GHSA reclass committee talks power rankings, hears new ideas

The committee members' straw poll Monday found that 10 of the 18 preferred using power rankings to seed region champions first, then the remaining teams regardless of their region finish.

A couple of members wanted all 32 playoff teams seeded with power rankings regardless of region finish. Two more wanted all teams seeded with power rankings, but with four guaranteed playoff berths for each region.

Norcross boys basketball coach Jesse McMillan, not a committee member, spoke at the meeting and reported that he had informally polled the Georgia Basketball Coaches Association membership and found a majority of boys and girls coaches support seeding state playoff teams 1-32 based on power rankings.

McMillan noted that basketball is the only GHSA sport that uses a region tournaments to seed the playoffs. Using power rankings to seed the state tournament would allow a highly ranked team that suffers a region-tournament upset to maintain a relatively high state seeding.

Also getting more scrutiny Monday were the two most discussed reclass proposals — competitive balance and a new four-class system.

The competitive balance model, endorsed by the GHSA office, would move schools up and down in class based on sports performance instead of enrollment.

Athens Academy athletic director Kevin Petroski, who supports the model, asked if competitive balance could allow for sports programs to move up and down in class, independent of their schools.

The proposed model doesn’t allow for that out of concerns that it might disrupt boys and girls teams in sports that traditionally schedule games together. Petroski pointed out that only three sports — basketball, soccer and tennis — do that.

Some who do not support competitive balance said that the model’s main objective, to make for more closely contested games and matches, had been addressed in the current cycle by going to one fewer class and by using an enrollment multiplier to account for private and other schools’ out-of-zone students.

Monroe Area athletic director Eli Connell gave more information about his idea to have four classifications instead of the current seven while still allowing eight or more champions.

What Connell called his Big 90 plan would have about 90 schools in multiple classes for the regular season and then upper and lower divisions of about 45 teams from those classes that would play for state titles.

His Big 60 plan is similar but would place the 60 largest school in one undivided highest class. Both plans would leave Class A, or schools with 400 or fewer students, as an undivided classification without private schools.

Connell believes bigger regions would reduce travel and lead to more rivalries as schools nearer each other would more likely be placed in the same class.

Athletic directors Roger Holmes of Dublin and Cory Dickerson of Hart County and baseball/softball coach Chad Brown of Pepperell talked briefly to espouse new ideas.

Holmes offered a new way of classifying private schools, or any that have selective admission policies. It would place them based largely on the average size of schools in their county.

Dickerson proposed that the GHSA not let private schools below Class 3A affect the seeding of public schools when they share regions. Stephens County and Hart County, the two best public-school football teams in Region 8-2A last season, were seeded third and fourth in the Class 2A playoffs because they finished behind Prince Avenue Christian and Hebron Christian, the Class 3A-A private state finalists.

Brown submitted a plan that seemed to merge the ideas of competitive balance with Connell’s four-class model. Brown wants five classes, one a Super 48 for the largest schools, the other four with upper and lower divisions that play together in the regular season and split for the playoffs.

Brown’s plan would promote lower-division sports teams that finish top-four in state events and replace them with the four lowest-rated sports teams from the higher division.

Holmes, Dickerson and Brown were among 32 athletic directors or coaches who attended the meeting to give feedback, ask questions or learn more.

“I was very pleased to see more people from our membership speak,” Miller said. “No matter what you’re for, just come and share your thoughts. We need to hear from everybody. At some point we’ve got to make hard decisions, but we’ve got until October.”

The next reclassification meeting will be April 13, a day ahead of the next executive-committee meeting. Miller said he does not expect that the reclass committee will have anything for the executive committee to vote on in April.