Undefeated Gibsonburg Could Miss OHSAA Football Playoffs...See Why

Status
Not open for further replies.
algernonsidney said:
Well, if we applied logic to this, the regions would be gone. So, we certainly can not expect OHSSA to apply logic to how the regions are divided.
Click to expand...

In D2, Anderson is currently 11th in R8, but would be 4th, 5th and 5th in each of the other regions. I too would like to see regions eliminated. This general problem of imbalanced regions tends to occur most years. The 10-0 Gibsonburg situation is just the worst case of it in the last decade.
 
If a 10-0 team has 23 teams ahead of them in their division, then the fault lies with the schedule, plain and simple.
 
adog said:
I guess I have a hard time digesting how Carey is in region 24 and Gibsonburg is not. I understand balancing out and keeping counties whole, but this does not make sense..but oh well, it is what it is
Click to expand...

Much like 1999(?) when Marion Local and Minster were in R22 and DSJ was in R24.
 
so i just worked things out and i think we would most benefit from 8 regions of 4 teams.. both distance wise and competitively. sure, it’s not perfect. but it’s close. and by 8 regions of 4, that is after you take the top 32 and divide them up. never thought of it before until mapping it out and looking at it.
 
Hammerdrill said:
For whatever reason the OHSAA is married to the regional concept.
Click to expand...

I am more or less convinced that they are married to it because it's a way to play games. It makes it easier for them to screw around with teams and areas, play politics, give favors, and punish others. In this case, they can screw over an undefeated team and give a playoff spot to a team with a 5-5 record.

I've also noticed that among fans there is very much an attitude of "we've always done it this way." As I pointed out earlier, West Virginia has no regions and can have even longer trips in Ohio. There is almost no complaining about the lack of regions in West Virginia football. There is a lot more whining about the fact that the state has only three classes.

I do see logic in having regions in large states like Texas, Montana, or California. In Ohio, there is no need for them.
 
serpico said:
It was 2010, but to your point... DSJ’s closest game during that year’s playoffs was 36 points. No rating system would have produced a competitive D6 final that year.
Click to expand...

You are correct. It was 2010, and they did have one of the best ever to come out of the smallest division. Their closest game that year was a 17-13 wi over Marin Local in the regular season.

There are other examples though. Take a look at Marion Local in 2013. Their closest game in the playoffs was a 35-28 win over Covington, who happened to be in the same region:

Fort Loramie (8-3) 63-14
Covington (11-1) 35-28
Triad (12-1) 50-0
St John's (9-5) 35-6
Trimble (14-1) 33-0
 
algernonsidney said:
You are correct. It was 2010, and they did have one of the best ever to come out of the smallest division. Their closest game that year was a 17-13 wi over Marin Local in the regular season.

There are other examples though. Take a look at Marion Local in 2013. Their closest game in the playoffs was a 35-28 win over Covington, who happened to be in the same region:

Fort Loramie (8-3) 63-14
Covington (11-1) 35-28
Triad (12-1) 50-0
St John's (9-5) 35-6
Trimble (14-1) 33-0
Click to expand...

Covington had a heck of a team that year, including running back A.J. Oullette who went on to play for Ohio University. Flyers were fortunate to escape that game with a win. Covington likely would have won state that year if not for MSML.
 
ThaXFactor said:
If a 10-0 team has 23 teams ahead of them in their division, then the fault lies with the schedule, plain and simple.
Click to expand...

I agree. A 9-1 team gets harbin points from 9 teams, a 10-0 team gets harbin points from all 10. If an entire team worth of harbins isn’t getting you into the playoffs, that has to be on the schedule. There shouldn’t be 7 9-1 teams in the entire division that have more harbins than a 10-0 team, let alone in the region.
 
ghsknightsfan said:
so i just worked things out and i think we would most benefit from 8 regions of 4 teams.. both distance wise and competitively. sure, it’s not perfect. but it’s close. and by 8 regions of 4, that is after you take the top 32 and divide them up. never thought of it before until mapping it out and looking at it.
Click to expand...
The result in week 13 would be essentially the same.
 
HighSchoolFB45 said:
I agree. A 9-1 team gets harbin points from 9 teams, a 10-0 team gets harbin points from all 10. If an entire team worth of harbins isn’t getting you into the playoffs, that has to be on the schedule. There shouldn’t be 7 9-1 teams in the entire division that have more harbins than a 10-0 team, let alone in the region.
Click to expand...
In 2001, when Newcomerstown got left out, their opponents totalled 30 wins. Currently, Gibsonburg's opponents have 29. They lie 10th and the last spots all have teams that control their own destiny... i.e. win and you're in... looking at them. Gibsonburg needs at least one of those teams to lose.

What does it matter anyway? Do you really think that they will go deep into the playoffs after a cupcake schedule? Very unlikely.
 
algernonsidney said:
I am more or less convinced that they are married to it because it's a way to play games. It makes it easier for them to screw around with teams and areas, play politics, give favors, and punish others. In this case, they can screw over an undefeated team and give a playoff spot to a team with a 5-5 record.
Click to expand...

You actually believe the OHSAA put Gibsonburg into this region thinking they would go 10-0 and this would be the best way to screw them out of a playoff birth?

But since you’ve got your tinfoil hat on, consider the amount of game-playing that could take place if the OHSAA would use the top 32 teams and then break them into regions right before the playoffs. Can you imagine the gerrymandering that could occur?
 
adog said:
Problem is we will never know. Gibsonburg's.13.2166 Harbins points would have them in the play-off hunt in all other regions D6. They would even be fighting for a home game in Region 24 ( I know they don't fit in southwest region geographically)
Click to expand...

