PIAA Sets Football Playoff Brackets for 2008-2009

Although the PIAA state playoff brackets aren’t yet in stone, my friends at EasternPAFootball.com, with the help of high school football guru, Josh Funk, has a run down on how things will shake out in the 2008 and 2009 football seasons. Most of the information below is based on that information that I received today.

The only real change in the state, as far as districts are concerned, has to do with a couple of east-west swaps at the AAA level. District 3 will move from the eastern bracket to the west. Replacing District 3 in the east will be Districts 4 and 6, which will move from the west to the east bracket. Of course with the Philly Pub splitting from 2 to 4 classifications, and the addition of the Philadelphia Catholic League (PCL) in the PIAA, the changes in the city will expand the high school football landscape to statewide proportions.

As I explained in an earlier post, the PCL will split from a Red/Blue configuration into separate “AAAA”, “AAA” and “AA” divisions, with each team competing in a division at the PIAA defined classifications. Each division will hold a separate playoff, crown a separate league champion and each of these three champions will play their public league counterpart for the district 12 championship (city title game) at their classification. The “A” classification in district 12 will be represented by the pub champ, as the PCL does not have “A” level teams. But, once the district champ is crowned, it’s becomes a new round of playoffs, as the district champ will now represent the entire city in their respective classification. I’ll explain how the state playoff bracket works with respect to the city teams (district 12).

AAAA
At the “AAAA” level, which has the largest enrollment schools, the district 12 champ will enter the state playoffs at the quarter-final stage. They will play the winner of the District 2/4/11 (Northeast PA) sub-regional playoff. If they can get past that game, they will meet the District 1 champ (Southeastern PA, excluding Philly). The winner of this game will move on to the state championship, where they will face the western PA bracket champ. Clean and simple, huh?

AAA
The “AAA” classification is similar to the “AAAA” bracket, with just a few exceptions. Like the “AAAA” champ, the district 12 “AAA” champ will enter the state playoffs at the quarter-final round. This district champ will face the District 1 champ in the quarter-finals, and the winner of that game will play the winner of the District 2/4/6/11 sub-regional playoff in the state semi-finals. This game will decide who represents the east in the state championship game. Note: As mentioned above, district 4 and district 6 (central PA) moved from the western bracket to the east.

AA
The District 12 “AA” champion will have a longer road to get to the state championship game. Whereas the District 12 “AAA” and “AAAA” champs enter the state playoffs at the quarter-final round, the “AA” champ will need to win 2 state playoff games just to get to the quarter-finals. First of all, the District 12 “AA” champ will compete in a preliminary sub-regional playoff with District 1. The winner of this playoff will then have to beat the district 11 champ in a second preliminary game. The quarter-final round will the winner of this preliminary game against the District 2 champ. This only gets the team as far as the state semi-finals, which would be against the winner of a game between districts 3 and 4. If you’re counting, that’s 4 games just to get to the state championship game. Then, the team would need to play the western PA champ for the state title. Counting league playoffs and the city championship game, a city team would need to win 8 playoff games to be the state champion. That’s a lot of post season football.

A
Since the “A” classification in district 12 only includes pub teams, the pub “A” champ will represent the city in the state playoffs. Their road to state glory is just as grueling as that of the “AA” champ. In the first round, the district 12 team will participate in a preliminary sub-regional playoff contest with district 1. If they can get past that game, they will then play the district 11 champ. This would only get the district 12 team as far as the state quarter-final game, where they’d have to play the winner of the district 2 vs. district 4 playoff game. And, if a team can manage to get this far, they’d then face the winner of a game between districts 3 and 6. Only at this point would the district 12 team qualify for the state title game. But, because there would not be a city title game at the “A” level, this team would only need to win 7 playoff games to become state champ.

To sum all of this up, the “A” and “AA” will need to run a gauntlet of state teams to win a state title in PA, whereas the “AAA” and “AAAA” district 12 champ would only need to win a few. But, don’t judge a team by the number of playoff games, as the road to a state title will be a formidable one for any city team.

The PCL Can't Seem to Get it Right

The landscape of Philadelphia high school sports will change in the 2008-09 school year. Not only will the Philadelphia Catholic League (PCL) be a full member of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), but each of the two major leagues, the PCL and the Philly Public League, will re-align to fit into the new paradigm of District XII. Part of the re-alignment will include the reinstitution of the city title series. But, unlike 27 years ago, the PCL will allow the girls’ teams to participate. The ironic part is that it was the Archdiocese’s decision to not allow the girls teams to compete for the city championship that ultimately ended the city title games.

