2020 Competitive Balance In Ohio High School Football
- Thread starter radiodaveagain
- Start date
tom_hsfootball_fan
Well-known member
Yes, they should.
Here is a proposal for new divisions in Ohio. Each will crown a state champion:
Div 1 - All private schools, regardless of size. Teams should all be penalized because they are depriving the public schools of players
Div 2 - All open enrollment public schools, regardless of size. Small schools should be able to bring in new students
Div 3 - All inner city public schools
Div 4 - All non- open enrollment suburban public schools whose name begins with a vowel
Div 5 - All non- open enrollment suburban public schools whose name begins with a consonant
Div 6 - All non-open enrollment public schools which fall into the top twelve in the fan vote for the " I want a championship sweatshirt" poll
Div 7 - All open enrollment public schools which fall into the top twelve in the fan vote for the " I want a championship sweatshirt" poll
This topic comes up every year with the same arguments and the same complaints. This formula should open up the chances for a championship shot
But somehow, I think that the same teams will be fighting for the trophies every year no matter what formula is used. Maybe it has something to do with the programs, coaching, community involvement, and the attitude of the players.
Div 1 - All private schools, regardless of size. Teams should all be penalized because they are depriving the public schools of players
Div 2 - All open enrollment public schools, regardless of size. Small schools should be able to bring in new students
Div 3 - All inner city public schools
Div 4 - All non- open enrollment suburban public schools whose name begins with a vowel
Div 5 - All non- open enrollment suburban public schools whose name begins with a consonant
Div 6 - All non-open enrollment public schools which fall into the top twelve in the fan vote for the " I want a championship sweatshirt" poll
Div 7 - All open enrollment public schools which fall into the top twelve in the fan vote for the " I want a championship sweatshirt" poll
This topic comes up every year with the same arguments and the same complaints. This formula should open up the chances for a championship shot
But somehow, I think that the same teams will be fighting for the trophies every year no matter what formula is used. Maybe it has something to do with the programs, coaching, community involvement, and the attitude of the players.
Insane92
Location: South Jersey
No, it could never be something like this that so many people on this board have tried to explain...
fridayfootball
Active member
I wish the OHSAA would give the option to all schools to play up a Division. Why wouldn't Hoban want to try and win the D1 title? Kirtland beat the D4 runner up by 16. If they wanted to move up let the schools do so. Some will decide to stay down in whatever decision they are in but it gives them an option.
SpeedSafety25
Well-known member
I think CB is like grasping oil with the hand. It will be an endless effort to try to make it "competitive" year in and year out. CB does not reflect real life in any sense.
Bruce Monnin
Well-known member
Sounds like a city to me.
Hazardous Whippet
Well-known member
I mean to state a small city and ended up writing down town.
smurfyeah19
Well-known member
Ohio has really done a tremendous job here. It’s the best formula while still not separating Catholics and public schools. That’d kill HS sports if you had separate titles
Walsh Jesuit I'm sure pulls some Akron kids.
If you count neighboring Cardinal Stritch, Toledo has 4. Not like Hoban and TCC are the only choices in either city.
DonCalipari
Well-known member
They may not be the only choices but Hoban is winning and sending kids off to college. They are attractive to any parents in search of education, winning in football, and sending kids to school
This topic comes up every year with the same arguments and the same complaints. This formula should open up the chances for a championship shot
Simple as that huh? A good program and coaching and attitude, is all it takes to have more FBS D1 prospects w/ an enrollment of 200-300, than another private school with ALL THE ABOVE and an enrollment several hundreds more? Or 1000 more? Let alone 98% of o/e publics? Let alone 100% of non o/e publics?
Sarcasm aside, you are obviously intelligent what is your honest constructive opinion on improving our system? If any. Should we get rid of CB and stick TCC in D4, Hoban D3? Should we increase CB? Is there another method to address talent pool? Split away 2 private divisions? Should we have such increasingly wide enrollment differences in the top divisions, compared to very narrow differences in D5-D7, and part D4? The biggest D5 has 40 more boys than the biggest D6. Ditto D7. That's wild. Would/should the small school lobbyists add more "participation trophies" and split the top half into 3 more divisions? Or should we reduce by 3 divisions? (Sorry Kirtland, MAC).
