Will Class 6A football playoff changes lead teams to manipulate the system? Coaches and officials say it’s unlikely

Just after getting approval from the football advertisement hoc committee and the point out championship committee, the Oregon Faculty Actions Association’s government board on Monday is probable to go a big modify to how the Course 6A soccer playoffs are structured.

The improve will split the 6A bracket into two halves, generating a Division 1 bracket built up of the top rated 16 rated groups in the final rankings (with some alteration to insert league champions) and a Division 2 bracket created up of the remaining teams in the top 32.

The proposal has sparked heated discussion and simmering problem in the Oregon substantial university football community, in part, for the reason that there are fears it could build an chance for teams to game the system. If a team desires to avoid landing in the Division 1 bracket as a low seed, for example, it could theoretically eliminate a video game or two on purpose late in the typical time to transfer down the rankings. That would allow the team to come to be a higher seed in the Division 2 bracket, relatively than a very low seed in Division 1, creating a significantly easier path to profitable a condition championship.

OSAA Assistant Executive Director Brad Garrett said this principle arrived up all through ad hoc committee conferences, but the group determined it was not a little something they could police.

“The ad hoc committee talked over that likelihood, but agreed that legislating ‘integrity’ is not one thing they can do via policy,” Garrett stated in an e mail to The Oregonian/OregonLive. “Moving to a technique that splits groups centered on rankings will generally have the inherent prospective for manipulation — but purposefully getting rid of a contest to achieve an edge is about as small as a faculty could go and really hard for most of us to wrap our brain all over.”

There is no immediate OSAA policy about purposefully losing contests. On the other hand, Garrett stated there is a opportunity that a group performing so could be found as in “violation of the spirit of good enjoy and excellent sportsmanship,” and the govt board would have the authority to examine that as a violation of OSAA Post 5.3.1 (k).

Sandy soccer coach Josh Dill stated the transfer to two playoff brackets is a step in the appropriate path for a classification that struggles with aggressive stability every single yr. But, Dill claimed, he would have desired a diverse proposal that would have set the leading eight teams in the Division 1 bracket, and the upcoming 24 teams in Division 2.

The Pioneers concluded the 2021 year with a 7-3 file and shed to Sherwood in the to start with round of the playoffs. Sandy ended the regular season 12th in the OSAA rankings just after beating David Douglas in the regular-time finale.

Dill explained he does not feel any workforce would test to manipulate the rankings. Not only does that go against what coaches preach to their gamers, he explained, but also the OSAA rankings are at times unpredictable for the reason that they factor a lot more than just wins and losses. For instance, Sandy’s Oct. 21 reduction to Clackamas was helpful to the Pioneers’ ranking mainly because Clackamas was rated higher.

If Sandy experienced misplaced to David Douglas on Oct. 29, there is a great opportunity that both equally teams would have however been in the top rated 16 in the final rankings.

“I can’t picture heading into a activity with the mentality of making an attempt to shed,” Dill said. “If you make the higher bracket as a 15 or 16 seed, you can consider delight in remaining a Division 1 bracket group. We as coaches are frequently preaching to our gamers to regulate the controllables. There are upsets just about every week and if you try to manipulate the rankings then you are heading absent from building the team the best it can be.”

— Nik Streng, [email protected], @NikStreng