On Friday, the South Dakota High School Activities Association board of directors held a special meeting to discuss and vote on a few modifications to the football playoffs format for 2020.
It’s no secret that COVID-19 has forced consistent schedule changes all fall for all sports and activities in South Dakota, and it’s quite possible for this to carry over into the postseason.
One positive that the regular season has allowed for is the opportunity for schools to reschedule contests. Come playoff time, which starts next week for all three nine-man classes and Class 11B, teams won’t have the option of rescheduling a contest.
It’s unfortunate, but if a team is unable to play a game due to COVID related protocols, that team would be forced to forfeit and as a result be eliminated from postseason contention. This leads into Friday’s meeting…
Starting first with Class 11AAA specifically, with a nine-game regular season and ten teams in the class, seed points aren’t used to determine power rankings. Instead, the format for South Dakota’s top class is round-robin, which allows for win percentage and a head-to-head tie breaker for deciding the standings.
Because some 11AAA teams have had to cancel games this season, and therefore some teams will play more games than others, win percentage may not be the most accurate way of deciding the school seedings come playoff time.
“Not just simply relying on win percentage only or power points only, because of problems we’ve run into in the past,” explained SDHSAA assistant executive director Dr. John Krogstrand.
Basically, a lower seeded school could move up the rankings, if they could have had a matching or better record than another school. Win percentage will still be the main criteria, but this motion, which was passed unanimously by the SDHSAA board, would allow for a more accurate reflection of the team standings.
Here's an example that The Argus Leader used to help explain it.
"Using the current seedings as an example: Entering Friday night, No. 4 O'Gorman (4-3) has played one more game than No. 5 Lincoln (3-3). Had the Patriots played their Week 5 game against Aberdeen Central, they COULD have moved ahead of the Knights via head-to-head tiebreaker. Therefore, Lincoln would be awarded the No. 4-seed and O'Gorman the 5."
Additionally, on Friday, the SDHSAA board unanimously approved a motion to allow alternate teams to step into postseason play – if necessary.
If a team is unable to play a post-season game, because of COVID, the first team out of the playoff qualifier would take that teams spot. In Class 11B and all three nine-man classes, the 17th seeded team would be put on standby and in Class 11AAA, 11AA, and 11A, the 9th seeded team would be the standby team.
"It might mean that a team that was suppose to be on the road and is now at home, but it's what we thought was the best option," said Krogstrand. "The idea is this is a minimal change. Having that bye week in round one of the playoffs is a huge advantage, so this would eliminate that from happening."
In the event of a standby team having to play, regardless of what seed they’d be substituting for, they’d be the road team.
Playoff football will begin on October 22nd for 9-man and 11B and on October 29th for the remaining three classes of eleven-man.