2009 Play-Offs

[Bon_Mot]

One of the current topics on a soccer board on another site is about how the districts will look next year in 4A and how that will affect who makes the play-offs.  Next year 4A will have 64 districts instead of 32 in soccer.  Some districts will be "empty" which will mean a first or second round bye for some teams. 

The point of contention has been how the districts will be divided.  The idea that will probably happen is that 3A's (where ever it's possible) will make up their own districts.  The thought here is to create a competitive ballance and encourage more 3A schools to start soccer programs...which would lead to 3A getting their own classification...which is without a doubt a good thing.

That means that this area will possibly have two districts.

The current 4A's

LCM, PNG, Nederland, Ozen, Central, Vidor, Lumberton

The current 3A's

WOS, BC, HJ, HF, Silsbee, maybe Jasper and/or maybe Cleveland

Here's the where the discussion starts.  Four teams will make the play-offs next year in soccer.  This is totally hypothecial, but I'm going to use last year's standings to show you a scenario that very well could happen.  The play-off teams from one district would have been Lumberton, Central, PNG, and Vidor, while the other district would have sent Silsbee, HJ, WOS, and Jasper.  The first round match-ups in the play-offs might have looked like this:

Lumberton v Jasper

Central v WOS

PNG v HJ

Vidor v Silsbee

The Vidor vs Silsbee game would have been a good one to watch last year.  Other than that... 

I'm actually for this plan - I think.  I haven't decided yet for sure.  It seems like a necessary evil to get 3A its own classification.  But I can also forsee three teams from that 4A district questioning the system.

Sorry this has been so long, but I'm really interested to know what some of you think.

[RonBurgundy68]

Well, I like this plan, I think. It would reward another team for a good season. It would also get rid of all the district games having to be played now, and would leave more dates for possibly another tournament and 2/3 non-district games, which would better prepare the teams for district play.

But the things I have against it are:

1.) With that system, and the teams in the 4A (district), the records for most of the teams are going to be VERY close to identical, and that means a team(s) is/are going to get, for the lack of a better term "screwed", just because of maybe goal differential or another scenario that will be used. I'm not saying this isn't going to happen for the current season, because it very well could happen this year, but IMO it would be worse for this idea.

2.)  The current 3A teams, and I'm sorry to say this but, aren't at a competitive level, so it would just be a cakewalk for the 4A teams to the next round. And there could also be a risk of a player on the 4A team getting injured from playing this "cakewalk" game.

But that's just me, they have to do something about all these teams crammed into this district, and I guess anything is better than nothing. Thank you for taking the time to post this Bon, it really makes you think about alot of things.

[Striker93]

Why not give the 3A teams and 4A teams separate playoff brackets.  When we redistrict in 2009-2010, it is likely to happen anyway.  It seems like a lot of trouble just to prolong the inevitable from happening.  There are going to be problems to work out either way.  Redo the whole thing once and be done with it.  With the top number for 3A going up, some of the 4A teams will drop to 3A and add to the number of 3A teams also.

[bullets13]

I'm ok with the 3A teams getting beaten up in the first round of the playoffs for a couple of years until we can get a 3A playoff system.  having come from HJ back when we were reasonably competitive, we usually got beaten up in the 1st round of the playoffs anyway.  nowadays, the local 3A teams aren't even going to the playoffs, so even if they get smoked in the 1st round, it's a step forward for them.  It will also mean they get to play a meaningful district schedule, instead of just serving as punching bags for the talented 4A schools in the area.  Hopefully, if these teams are fighting for a district championship instead of losing every game by 10, they will gain some fan support. 

Aries, although your point about the 4A schools possibly losing players to injury in these 1st round games has some merit, I think it's safer for the bigger schools to only play one game against the rougher, lesser-skilled 3A's in the playoffs rather than 6-8 games during the regular district schedule. 

[RonBurgundy68]

I'm ok with the 3A teams getting beaten up in the first round of the playoffs for a couple of years until we can get a 3A playoff system.  having come from HJ back when we were reasonably competitive, we usually got beaten up in the 1st round of the playoffs anyway.  nowadays, the local 3A teams aren't even going to the playoffs, so even if they get smoked in the 1st round, it's a step forward for them.  It will also mean they get to play a meaningful district schedule, instead of just serving as punching bags for the talented 4A schools in the area.  Hopefully, if these teams are fighting for a district championship instead of losing every game by 10, they will gain some fan support. 

Aries, although your point about the 4A schools possibly losing players to injury in these 1st round games has some merit, I think it's safer for the bigger schools to only play one game against the rougher, lesser-skilled 3A's in the playoffs rather than 6-8 games during the regular district schedule. 

I understand what you mean... I guess it was just what I was feeling at the time...

[Bon_Mot]

Why not give the 3A teams and 4A teams separate playoff brackets.  When we redistrict in 2009-2010, it is likely to happen anyway.  It seems like a lot of trouble just to prolong the inevitable from happening.  There are going to be problems to work out either way.  Redo the whole thing once and be done with it.  With the top number for 3A going up, some of the 4A teams will drop to 3A and add to the number of 3A teams also.

The UIL can't put 3A and 4A teams into separate brackets because there are only around 60 3A teams so far, and technically the 3A's are petitioning to "play up" a classification.  Any school can petition to play up one classification in any sport.  Kountze used to have a soccer program but had to drop it when they went to 2A because a school cannot "play up" 2 classifications.  Also, we won't realign until the 2010-'11 season.

Aries, although your point about the 4A schools possibly losing players to injury in these 1st round games has some merit, I think it's safer for the bigger schools to only play one game against the rougher, lesser-skilled 3A's in the playoffs rather than 6-8 games during the regular district schedule. 

Agreed.  I don't think the UIL will ever consider the "possibility of injury during a game" for anything.  They've got the rules and officials in place.  Otherwise the captains would meet at the center cirlce and have a massive Paper, Rock, Scissor throwdown!

An idea brought up on the other site was to group schools geographically into 64 districts and then divide the play-offs into Div 1 and Div 2 (big school / small school) for the post season like pointy ball does.  There'd still be some empty districts and some 1st or 2nd round byes, but it might reduce the number of 10+ to nothing blow-outs in the early rounds, and knock out the "How could they make the play-offs when they wouldn't have won a game in our district?" arguement.

However, I think the main idea with the current plan is to grow soccer amongst the 3A schools.

[Striker93]

So, as of now UIL has no plan for the play-offs?  Does anyone know when they are going to announce the soccer realignment?  I heard they were going to try to keep as close as possible to the football districts, but with Jasper moving north who knows.