FHSAA’s new playoff plan may not bring independents back in fold

Between Christmas and New Year’s, the high school football landscape among private schools quietly shifted.

The Sunshine State Athletic Conference (SSAC) announced a number of teams were leaving the FHSAA, and its traditional district structure, for the independent league. The group included Bradenton Christian and Out-of-Door Academy. With Saint Stephen’s already playing in the SSAC, three of the four private schools that serve a significant portion of Manatee County had decided to pass on a chance to play for an FHSAA state championship.

“At this school it’s about playing like-minded folks,” Panthers head coach Brett Gerber said. “You’ve got to be able to play some folks who are doing things the same way that you do.”

The three area schools are part of a larger trend. Seventy-three schools will play outside the FHSAA this year; 67 will play in conferences such as the SSAC.

These are primarily teams fed up with inequity. Different enrollment requirements allow some teams much greater flexibility in how their rosters are constructed. The talent disparity among teams across the state is acknowledged even by the FHSAA.

“Roster size does fluctuate, but also the disparity in talent among our smaller schools is pretty large,” FHSAA director of athletics Frank Beasley said. “That’s the general idea.”

Bradenton Christian and Out-of-Door escaped the FHSAA’s Class 2A-District 5, in which they were overmatched. Reigning district champion Tampa Cambridge Christian hasn’t posted a losing record since 2010 and ended the regular season as the Associated Press’ No. 1 team in Class 2A. Runner-up Tampa Carrollwood Day has won at least seven games in three of the past four seasons. Two of the other top-five teams at the end of the regular season are from the Tampa Bay area, too. Depending on enrollment fluctuation, Bradenton Christian, ODA or Saint Stephen’s could wind up in a district with them.

The FHSAA hopes it has a solution: Getting rid of districts altogether for Florida’s four smallest classifications. Seventy-six percent of coaches surveyed by the FHSAA from Classes 1A-4A wanted — the FHSAA hasn’t specified a breakdown, but 500 coaches and athletic directors were polled — some sort of change and the majority wanted to get rid of districts, giving teams the freedom to create a 10-game schedule with like-minded, comparable opponents. Region play wouldn’t be required. The 16 playoff spots in the state would go to the four teams from each region with the most points accrued through the strength-of-schedule scoring system.

“If you play a tough schedule you're going to be rewarded for it even if you lose,” Beasley said. “If you win, you're going to get in.”

The proposal, Beasley said, has been greeted positively by a large swath of coaches from independent programs. More than 30 independent programs have told the FHSAA they’d return to affiliated football with an overhauled system, according to a PowerPoint presentation shown to coaches.

The simple goal is to get as many of the 16 best teams into the postseason as possible, while still considering geographic constraints. The slide show used last year’s results in Class 3A as an example. Three 3A teams made the postseason with a sub-.500 record last year. If the proposed format had been in place, only one would have qualified, and that school, Jacksonville Providence, accrued enough points to earn a No. 3 seed rather than a No. 4.

The full playoff proposal is available at the FHSAA website.

For Gerber, this misses the point of why Bradenton Christian joined the SSAC. He doesn’t necessarily think his team has been playoff quality in past years only to be held out because of the strength of its district. Teams are simply playing by different sets of rules. Moving to the SSAC placed the Panthers in a league with similar academic requirements.

“That has nothing to do with whether we go back and step back into it,” Gerber said. “We’re going to play Out-of-Door every year. We’re going to try and play Saint Stephen’s, the school behind Smoothie King, every year because it’s good for both schools and both communities and at the end of the day I don’t care how good they are. There are going to be years we’re bad and they’re good, and you just take that and you keep that stuff alive.”

Because of the conferences, such as the SSAC, that have cropped up around the state, the proposal for the smaller classifications becomes murkier. The biggest concern to arise from coaches at these smaller schools is the requirement to go out and find 8-10 games on their own — eight is the required minimum to qualify for the postseason. The proposal would grant schools the ability to move up to Class 5A to avoid scheduling concerns, but also suggests schools create their own conferences or districts within their region. Automatic berths wouldn’t be guaranteed to winners of these do-it-yourself leagues, but it would create a natural alleviation to scheduling concerns.

It’s unclear presently where that leaves the SSAC, which plays an eight-game regular season and guarantees every team two postseason games against opponents from other districts. The top two teams meet in the Florida Bowl, which is technically classified as a bowl game. Beasley suggested the possibility that teams could play through the conference slate and then advance into the FHSAA’s postseason if they wind up with enough points to qualify.

“We need to make sure that we’re making decisions that are best for everybody and not just for one school or two,” said Falcons head coach Tod Creneti, who is one of the SSAC’s board members. “We know that there will be schools that are enticed by the new format and we would wish them well, and whether we’re one of those schools down the road I couldn’t tell you, but the SSAC feels like it’s doing a service and helping a lot of schools be in strong, competitive environments that weren’t otherwise.”

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 12:43 AM with the headline "FHSAA’s new playoff plan may not bring independents back in fold."