Does playoff system need some tweaks?
COMMENTARY HIGH SCHOOLS
Put three high school sports fans in a room and ask them their thoughts on North Carolina's "new" classification and playoff systems, and you're likely to get at least four or five different opinions.
Maybe you'll hear about how there are too many classifications. Or about how the number of split conferences creates more of the kind of mismatches the new eight-class system was intended to alleviate. Or you might hear about how charter and private schools have an advantage in the new system or how there should be more opportunities to appeal classifications based on past performance.
This year's football playoffs have brought to light a couple of playoff-specific issues in the Hickory area, illustrating that the playoff system isn't exactly broken but could use a few tweaks.
What have you done for me lately?
Draughn football is in the playoffs despite being 0-10. No disrespect to Draughn. A squad composed largely of freshmen and sophomores showed up, took their lumps and persevered through a tough season. They didn't give up, and they should be commended for it.
However, I'm not sure a playoff berth for a team that scored 32 points all year is the best way to commend them.
What does the regular season mean when you can lose every single game and still make the postseason?
At least the first-round bye means they will be facing a No. 10 seed on Friday instead of staring down a No. 2. However, the first-round bye system may have a problem of its own.
Too much time off?
Hickory football barely missed out on a first-round bye in the 5A playoffs this fall, and it might be a good thing.
Hickory is in a nine-team conference, which means those teams had rolling bye weeks throughout the season. Hickory's came in week 10. That means if the Red Tornadoes had earned the first-round bye, Hickory would have only played two games in four weeks.
Can that kind of on-again-off-again schedule negatively impact a team's momentum? Everybody has different opinions, but college football statistics strongly suggest the answer is yes.
Hickory doesn't have to worry about it this year, but East Lincoln does. The Mustangs were off last Friday for Week 11. East Lincoln also earned a first-round bye, which means they will have 20 days off between their final regular-season game and their first playoff game. That's a lot of days.
Same game, new time
Maiden won their Week 11 matchup with Newton-Conover last week to earn home-field advantage this week in their first-round playoff game against ...
Checks notes. Newton-Conover. It's not the end of the world to play a team twice. That dynamic made for one of the most memorable games in recent memory in 2024, when Maiden avenged its regular-season loss to Lincolnton in dramatic fashion in round one.
Playing an opponent back-to-back is a little strange.
The biggest problem comes, specifically in football, with the lack of nonconference opponents. The Western Foothills Athletic Conference is a nine-team conference. That means, in football, everybody gets just two nonconference games.
We already know how good each of the WFAC teams are compared to one another. What we don't know, though, is how good they are compared to everyone else.
I have a hunch the WFAC is a strong conference and many of the local teams are much better than their RPIs suggest. But we won't know if they don't get to play teams from outside the conference.
On one hand, the answer is simple. If you want to prove you're better than your RPI, all you have to do is win your first-round matchup and advance to a nonconference game in round two. But it would be nice to see teams play new competition in the postseason, and it wouldn't take much to make that happen. If we just flipped the 18 and 19 seeds, we'd have two nonconference matchups without breaking down the whole structure of the brackets.
Again, North Carolina's playoff system is far from broken. But like anything else, a few tweaks to the first draft are probably in order.
Jason Koon is the sports editor for the hickory record and can be reached at jason.koon@lee.net.