@ terribletowel
Yes I believe Gibsonburg would be more successful offensively than just about anyone is willing to give them credit for. Their two wing backs (run the wing t) are very quick and fast (as I mentioned earlier both placed at state track meet) the fullback is a 215lb hammer.

Reputation is what the very vast majority of all posters are relying on. Gibsonburg has a poor rep in post season play and have traditionally played a soft schedule. The other teams in the region have a good post season record and play a much tougher schedule. Neither take is germane in regards to mythical matchups THIS SEASON so we rely on our opinions and that’s ok. I face it, Gibsonburg didn’t set out to play three terrible winless teams this season, but the fact that they have is damning. Overall Gibsonburg’s athletic directors past and present haven’t scheduled tough teams out of conference.
It finally caught up to them this season which is a shame because this is a much better team than those that were embarrassed in the first round playoff losses the past four seasons. Super slim chances only an Ottawa Hills win over Fairview gets the Bears in, not likely to happen. Gibsonburg will probably finish 10-0 with 8, 9-1 teams ahead of them. Meanwhile a very mediocre region 22 may have two 5-5 teams in.
oh well at this point the hay is in the barn.
 
AllSports12 said:
Scrapping a successful system to accommodate an anomaly is no way to conduct business.
Click to expand...
I have ties to Gibsonburg, and I agree entirely with this statement. The system worked as designed; 'anomaly' is definitely an appropriate description for the long sequence of events that led to this point.
 
serpico said:
You actually believe the OHSAA put Gibsonburg into this region thinking they would go 10-0 and this would be the best way to screw them out of a playoff birth?

But since you’ve got your tinfoil hat on, consider the amount of game-playing that could take place if the OHSAA would use the top 32 teams and then break them into regions right before the playoffs. Can you imagine the gerrymandering that could occur?
Click to expand...
I think that what people who are making these statements are saying is that, if administrators think that "it's time for, say, someone in Cincinnati to get a shot to play for a championship, the way to make it happen is to force for the next couple of years, the MAC area into the north, and make a new region in the southwest, but, that puts too many teams in the northwest, so we'll create a 'north-central' region." Probably a guarantee that no one was considering Gibsonburg in any way during regional assignments, LOL. There might have been talk about preventing an all-MAC state championship by forcing all of those area teams into a single bracket, also including Archbold and Liberty Center, and let them all eliminate each other by week 13. I don't like to ascribe bad intentions onto others, but I'm sure that this is the thought process from posters suggesting gerrymandering regions is to blame. Even if all of this happened, Gibsonburg and Spencerville were just collateral damage, and not intentional targets.

Your second statement is spot-on, though. If one is concerned that nefarious OHSAA administrators wield too much authority dividing schools before week 1 in order get their "preferred" teams or areas in the easiest road to the finals, how much more authority would they get if they actually knew which thirty-two schools get a playoff spot before deciding who to give the "easiest" or "most difficult" path?
 
Last edited:
EagleFan said:
LOL. Regions are fine. Just look at the maps they provide. They tell the story.
Click to expand...
Serious inquiry. Does it frequently happen, in smaller-school divisions (say III or smaller), to not have the four regions radiate from the corners of the state? I don't recall seeing this happen very often, if at all, in the way that R22 is shoehorned in there this year.
 
LS92 said:
In D2, Anderson is currently 11th in R8, but would be 4th, 5th and 5th in each of the other regions. I too would like to see regions eliminated. This general problem of imbalanced regions tends to occur most years. The 10-0 Gibsonburg situation is just the worst case of it in the last decade.
Click to expand...

My guess on why we have regions is two fold. First, its to reduce travel time in the early rounds. They dont want a team from Ashtabula county to travel to Hamilton county if they dont have to.

Second, I think its kind of the way the NCAA bball tournament used to be many decades ago. There are 4 regions in the tournament. It used to be the top teams in a particular area of the country would be seeded there. So we could get a good idea of where the best basketball was played: the east, the west, the southeast, or the midwest. The NCAA tourney has shifted from that in the last 20-30 years. But for Ohio high schook football, perhaps the OHSAA wants teams from all over. They dont want the GCL South, for example, to play the state championship against each other in Canton.

Not saying its my opinion or that its right or wrong. Im surmising that is one of the reasons we have the region system in place now.
 
ghsknightsfan said:
so i just worked things out and i think we would most benefit from 8 regions of 4 teams.. both distance wise and competitively. sure, it’s not perfect. but it’s close. and by 8 regions of 4, that is after you take the top 32 and divide them up. never thought of it before until mapping it out and looking at it.
Click to expand...
Take your top 4, there's your 1 seeds. Next 4 are the 2 seeds, next 4 are the 3 seeds, and so on. You should be able to take each group of 1-8 seeds and reasonably match them up in 4 geographic brackets.
 
InTheDarke said:
Take your top 4, there's your 1 seeds. Next 4 are the 2 seeds, next 4 are the 3 seeds, and so on. You should be able to take each group of 1-8 seeds and reasonably match them up in 4 geographic brackets.
Click to expand...
you could do that. i ranked D5 1-32 with projected harbins, and as a result, you get some reasonable matchups (Ironton vs Portsmouth) and then some horrible ones (Blanchester vs Orrville) using your method. if you divide it up in to 4 regions, the matchups get better. divide it in 8 regions and it gets fun, with teams being re-bracketed after the first two rounds. for example, the worst 4 team region that you get would include Marion Pleasant, North Union, Columbus Academy, and Orrville. and that’s not even very bad.
 
Last edited:
To be clear, I've been a fan of Top 32 in well before this Gibsonburg scenario. I just think there's a logical way to go about it. I'm sure there's plusses and minuses, just as there is with it the way it is now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top