{"id":4443,"date":"2014-01-26T12:48:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T18:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=4443"},"modified":"2014-01-26T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T22:28:52","slug":"more-than-half-of-football-teams-will-qualify-for-the-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2014\/01\/more-than-half-of-football-teams-will-qualify-for-the-postseason\/","title":{"rendered":"More than half of football teams will qualify for the postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost in the concern about potentially losing a regular-season game and excitement about the new high school football districts is a simple fact and reminder of the state’s expanded playoff system:\u00a0More than half of the football teams in Iowa will be in the playoffs.<\/em> The actual number is 192 of 340, or 56.47%.<\/p>\n

With a 32-team bracket in all classes, 70%<\/em> of the teams in Class 4A will qualify; 57% (four-sevenths) of Classes 3A\/2A\/1A will qualify; and half the teams in A and 8-player will qualify. (Class A will be 32 of 62 \u2014 close enough \u2014 and 8 will be 32 of 64, exactly half.) So 2-7 Des Moines East gets another game, but not 3-6 Stanton.<\/p>\n

Changing to a 24-team bracket \u2014 top three teams in each district, champion gets a bye \u2014 would still mean that 42% of the state’s teams play in the postseason. In Class 4A, the number of participants would be one more than half (24\/46 or 52.17%); in the next three classes, 42.86% (three-sevenths); and in A and 8, more than a third. There would be fewer first-round blowouts and being district champion would mean a little more.<\/p>\n

Are the classes themselves too small? Not necessarily. In 4A, the population discrepancy is already huge (Valley’s fault). If we look at the other 11-player classes, configuring four classes into three would mean about 77 teams per class. Class A did in fact have 77 teams in 2004, and 82 in 2000 \u2014 but the district population variances in this scenario would be larger.<\/p>\n

About 42% of teams in those three classes would make the playoffs.\u00a0However, cramming them into eight districts would mean five 10-team districts and three nine-team ones. That would mean the first group has NO non-district games and the second group only gets one in a nine-game schedule. The current setup allows for three non-district games in 3A\/2A\/1A and two in A\/8, giving schools more flexibility with continuation of rivalries or close geographic matchups.<\/p>\n

As the small schools continue to shrink, the elimination of Class A in the future is a possibility, but a long-term one. Right now, there are enough teams to sustain the existing setup, and a whole lot of them will be playing the first Wednesday after the regular season is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lost in the concern about potentially losing a regular-season game and excitement about the new high school football districts is a simple fact and reminder of the state’s expanded playoff system:\u00a0More than half of the football teams in Iowa will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4447,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions\/4447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}