Division I needs to be expanded

SVillegrad

Well-known member
The situation in R1 this year had me look this up. What you have in R1 this year (and the last couple of years since they made Division I the top 72) is a joke. There is Ed's (who would be the team to beat in any region) and then maybe 5-6 others that are legitimately playoff worthy.

You don't have to expand it much, just go up another 16 schools. Doing so, you would have added the following (somebody correct me if I overlooked anybody):

1. Westerville South (605): R2/R3
2. Little Miami (582): R4
3. Riverside (577): R1
4. Avon (572): R1
5. Toledo Bowsher (571): R2
6. Shaker Heights (570): R1
7. Solon (566): R1
8. Licking Hieghts (560): R2/R3
9. Massillon Perry (550): R1
9. Hudson (550): R1
11. Anthony Wayne (546): R2
12. Toledo Start (543): R2
13. North Royalton (539): R1
14. Canal Winchester (535): R2/R3
15. Watkins Memorial (533): R2/R3
16. North Ridgeville (529): R1

Eight of the 16 that would come up are R1 schools, but right now R1 only has 17 total so that pushes it to 25. You could push a couple R3 schools into R4 and work out R2/R3 (since Columbus is split anyway) to make the numbers somewhat equal.

For R1, adding another 16 drastically improves the field there. Seven of the eight teams that would come back up (all, outside of Avon, have been D1 at some point) would have made the playoff field. The only school that wouldn't have is Shaker Heights, which is leaving the Lake Erie League to jump back into the D1 Greater Cleveland Conference next year anyway.

Here is what the playoff field would like like in R1 if those 16 schools were added into D1 (Bolded are the D2 teams that would have came up)

1. St. Edward (9-1): 45.19
16. Massillon Perry* (4-6): 10.70 (Ironically, Massillon Perry is the No. `16 in D2/R7 and will face Massillon in the first round ... Massillon being the only team to beat Ed's).

8. St. Ignatius (6-3): 22.01
9. Canton McKinley (5-5): 20.54

4. Hudson (10-0): 29.35
13. North Ridgeville (5-5): 14.80
(Both of those are D2 this year).

5. Medina (9-1): 24.89
12. Massillon Jackson (5-5): 15.85

-----

2. Painesville Riverside (9-1): 34.27
15. Solon (6-4): 12.56
(Two more that are D2 this year)

7. Cleveland Heights (9-1): 22.92
10. Wadsworth (6-4): 17.65

3. Avon (9-1): 33.20
14. Berea-Midpark (5-5): 13.05 (Two current SWC league members)

6. Mentor (6-3): 23.23
11. North Royalton (6-4): 16.45

This is a legit playoff field. Look at some of the potential second round matchups:
Eds-Iggy (part 2)
Hudson-Medina
Riverside-Cleveland Heights
Avon-Mentor (this is one I would love to see)

Every game from the quarterfinals on would be intriguing. Outside of the R1 schools, none of the others would tip the scales in the other regions. Since Northeast Ohio has so many large D2s now, the OHSAA needs to send some of them up to D1. And it's not like Avon (9-1), Hudson (10-0) or Riverside (9-1) have cakewalks in their current regions. ... though it's likely both Avon and Riverside both will go up to D1 anyway next time around even if things stay the same.
 
 
Nix division 7 and adjust the competitive balance formula so that those with extremely high CB numbers are bumped way up. Leave it at 16 qualifiers, slash a regular season game off so it's only 9 instead of 10. Potentially 16 games in a season is too many. OHSAA still gets their money. That comports with reality. It'll never be perfect but this seems like it'd undo some of the watering down of D1 and also keep the smaller divisions from being considered lesser.
 
While your premise may be just fine , I can not agree with one key aspect.

You stated St Ed's would be "the team to beat" in any region. Not in D1 SW. Not a fatal flaw to your plan but felt it should be mentioned.
 