This all sounds great, but there’s always a “but.” The “but” here is that the public league seems to have surpassed the PCL league in intelligence by putting together a league alignment and playoff system that more closely resembles the PIAA. I definitely had misgivings about the PCL joining the PIAA. You see, I’m a traditionalist, and I didn’t want anything to change the way the PCL has done business for the past 80+ years. What I mean is that a league should have one champion and one champion only per sport. But, the PCL changed all of that in 1999 when they instituted the Red and Blue divisions in football. In this alignment, each division played separate regular seasons, held their own playoffs and crowned two champions. The divisions were set by splitting the schools by size, with the largest 8 schools playing in the Red division and the smallest 8 schools playing in the Blue. I was very skeptical of this when it started, but after 8 seasons of Red/Blue, I actually think it helps some schools, and I actually came to like what I saw. West Catholic and Archbishop Wood are good examples of schools that were helped by this alignment. Neither team competed very well when we were one big happy football family. But, since the Red/Blue, they have come back with a vengeance. I say “come back” because both schools have a long and proud football tradition, but the numbers game has hurt both schools over the past 15-20 years, and each became just another school with a team.

So, you might be wondering why I alluded to the Pub surpassing the PCL. Well, one only has to look at the mess the PCL has made of the league alignment this year and into next year. You see, I’m an “in for a penny, in for a pound” type guy. If you’re going to join the PIAA, then align your leagues to resemble the PIAA classification structure. Yes, the PCL tried to make adjustments based on school size, but they have failed in their attempt to embrace the whole theory of classifications in high school sports. I’ll give you a few examples.

In 2008, the PCL will get it right with football. Each team will compete in a division with other teams in their “PIAA defined” classifications. Each division will hold their own and separate playoffs and they will crown a champ at the AA, AAA and AAAA classifications. The PCL champs will play the Pub champs at the same level for the District (city title) championship, with the winner moving on to the state playoffs. Even the Pub, who has held a single playoff the past 4 seasons, is expected, as a very good source informed me, hold a separate playoffs for each classification, which is more in line with the PIAA classifications. But, after football, it all goes down hill for the PCL. The geniuses who make the tough decisions for the leagues seemed to come up with a way to screw up almost every sport.

In soccer, they split the divisions into classifications the best way they could. Of the 17 PCL teams, 8 are AAA (largest soccer class), 8 are AA and 1 team is A. I don’t have a problem with all 9 sub-AAA teams participating in one division. My problem comes in, as it does in most PCL sports, with the playoff structure. In the AAA division, 6 teams will qualify for their single playoff system. The AA will send 2 teams to the playoffs. The AAA playoffs will be 1 v 6, 2 v 5 and 3 v 4. The AA division will have the top 2 teams playing each other. After the first round, the four remaining teams will be re-seeded and the semi-finals will continue from that point. Just for the heck of it, let’s say a AA team, like Wood, advances and wins the PCL championship. Will the AAA city title game be cheapened because the highest remaining AAA team didn’t win their own league playoffs? I’m sure Wood would then play in the AA district title game, which would look pretty stupid. It’s not a far fetched idea either, as Wood won the PCL in soccer as recently as 2004. And, they played and lost in the championship game in 2005.

Now, we move to basketball. I’m not even going to attempt to explain the points system that they will be using next year, but needless to say, the PCL basketball geniuses have devised a way to allow for a team who loses in the playoffs to bump a team that made it to the finals, for no other reason than they had a better regular season. How stupid is that? You always hear things like “that’s why you have to play the games.” But now you don’t have to play them. If the PCL were in the PIAA the past 8 seasons and the same people who decided the basketball playoffs would have does so in football, they would have made Prep the District 12 representative based on their undefeated seasons each of the past 8 seasons. Forget the fact that they lost 4 of those 8 championships. Have I mentioned that I thought this method for picking state playoffs teams was stupid? Just checking.

Finally, we get to baseball. Yes, the league once again is splitting the teams into separate divisions. In baseball this season, the league is split into 2 divisions, even though there are 8 AAAA teams, 6 AAA teams and 3 AA teams. But, the playoffs will be equally divided between the two divisions, with each division sending 4 teams to the post season. The only problem I see with that is that of the 8 playoff teams from 2007, 7 of those teams came from teams that will be competing in the AAAA division. In my opinion, at least 3 or 4 better teams will sit out the playoffs. Why, you ask? Well, I don’t know, but I’m sure it has something to do with the way our society insists on awarding mediocrity. If you earn a playoff spot in a weak division, you should be rewarded for your efforts. Forget the fact that some of the better teams in the league, who may have lost a couple of heart breaking games in a tougher division, will miss the playoffs. Something stinks here, but I just can’t put my finger what that stench is.

So, in the end, the Public League has fully embraced the PIAA classifications, while the PCL is still stumbling along trying to find their way. Seems like only a year or two ago that the PCL had its act together and the Pub was the knucklehead on the block. Times sure have changed in the City of Brotherly Love.