio and Kentucky differ and the conclusion was there were more "community" schools in Ohio that made for a better "buy-in".  

On 11/8/2022 at 5:52 AM, Stepchild68 said:

500 Record to make the playoffs.  Up to 3 teams per district.  1 seeds get a buy.  Bowl Eligible teams have to win 6.....

 

I’ve seen this Bowl idea mentioned. 
 

the old CKC experimented with that from around 75-79. First two games were well attended and exciting. 
 

Last 2 years we’re not. No one wanted to play in it by 79. Too anti-climatic. 

I went back and looked at the 1999 playoffs. Only 4 classes. Not everyone got in. Close to half the round one games were blowout, running clock level games. Same story in 2000. Also, 5 weeks of games with the title game played the first week of December.

There is nothing that can be done to stop blowout games in football.