Nah. I’d rather not watch my school have to play private schools double their size for a state championship. No matter how good my school is.
Fair point. If only teams like Princeton, Warren Harding, McKinley x 3, Upper Arlington, Hilliard Davidson x2, Colerain, Pickerington Central x2 could rise up and beat those damn privates.


Obviously the big privates have massive advantages, but that has zero to do with Ohio needing 7 divisions. ML is good enough to win probably up to the D4 title.
 
I think we should heed the words of the old IBM CEO who said something like "it's hard to make an elephant dance with an ant."

Reducing the number of schools in D1 a few years ago was a step in the right direction because school populations not being distributed uniformly. There are a handful of massive schools like Mentor and St. Ignatius and others around Cincy and Columbus that really skew the numbers. For them, I'd suggest creating an even smaller Super D1 division. Pull out schools like Euclid, Stow, Heights, and Berea-Midpark at the bottom of D1 and push them down to a new D2 (or D1b if you will). Then force those with CB advantages like Moeller and St. Edward up and let others opt in. Wanna be the "real" state champ Hoban or Massillon, jump up voluntarily. Then expand the number of schools in D2, D3, D4, and D5.

I did some quick math. There's a 51% size advantage for Mason at 1300 over Wadsworth at 632 in D1. Why do we accept that % disparity in D1 yet put Avon and Padua in separate divisions with that same percentage difference in male population?

Seems like a fair lower bound for D1 would be 800. Then enforce that roughly same 40% difference between largest and smallest across all divisions. That 40% difference combined with CB factors would create fairer divisions, but might not yield equal numbers per division. To which I say "so what, who cares if one division has more than others?" With 16 teams making the playoffs per region, there's plenty of opportunity to make the playoffs even if a single Region has 30, 40, or even 50 schools.

Not sandbagging for my town's school. I don't see an issue with NoRo and its 539 boys being in the same division (and region in some cases) as Berea-Midpark (674), Elyria (683), or Strongsville (686) in a new D2 (or D1b?). Heck, throw us in with Brunswick and Medina with over 800 boys. But beyond that, throwing us in with the group having 1000-1,300 boys is just as ridiculous as putting Padua (286) in the same division as Avon (572).
 
Fair point. If only teams like Princeton, Warren Harding, McKinley x 3, Upper Arlington, Hilliard Davidson x2, Colerain, Pickerington Central x2 could rise up and beat those damn privates.


Obviously the big privates have massive advantages, but that has zero to do with Ohio needing 7 divisions. ML is good enough to win probably up to the D4 title.
And how many have the privates won in D1? How many of those publics didn't even play one private school during their run? And some of those publics were reaching a wide area kind of like the privates.

Bringing up stuff like Princeton from 1983 is a joke. Seriously man that is a gigantic reach

Of course there will be exceptions but they are very rare. You'll never see a public school in D1 go on a run like Iggy in the 90s and Eds now. It's two different playing fields and ways of doing things
 
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They went to the 7 divisions because Division I had such a large spread in student numbers. Now you want to go back to basically what we were only with 7 divisions instead of six. I think if we stay at the seven divisions we should go back to the 8 qualifiers. How may 15 and 16 teams win? There still are teams that do not make it. I think 8 really helped make the difference so 10-0 teams did not make the show like back when only four made it. Just seems like participation trophy time almost to me.
 
So it’s real fair to those schools with say 500-600 boys to bump up and face teams with 800-1000??

Delete this stupid sh@t.

The problem is 16 teams making the playoffs. Money grab of epic proportions.
Not sure if you're replying to me or the OP, but I'm guessing the OP. I hate the idea of the 500-600 boy schools like our NoRo with 539 getting bumped back up to D1. I've seen that movie before in 2012, NoRo's best team in community history. Met St. Ignatius in week 12 and lost 54-0. Would've been worse had Coach Kyle not graciously called off the dogs at halftime. Set aside St. Ignatius' advantage of drawing from a population of over 1,000,000 compared with NoRo's 30,000, St. Ignatius had/has nearly double the male student population, same as NoRo against D3/D4 Revere who we beat OOC that year by roughly the same score.
 
