By Seth Herrold
Let me first start by saying I am a fan of the new district format for high school football in Missouri. When it comes to the end of the season, bracket play is the only way to go… and we even have college football on board with that idea now…kind of anyway.
It’s as simple as it gets. If you win, you keep playing, if you lose, you’re done. Figuring out who you will play in districts, however…well let’s just say that isn’t so simple.
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
District seedings are not determined by a coaches’ meeting as is the case with almost all high school sports. No, the powers that be came up with a formula that would make a BCS Standings guy blush. Here is what is easy to understand about the formula: teams are awarded points based on four factors – wins and losses, playing up class levels, strength of schedule and season-long point differential on the field.
The wins and losses are easy to understand; you get 20 points for a win, 10 points for a loss and 15 points for an overtime loss. Take those points, add them together and divide it by the number of games played. Trenton, for example, has 20 points for a week one win and 10 points for a week two loss. Add them together and you get 30; divide it by two games played and Trenton has 15 points for starters.
Enter points for playing up class levels. Both Trenton games were against Class 2 teams so, therefore, there are no points awarded there. Had the Bulldogs played up against a Class 3 team, they would have been awarded 10 bonus points for that week. A Class 4 school would have netted Trenton 20 points. As is the case with points for a win or loss, you have to take your total points accumulated for playing up a class and divide it by the number of games played.
We’re jumping ahead to the season-long point spread now. Pretty simple here. Trenton won by four points in week one and lost by seven in week two, which puts them at -3 for their point spread. Take that divided by the number of games played and you have -1.5 points, so that would be taken away from Trenton’s win/loss point total of 15, leaving them with 13.5 points and only strength of schedule left to figure in. If you are already lost you are in trouble, because strength of schedule is where it really gets almost too confusing. Here is how the MSHSAA website defines the formula for strength of schedule points:
“Points from opponent’s schedule by taking the sum of the win/loss record from each team you have played times the points for a win and loss,10, 20 minus your contribution to the opponent’s record, divided by the total number of games played, minus the number of games you played.”
If you find yourself re-reading that and wondering what the heck they are saying well, you’re not alone. It is terribly confusing, even for someone who loves statistics like myself. I will try my best to explain this using the Bulldogs as an example. We start by taking Carrollton’s record of 0-2. Take wins times 20, zero in this case, and losses times 10. Two times 10 gives you 20. Do the same with Lexington now. One win and one loss gives you a combined 30 points. Add the two together and you have 50 points over four games. Now you have to eliminate what Trenton has contributed to the schedule. Trenton has one win, which counts as 10 points since we are figuring the opponent’s schedule, and one loss, which contributed 20 points to the opponent’s schedule. Take 30 away from the original 50 and you are left with 20 points. Take the two games away from the four total and you have two. Finally, take 20 points divided by two games and you have 10 points to add to Trenton’s total district points, which were 13.5 previously and now registers as 23.5.
So there you have it. Why it had to be done in such a confusing way I will never know. But there is a silver lining. You can track the district standings all season long and never crunch a single number by visiting www.mshsaa.org. Search for Trenton High School. Once on their page, click on the link for the football schedule and at the bottom of the schedule, there will be another link for the full Class 2, District 16 standings. Or, if that is too complicated as well, you can just look on page 2 of the Republican-Times every Thursday to see them in print.