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4GX
Well-known member
Where is there a school like this? What school has 80 incoming (i.e.-a ~320 total enrollment), with 50 of those kids even PLAYING football (let alone being "good football players"), and the other 30 are "good at other sports"? This would be evidenced by a school having a 50-strong freshman football team, and then also having a freshman/JV soccer team with ~15 players, a frosh/JV golf team with ~7 frosh players, and a frosh/JV cross-country team with ~8 frosh runners (since those are the other fall sports-- and the other 30 incoming freshmen are all "good at other sports")... that would truly seem to meet your description of "selective admissions"-- but I'd like to know where such a school exists (outside of maybe IMG Academy-- which I don't think enrolls even 80 kids each year)?... Oh, and I'm assuming you're not talking about a Catholic school, since "no pesky 4 year religious requirement" hardly describes a Catholic school...
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4GX
Well-known member
Why? Why (other than it is your opinion-- and the school you support has done well under the current system) is the system you are advocating for "the right one"? Why is it appropriate (and, apparently, according to you, ONLY appropriate) to "move them (schools) up because they are getting kids from outside their designated 'pull zones'"? You have stated this opinion multiple times-- but what are the underlying reasons why you believe this to be appropriate?
If the system of moving schools up is called "Competitive Balance", the purpose of it (ostensibly, if the name MEANS anything) is to balance the results of the competition; regardless of whether the competition has become unbalanced because one (or more) schools are training/coaching their players better or because one (or more) schools are getting better players to start with, what difference does it make? The competition is STILL unbalanced, regardless of the reasons for that-- Marion Local was not competitively balanced with the teams that it was facing in that 10-year run of 7 championships in 9 finals-- any more than Moeller was competitively balanced in their run of 7 championships in 9 finals in ~10 years. There was no where to "move Moeller up" TO (so they did OTHER things to limit Moeller's competitive edge-- like making out-of-state players ineligible)-- but there is an obvious solution to Marion Local's dominance of the competition.
We could draw a parallel to our graduated federal income tax system-- this is a "wealth re-distribution" system, a socialist mechanism designed to re-distribute the wealth created in our country (a form of BALANCING the RESULTS of economic COMPETITION), in a more even fashion than a simple flat tax would do-- those who make far more are taxed at higher rates than those who make far less. We don't ONLY apply the higher income tax rates to those (like the Kennedys, or our current president-- and, yes-- I get the irony of this example-- as he apparently doesn't pay taxes at rates even close to what middle-class people do!) who were born extremely wealthy and have always had high income (which would be analogous to schools who START with an elevated talent pool of top athletes)-- NO, we ALSO tax at MUCH higher rates those, like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Page (Google founders), Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, who MADE their own wealth, after starting out in lower-class, or middle-class circumstances (the "self-made billionaires")-- we don't give them a pass on the dramatically higher tax rates, just because they were NOT rich to start with--NO, we say that we are going to tax their much greater economic results at a higher rate, even though they obtained those much greater economic results solely through their hard work and greater smarts/insights (which would be analogous to schools that do extraordinary things with their modest inputs, like Marion Local, Kirtland, and Coldwater)...
If the goal is to balance competitive results, why is it only acceptable to balance the competition based on the inputs, and not on the outcomes? In horse-racing, the best horses eventually run against competitors carrying additional weight (the "handicap")-- in order to try to balance the competitive results. (Man o' War eventually was sometimes running with 25-33% more weight than his competitors!) The handicappers are trying to get a closely contested competition. Are we not trying to get closely contested competition here in Ohio HS football-- or are we in fact trying to ensure that certain schools (that, for one reason or another, we don't "LIKE" as much) don't win all the time?
Said another way, why is achieving dominance with a group of kids from the local neighborhood somehow more virtuous than achieving dominance with kids from all over? Miami University was dominant for a lengthy period in the 1980's-90's in college football, using a group of players almost exclusively from Florida (and even just South Florida)-- while Notre Dame and Penn State (and Ohio State!) were bringing in players from a MUCH broader national recruiting base, to try to compete with that-- yet, Miami was widely disparaged as the "bad guys" (the villains) of college football at the time, while Notre Dame, and Penn State were seen as the "good guys" that a bigger majority of college football fans "pulled for" against the Evil Empire of the Miami Hurricanes.
Thavoice
Well-known member
Simple really.
It is called competitive balance in high school athletics.
By nature, HS pull from a certain area in your district.
When programs, public with OE or private outside of their designated feeder schools, get players from outside of said district they should be taxed/multiplied like they are currently doing.
That is how you achieve said balance, not by moving teams up simply because they win. If a team wins and dominates by playing with kids in their district why punish that school?
It's is high school, not college and allowing a free for all of talent.
murphy13
Well-known member
You are correct Hoban got in trouble for contacting a kid in a catholic middle school a few years back without permission.