DI has such a huge disparity in enrollment. I like breaking it even further and making it a huge school division. Use 700 or 800 as the cut off and then push schools with over a 100CB number up an additional division.

DII could be 450-700 or 500-800.
 
I was originally opposed to 16 teams, but I prefer 16 to 8 for one reason: it encourages teams to play better OOC competition. Agree though that many of the seeds below #10-#12 are still really weak.
Eight teams was perfect. Making the playoffs used to be an 'achievement'. That said, 16 is better than when only the top 4 qualified...The frustration of going 10-0 and NOT making the playoffs had to be unimaginable.
 
Region of Promotion and current Harbins ranking. I don't know how "adjusted" enrollment by CB would affect which teams got promoted.
R5
#2 3. Riverside (577): R1
#3 9. Hudson (550): R1
#14 7. Solon (566): R1
#18 6. Shaker Heights (570): R1


R6
#1 4. Avon (572): R1
#4 11. Anthony Wayne (546): R2
#9 13. North Royalton (539): R1
#13 16. North Ridgeville (529): R1
#20 12. Toledo Start (543): R2
#27 5. Toledo Bowsher (571): R2


R7
#3 1. Westerville South (605): R2/R3
#9 14. Canal Winchester (535): R2/R3
#4 15. Watkins Memorial (533): R2/R3
#11 8. Licking Hieghts (560): R2/R3
#16 9. Massillon Perry (550): R1

R8
#15 2. Little Miami (582): R4
 
Fair point. If only teams like Princeton, Warren Harding, McKinley x 3, Upper Arlington, Hilliard Davidson x2, Colerain, Pickerington Central x2 could rise up and beat those damn privates.


Obviously the big privates have massive advantages, but that has zero to do with Ohio needing 7 divisions. ML is good enough to win probably up to the D4 title.
Clearly, he would rather play lowly Hoban (nevermind Massillon or Winton Woods). Yet, he fears someone like Ignatius?
 
Probably unpopular, if not controversial, opinion here:

Using enrollment COUNTS is the problem.

It should be based on the population in which the school is drawing from for their enrollment.

But HHW, how do we calculate that? Simple.
- For all enrolled 10-12 (or whatever grades they use, I don't remember), pull a zip code roster.
- All other info deidentified beside boys or girls.
- De-dupe the zip codes so you have unique only.
- Add the population from an agreed upon source from each of the unique zips.

This is now a school's "drawing area." Stack those up and build your divisions bottom-to-top.


But HHW, it sounds like you are picking on private/charter schools and open enrollment schools. Nope. They have chosen their enrollment rules and policies just like schools who did not choose to have/be either of those.

Only divisional changes I would make after that... D1 is limited to 64 teams. All make the playoffs.
 
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Toledo Start or Toledo Rogers in Div. 1. Lol

Rogers is a long way from makign D1 enrollment figures but Bowsher... same point being made. This is something I bring to counter the "close a school" crowd. Urban schools now are different. Note Toledo is the ONLY urban district that would put teams into D1, when practically, by actual butts in the seats and athletically capable they are more likely D3 or D4 as are the other major urbans by enrollment.
 
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I've been in favor of permanent enrollment boundaries for divisions Something like:
600 plus boys=D1
450-599=D2
and so on.
Yes, the divisions would be imbalanced, but I'd also be in favor of a fixed percentage make the playoffs. Forty maybe?
 
I've been in favor of permanent enrollment boundaries for divisions Something like:
600 plus boys=D1
450-599=D2
and so on.
Yes, the divisions would be imbalanced, but I'd also be in favor of a fixed percentage make the playoffs. Forty maybe?
No, this sucks. A school with 600 in D1 has to compete with schools 125% bigger. To have any fairness, 800-1000 should be the smallest D1.
 
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