Proposed FHSAA playoff adjustments give coaches mixed feelings

Florida High School Athletic Association sports might look different in 2019-2020, by getting rid of a system that has been in place since 1931.

At the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association athletics director conference and the FHSAA compliance seminar in Orlando on May 6, the FHSAA pitched an idea to move away from the “class” system currently in place, and move to a system of six “divisions.” While the finer details of the switch are still malleable, the overall impact would be this: having teams compete in the playoffs against teams of similar ranking, as determined by FHSAA partner MaxPreps, instead of by enrollment size. This would affect football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball, if passed.

The switch will not be voted on by the FHSAA board until the middle of the 2018-2019 school year, according to Sarasota County Schools athletic director James Slaton. While nothing is 100% certain, Slaton said he thinks the proposal will pass. It already has coaches talking, and ones in this area have mixed feelings on the potential changes.

Riverview High volleyball coach Nickie Halbert joked that she is “Switzerland” on the issue, but she does have questions, specifically about how scheduling would work under the new system. She’s all about playing the best teams she can to prepare for the playoffs, she said, regardless of classification. She doesn’t need a system to do that for her, she said.

On the same point, Slaton added that one of the system’s hang-ups is making sure teams at the top can have a schedule that won’t break the budget. If a top football team in Orlando, for example, can only find willing opponents in Miami, where a lot of the state’s talent lies, that isn’t going to work financially.

Halbert also found one of the driving forces behind the proposal, the supposed lack of competitive championship games in recent seasons, to be untrue in her personal experience.

“I’ve never had a ‘cake walk’ to a championship, as a player (at Venice High) or as a coach,” Halbert said. “If you’re in the playoffs, you’re going to play good teams at some point.”

Case-in-point: Booker High boys basketball. The Tornadoes played Leesburg High in the state semifinals on March 7. Leesburg, the defending state champion, had won 45 of its last 46 games, and its lone loss came to a team outside the FHSAA system (West Oaks Academy). Booker entered the game as objective underdogs, but led Leesburg for most of the game, and in the end lost by a single point, 62-61. This matchup would not have occurred in the proposed system, as Leesburg would be in a higher division even though the Tornadoes proved they could hang.

“You know my guys, we’ll line up and compete against anybody,” Black said. “These bigger schools that end up getting certain players, that other schools don’t have access to, are still going to be at the top of this thing every year, if that’s the way the state is trying to do it.”

Black added that even mid-tier schools currently in classes 9A and 8A have access to bigger (and more) kids, which will still create mismatches if they are placed in the same division as a 6A school like Booker. Black was also concerned that the system could force programs to do away with local rivalries, such as the game the Tornadoes play against Riverview each year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which means more to the community than a win or a loss.

Riverview boys basketball coach BJ Ivey has questions about the rankings themselves. As proposed, the rankings would be done solely by MaxPreps computers. Those rankings are based on the number of wins a team collects as well as the teams’ strength of schedule. Every two years, the divisions would update to promote worthy teams and relegate others.

“There’s a lot to be said for a team’s injury situation, or a team clicking at the end of the year,” Ivey said. “For us, eight of our players this season were freshmen and sophomores. We’re going to be a very different team next year.”

The proposed system wouldn’t treat the Rams like a top-tier team, even though they may be with their talent level. “Clicking late” is also how the 2017 Sarasota High baseball team found its way to the state semifinals despite going 16-10 in the regular season.

There’s also the issue of tanking. All interviewees said they didn’t know of any coaches who would consider losing on purpose to drop to a division where they could have more success, but Halbert and Slaton said it’s conceivable to do in this system if a coached wanted to.

Halbert also said it was odd to think about crowning lower-division teams as “state champions” when, by the proposed system’s own rankings, there would be hundreds of programs in the upper divisions that are “better” than those schools. Slaton said it would feel like giving out participation trophies at first, though it would become commonplace over time.

If the changes lead to more competitive games overall, it would be considered a win. Whether that win would outweigh all the concerns coaches and administrators have about the system is still to be determined.

“They have to have some pretty in-depth conversations about this,” Halbert said. “They’re talking about changing something that has been in place since the ‘30s. I know that whatever they decide will be the best for high school sports in Florida. We’ll have to wait and see.”