Hoban, TCC off the top of my head. Didn't look up smaller divisions but am guessing similar ratios. Though I just realized the divisional numbers are only based on 3 classes not 4. Correct? So Hoban for instance, incoming class is probably just over 100. You can obviously transfer there from a public hs, and/or just for 1 year. Some are more strict. D1 privates can have > 100+ freshmen teams. And several are elite across many sports. Just stating facts not accusations. Academic outcomes are similar. In the vast majority of cases, it is simply a fundamentally superior model.
4GX
Well-known member
Using your words, why "punish" a school that wins with kids NOT from their district? What is the inherent reason that doing THAT (punishing schools who win with kids not from their "district") is somehow virtuous? You've not answered that question. (Especially given that ANY school could CHOOSE to try to draw from a broader area-- at one time, Hoban did not; now, apparently, they do.) You keep saying "they should be taxed"-- WHY SHOULD they be? If your answer is that it allows them to dominate the results, then we are back to the other question you did not answer:
You've completely ignored the other question that I posed-- if you are after competitive balance, why are you only after it, on inputs-- not outputs (results)? Focusing on balancing the results is much more likely to result in balanced (distributed) results, than focusing on the inputs. You want to twiddle with the inputs, which has shown almost NO propensity for balancing the outcomes (as demonstrated by a tiny number of schools' [Coldwater, Marion Local, Kirtland] domination of the lower divisions).
I also don't agree with your constant characterization of moving up as "punishment"-- I consider it a "reward"-- you go on to challenge yourself with more difficult challenges, when you've demonstrated high proficiency with lesser challenges-- it's just like a skier moving up to Black Diamond runs, after mastering the Beginner (Green) and Intermediate (Blue) runs-- or a surfer moving up to bigger waves, after mastering the smaller ones-- that's not punishment-- it's reward!
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Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
What a crazy analogy, their is a difference between a skier choosing a more difficult course than being forced to do so. New Bremen def. Marion Local on their way to a state championship, I think the Cards almost got as much satisfaction out of def. ML, and LCC than actually winning state. The challenge is what makes the reward worth it, if you don't understand that you don't like to compete.
Yappi
Go Buckeyes
I look at it the opposite way. Outside of the 72 teams in Division I, the other 650+/- schools are being rewarded with an opportunity to win a lower division championship. It is a good and fair reward because it makes HS football more interesting. Once you've won a championship in a lower division, you should move up to the next division for at least one year. Keep winning, keep moving up.
The lower 6 divisions are split up with arbitrary numbers that don't reflect a school's ability to field a competitive team. The 9th-11th grade numbers are wildly inaccurate for some schools. A school that loses a large percentage of students from their Freshmen year to their Senior year are put at a huge disadvantage. Schools that attract talented athletes that are bypassing dozens of other schools to play a sport at a specific school gain a significant advantage.
Enrollment is a weak indicator for a school's ability to compete. Forcing a team up one division is not a punishment, especially considering we have more than twice as many divisions as we did at the beginning of the playoffs. Several teams in DIII now would have been AAA schools when the playoffs began.
Said it from the very beginning... “Competitive balance” is dumb. Divisions were always based on enrollment and there’s reasons why certain parents... in certain areas ... send the kids to certain schools.
Nobody cared about how good Hoban was until a few years ago, but there’s reasons why they‘ve grown into what they are now. No rule is gonna change that. The real dominance is at the small school level because statistically speaking, it’s harder to win the MAC than it is for one of them to win a state title. Again, there’s reasons why those schools push each other to be where they are.
Build it up and they won’t leave.
Nobody cared about how good Hoban was until a few years ago, but there’s reasons why they‘ve grown into what they are now. No rule is gonna change that. The real dominance is at the small school level because statistically speaking, it’s harder to win the MAC than it is for one of them to win a state title. Again, there’s reasons why those schools push each other to be where they are.
Build it up and they won’t leave.
The split isn’t arbitrary. If it was truly arbitrary you could see Mentor, Vanlue, Steubenville, and Windham all in the same division. That can never happen because the split isn’t arbitrary - it’s based on enrollment.
Yappi
Go Buckeyes
It is arbitrary. It is not a system to find the best quality teams or best fit for ability to field a competitive team. Enrollment is arbitrary, just the same as if they put all red teams in one division, all blue teams in a division, and all green teams in a division. Arbitrary does not necessarily mean random.
