Des Lacs-Burlington 1-7 in the playoffs?

[A - Football Fan]

Des Lacs-Burlington has won only one game this year and it was against New Rockford/Sheyenne who has a much better record. I am not knocking on Des Lacs because of their record but this points system should be overhauled I don't know the best way but to have a 1-7 team make the playoffs doesn't say much for Class A football.

[ndfan]

My opinion is you either combine A and AA or only Allow TWO teams to make the playoffs from each region.

[A - Football Fan]

Looking at the draft for region realignment it looks like they are trying to make Class A a little more competitive. We'll see how this pans out.

[Wombat]

This would probably never work, but just for discussion sake how about:

Make 2 class A regions (east/west) and have 2 divisions (each separate region that we have now)

During the first 3 weeks of the season each team plays teams from the opposite division within the same region that they are in. They would play the same team 2 years in a row so they could have home and away games with them, then play the other 3 teams from the opposite region during the next 2-year period.

During the next 5 weeks the teams play their regular regional (which would now be their division) schedule.

After 8 weeks every team will have 8 games against Class "A" opponents from their own region.

The top 2 teams from each division automatically qualify for the playoffs and get to host a first round game. #1 seed from each division are placed on opposite sides of the bracket, #2 seeds are flipped so quarterfinal game would be cross-divisional game.

The next 4 teams with the best overall record regardless of what division they played in qualifies for the 4 "wild-card" play-off teams. Wild card teams would be luck of the draw to see who they faced in the first round.

This would make every single week a very important game and reward the teams who played the best consistently throughout the entire season.

[A - Football Fan]

So, basically divisions would be set up the way regions are now, and playoff games would be against anyone in that half of the state (region) based on record or a number one or two seed?

[Wombat]

yeah, the top 2 teams from each division... or basically what the regions are right now... would get in for sure, then the next 4 best records regardless of what region they are in would get in. So theoretically you could have 6 teams from one division in the east region and only 2 from the other.... or 5 teams from one and 3 from another, just depending on overall record.

If Ties wouldn't really matter since the 4 "wild-card" teams would just be randomly drawn into the playoff bracket against one of the automatic qualifiers. If there was a tie for the 8th place you could break the tie by looking at head to head games... if there was no head to head games there would still be 3 common opponents so you could go by the best record against those common opponents. If it was still tied then we could bring back the dreaded points system, but at least it would be to determine which team with the same record makes it rather than determining if a 1-7 team should get in over a 3-5 team