North Dakota Preps

looking at the brackets for this week, i'm befuddled at who has home field advantage. i think that there really needs to be a change to who gets to host a playoff game, because this "even region hosts a game if like seeds meet in an even-numbered year" is garbage.

in 9-man for example, the no. 1 and no. 2 teams in the state are on the road...both are undefeated...thanks for nothing ndhsaa.

the problem is, what would be a better way to fix it? do you weight the media poll and higher-ranked teams host games? would the ndhsaa allow the media to have any impact on their playoffs?

Yeah something needs to be done here for the state football 9 man playoffs and even the state class b bball tournament.  The top teams should have home field.  Something needs to be set up and the media or ndhsaa or whoever should rank each team and go from there.

why not meet in the middle....make both teams travel.  whats wrong with the State B bball.  neutral court...shows who the best team really is.

I think the reason that they don't do a neutral sight is that they lose revenue having to rent facilities.  At least until the semifinals.  The issue in some of these cases is that the teams have already played once.  Shouldn't the winner of the previous meeting get home field?  I don't know where T-L and M-R played before but a win is a win.

Bottom line rules the day!

Tiger Pride wrote:The issue in some of these cases is that the teams have already played once.  Shouldn't the winner of the previous meeting get home field? 

Yep, thats the way I see it. If not that, total win/loss record. If both teams are equal then it should be a coin flip over the phone or whatever works out. I remember in '98 NCB and New England/Regent had a coin flip because they had the same record and the game was held up in Leeds.

I have to disagree to an extent.  Should the media be involved in where the game is played??? Because if you base the location on the state polls thats what would happen.  I agree that this could be done differently, but look at Richland last year.  In the playoffs, they traveled to Napoleon, and won.  They traveled to Drake and beat Tri-County.  If your good enough to win you will, regardless if it's home or away.  Yes, it could be done differently to reward those teams that have had a great season, but anyway you do it, there will be gripes about it.

The teams with better records deserve to have home field advantage.

now, do you take overall record, or region record into consideration?? Do you reward the teams who schedule the lightest possble non-region schedule with homefield advantage?? What about the teams that play the toughest non-region opponents they can, and come out with a loss or two?  You'd basically have to take a strength of schedule into consideration.  This is why there's no easy way to solve this problem.

Overall.

I think it was stated best by ndsportsfan. Do you want to let the media have that much power when it comes to playoff football?? I am guessing that you wouldn't. I agree that the so called top team in the state should have home field advantage, but it doesn't work that way. The state set up a system to be fair to each region and with this system it is fair. Teams know going into the season what the playoff picture looks like and what they are going to have to do to be the champs. Now saying that, I do believe they need to number the regions better then they do in 9 man. The East side of the states regions are 1,2,3,5 and the West is 4,6,7,8. That makes no sense to me. That means this year Hillsboro as long as they win will have home field advantage. That numbering system to me makes no sense and that is an easy one to correct in my eyes. It was also stated that last year Richland ended the year in the polls as number 2 behind Washburn, and Richland traveled the second and third rounds of the playoffs. One trip would have been three hours and the other would have been 6 hours. So travel isn't really an argument in my eyes. The best team will rise to the top no matter what system you have in place. There is no perfect system, we all just need to realize that and quit over analyzing everything. It is high school football and the best two teams will be in the dome at thte end of the year. If you lose because you have to travel, then you don't deserve to be crowned state champs. Nobody ever said being the state champs comes easily.

fb_fan wrote:... we all just need to realize that and quit over analyzing everything.

wouldn't this site be really boring because there wouldn't be anything on it if we weren't over analyzing everything?

I agree with you, but some people take it to an extreme. Everyone knows there isn't a perfect system. Instead of complaining about it, bring up suggestions if it is that easy to make a solution. That was my point. People tend to have a lot of blame, but nobody wants to throw out their great ideas. I have no solution for this topic, but I do think the one they have is fair.

people probably dont put suggestions on here because the NDHSAA doesnt give a crap what people like us think.

baseball wrote:people probably dont put suggestions on here because the NDHSAA doesnt give a crap what people like us think.

Keep the system in place the way it is for the first round. After that, flip a coin. Of course you'll have to flip a coin to see which team is going to call heads or tails!!! j/k

[user=508]baseball[/user] wrote:

people probably dont put suggestions on here because the NDHSAA doesnt give a crap what people like us think.

And you think they give a crap about people complaining on here? Here's the deal the NDHSAA makes the rules if you don't like them tough crap its the way it goes schools don't have to be a part of the NDHSAA.

9 man is tough to judge who is better and who deserves home field. Just because one team is undefeated doesn't mean a team with one loss doesn't. Some regions might be better then another. NCB was undefeated and had beat Lakota had home field and what did that do for them?? A LOSS at HOME!! If this is such a big problem I think the coaches would say something about it also.

I also believe this can happen in class A if the semi's has two #1's that are undefeated.

Have a great day everybody!!!;)