I've posted for almost 20 years on here that innercity schools of Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, and Cincinnati have been put into divisions that do not correspond with their actual enrollment. When a school consistently has 400 Freshmen and only 100 Seniors, using the Freshmen number to forecast enrollment is highly flawed. Enrollment WAS a decent indicator of a school's ability to compete 50 years ago. It is less relevant today with the movement of athletes to more attractive schools and the dropout rate for struggling schools.
I think it would be fair to say that some innercity schools competing in DI and DII would be more appropriately placed in DVII...and they still wouldn't be consistent winners.
4GX
Well-known member
OK-- now that you've named some hypothetical examples, let's look at the facts:
Hoban's website says it has 835 students-- that works out to ~208 per class-- assuming there is a ~50/50 split between boys/girls, then there are probably ~100-105 boys in an entry class at Hoban. So, your first estimate of Hoban having only 80 boys is off by (at least) 25%; then, Hoban has 48 freshman football players on its frosh team and 2 listed on varsity (the JV roster is not viewable-- probably because the Varsity and JV rosters are shown combined). Then, there are another 16 Frosh playing on OTHER Hoban fall sports teams (frosh/JV/Varsity soccer [9], golf [4], cross-country [3]), meaning that there are ~66 boys playing sports in the Hoban freshman class of ~105. Meaning that only ~63% of Hoban's freshman class is involved in sports.
Toledo Central Catholic (TCC) has an enrollment of 600 according to Wikipedia; assuming a 50/50 split between boys/girls, that leaves ~300 boys-- or ~75 boys per class. Unfortunately, there are no rosters posted for ANY sports on TCC's athletics website-- so it is not easy to say how many athletes TCC has amongst those ~75 boys... perhaps a TCC fan/parent/alum has some data on, for example, how many frosh football players were on TCC's 3 squads this year.
For comparison, Massillon Washington (MW) has an enrollment of 1207 according to Wikipedia (2019); assuming a 50/50 split of boys/girls, that leaves ~600 boys-- or 150 boys per class. MW has 44 freshmen on its frosh football team; there are no freshmen listed on (what appears to be) the combined Varsity/JV roster (no separate JV roster is viewable, similar to Hoban). The MW website says it is "under construction" and there is NO information on any of MW's sports teams there (even for football), so it is not easy to assess how many freshmen MW might have on its golf, soccer, and cross-country teams (similar to TCC).
However, just using the football-only percentage of the freshman class, it appears that MW has 44/150= ~29% playing football, while Hoban has 50/105= ~47% playing football-- advantage to Hoban, but not the huge differential that you would appear to be claiming-- and the total numbers per school appear very closely equivalent.
As to your other assertion (about having NO "pesky 4-year religious requirement")-- I highly doubt that this is accurate for either Hoban or TCC, but I am not familiar with Hoban's or TCC's curriculum requirements.
Given the facts currently available, your claim that Hoban is bringing in 50 football players and 30 other "good athletes" in a class of 80 does not appear accurate-- nor does it appear plausible (to me) that TCC is approaching those numbers, either, but the data is not readily available to prove either way.
4GX
Well-known member
Yeah-- what a crazy analogy-- You don't choose a more difficult ski run or wave because you are forced to do so-- you do it to challenge yourself (even more); as you note, New Bremen probably got as much satisfaction out of beating ML, as winning the state title-- had they NOT had to beaten ML to win, it would have been less challenging-- and thus likely less satisfying. The challenge is what makes the reward worth it-- if you don't understand that, YOU don't like to compete. (As someone who played a varsity sport in college at one of the "Power Five" conferences, I think I understand competitive desire and challenging oneself.)
No, it really does.
If enrollment isn’t predictive, how about I take 500 kids from, say, Trumbull County and you take 50. Who will generally field the better football team?
Yappi
Go Buckeyes
I would say it is closer to a whim than random in forecasted enrollment based divisions.
It is predictive if ALL the kids are randomly assigned to schools. Self-selection plays too big of a role in HS sports now for enrollment to be predictive.
I say you embrace the public vs. private rivalry. Make it like an acc/big ten showdown in college basketball. Divide the publics into 6 even number of teams . Divide the privates the same way. Use whatever competitive balance formula you want to place schools. One week you have the public school state championships and also the private school championships. The next week you have the combined state championships. D1 public champ vs. D1 private champ and so on for each division. You rotate the sites around the state. Maybe year 1 the publics play in Canton/Massillon, the privates play in Cincinnati and the combined plays in Columbus. The next year Toledo hosts 1 of the championships. You build excitement off the controversy.