What if there was a high school football playoff with area teams

The first college football playoff rankings came out just the other day and it got me to wondering what a high school playoff would look like involving just the area teams. Could I narrow it down to just four, would I have to go to eight teams or even 16? Tag along for the ride and see for yourself.

The biggest thing to overcome when choosing teams and seeding them is bias. “This team has to be better because they play in so and so league” or “this team is better because they are every year” or “that team can’t be any good because they don’t play anyone”…blah blah blah Sometimes it works out that way and sometimes it doesn’t. I will present to you the teams without names at first & see if you can decide who should get in and who shouldn’t.

First up, the four team playoff. This was really hard to do especially this year because there are 6 unbeaten teams as of the moment. All six are league champs so we had to find another way to determine not only who gets in but how they are seeded. Of course, strength of schedule is a given as a tiebreaker and the other will be the number of wins against teams that are 500 or better on your schedule. You can’t go undefeated and beat up on a bunch of cupcakes and expect to get in our playoff.

Here are the 6 unbeaten teams. Remember no names (at least not right now)

	SOS	W PCT	# of 500 teams	Wins vs 500
Team A	43-57	430	5	5
Team B	58-41	586	6	6
Team C	60-53	531	7	7
Team D	39-50	438	3	3
Team E	54-37	593	7	7
Team F	42-47-1	472	5	5

Based on that, Teams C, E & B would be comfortably in. Those 3 have played much tougher schedules than the other 3 and have more quality wins. 4^th team is a much closer but we will go with team F. If you don’t have any names attached to the teams, there isn’t as much bias involved. So teams A & D get left out even if they were unbeaten on the year (I see you UCF but that’s a discussion for another day)

Let’s move on to the 8 team playoff. You know there are 6 unbeaten teams and those would all get in (theoretically). Add four 1-loss teams to the mix and two of them will be eliminated.

Here are the 4 1-loss teams. Two of them were league champs & the other two were second.

Team G	43-54	443	5	4
Team H	46-54	460	5	4
Team I	42-58	420	5	5
Team J	56-58	491	5	4

All of these are pretty similar. Going strictly by the numbers, let’s go with teams J & H to make our 8 team playoff. Team I has one more quality win but their SOS is considerably weaker.

So did you figure out which teams would get in and which ones get left out?

Here is the 4 team playoff.

Team E	MUS (9-0)	54-37	593	7	7
Team B	Germantown (10-0)	58-41	586	6	6
Team C	Horn Lake (10-0)	60-53	531	7	7
Team F	West Memphis (9-0)	42-47-1	472	5	5

MUS vs West Memphis, Germantown vs Horn Lake. Covington & Lausanne are on the outside looking in.

Here is the 8 team playoff

Team E	MUS (9-0)	54-37	593	7	7
Team B	Germantown (10-0)	58-41	586	6	6
Team C	Horn Lake (10-0)	60-53	531	7	7
Team F	West Memphis (9-0)	42-47-1	472	5	5
Team J	Olive Branch (9-1)	56-58	491	5	4
Team H	Houston (9-1)	46-54	460	5	4
Team A	Covington (10-0)	43-57	430	5	5
Team D	Lausanne (9-0)	39-50	438	3	3

West Memphis gets the nod at 4 with more quality wins even though Olive Branch has a slightly better winning percentage. Covington gets the nod at 7. Lausanne has a slightly higher winning percentage but the Chargers have more quality opponents & quality wins on their schedule.  Covington had 1 more quality win than Olive Branch & Houston but their SOS was worse. If all things are equal or close to it, we chose having more quality wins to break the tie. The matchups would be:

MUS-Lausanne, West Memphis-Olive Branch, Germantown-Covington, Horn Lake-Houston  

Now let’s move on to the 16 team playoff. This one is a little different. For starters, we are going to take every local team that won their league title whether it’s TN, MS or ARK. So that’s 12 teams already accounted for.  They are:

	SOS	W PCT	# of 500 teams	Wins vs 500
Team A	43-57	430	5	5
Team B	58-41	586	6	6
Team C	60-53	531	7	7
Team D	39-50	438	3	3
Team E	54-37	593	7	7
Team F	42-47-1	472	5	5
Team H	46-54	460	5	4
Team I	42-58	420	5	5
Team K	37-60	381	4	2
Team L	47-53	470	5	3
Team M	42-57	424	5	2
Team N	50-49	505	6	0

Let’s add in next all of the teams that finished second in their leagues that had 3 losses or less.

	SOS	W PCT	# of 500 teams	Wins vs 500
Team G	43-54	443	5	4
Team J	56-58	491	5	4
Team O	51-47	520	6	4
Team P	49-49	500	6	5
Team Q	54-46	540	7	4
Team R	42-58	420	5	2
Team S	44-56	440	3	0
Team T	64-32	667	8	5

There are only 4 spots available. Based on this, Teams T, Q, O, P standout the most to me. Played tougher schedules, more wins vs better teams.

16 team bracket. 12 league champs and 4 at large

		SOS	W PCT	# of 500 teams	Wins vs 500
Team E	MUS (9-0)	54-37	593	7	7
Team B	Germantown (10-0)	58-41	586	6	6
Team C	Horn Lake (10-0)	60-53	531	7	7
Team T	Whitehaven (7-3)	64-32	667	8	5
Team Q	Cordova (7-3)	54-46	540	7	4
Team P	ECS (8-2)	49-49	500	6	5
Team O	CBHS (8-2)	51-47	520	6	4
Team F	West Memphis (9-0)	42-47-1	472	5	5
Team H	Houston (9-1)	46-54	460	5	4
Team A	Covington (10-0)	43-57	430	5	5
Team I	Kirby (9-1)	42-58	420	5	5
Team L	Freedom Prep (7-3)	47-53	470	5	3
Team D	Lausanne (9-0)	39-50	438	3	3
Team M	Wooddale (7-3)	42-57	424	5	2
Team K	Fairley (8-2)	37-60	381	4	2
Team N	Millington (4-6)	50-49	505	6	0

League champs and unbeaten teams are seeded below teams that have played a stronger schedule & have more quality wins.  

Your matchups:

MUS-Millington, West Memphis-Houston, Whitehaven-Lausanne, Cordova-Freedom Prep  

Germantown-Fairley, CBHS-Covington, Horn Lake-Wooddale, ECS-Kirby 

Olive Branch got into our 8 team playoff because they only had 1 loss. They don’t get into the 16 team playoff because there were 12 automatic qualifiers. The 4 wild cards taken ahead of them all had stronger schedules & more quality wins than they did. Fayette Academy has only 1 loss & have had a fantastic year but they couldn’t get into our playoffs at all. The other second place teams that were left out were Team R-Raleigh Egypt & Team S-West Memphis Christian.