Voted on yesterday and all playoff seedings will be by RPI! Winning your conference will not give you an automatic bid anymore!
RPI
- Thread starter buzzcoach
- Start date
I will probably get some pushback, but buzz you saying winning conference should not be rewarded by a playoff birth. Win and you are in , then let RPI put you where you should be.
Am I missing something here. Conference C-ship means nothing.
So if you are in a weak conference it will hurt you! Not sure why they don't do away with conferences!
Buzz is correct. It is all done via RPI with RPI now being 40-40-20 percentages. I haven't seen it on NCHSAA website yet, but the Citizen Times listed it with other changes in an article.
EDIT to add: Not sure if they will call it RPI as some articles call it "adjusted MaxPreps" rating. "playoff qualifiers will be determined by a modified MaxPreps rating. The new formula will be based on a 40-40-20 scale (winning percentage, opponents’ winning percentage and opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage)"
Its better than it was. Before that part counted 30 percent-the same as your own winning percentage.
With this set up you are correct @buzzcoach....Do away with conferences and allow teams to make the schedule in order to have good RPI. Some teams will be handcuffed by their conference teams. The other question is what happens when 4A team is having to play up a division or two but that team is .500 team in 5A/6A but it would be better that they played an 8-2 2A team that they problem win against.
Basically ur taking in consideration of ur opponents opponents records. Which I think gets complicated. Your trying to schedule a strong schedule but then u gotta worry about ur opponents schedule now. If a team u don't play has a bad year or gets the injury big it effects your RPI standings even though u have nothing to do with that team. Just because they played a team u played
I don't understand why the NCHSAA makes conferences. I think districts should decide on their own. Let them make their own choices on distance and schools they play or don't play.
I'm sure the multitude of split conferences brought about this decision. Probably should have gotten rid of conferences all together and followed the SC model.
I don't disagree that the conference model does seem broken, but do also consider that some schools have a hard time finding opponents to play them at different times. I've always appreciated when Franklin was in a bigger conference because there were years where we would apparently have to add single away games just to fill out the schedule.
They can do away with the 20%, that suks ! !
The RPI formula, which will be run through MaxPreps, will included a 40% weight on a team's winning percentage, a 40% weight on their opponents' winning percentage, and a 20% weight on the winning percentage of their opponents' opponents.
Me and @SWE'98 been discussing this some yesterday. This seems so stupid to not be rewarding a conf champion with higher seeding. Is this final or is there a slim chance common sense can prevail??
The issue is you have multiple split conferences some with only 1 or 2 teams in a classification. Take McDowell for example, they are the only 7a school in their conference. If you go 10-0 and win your conference you are going to be seeded high.
It was voted on by the board so it should be final. Here is an overview of changes expected this coming year.
https://www.nchsaa.org/2025-spring-board-of-directors-meeting/
Here would have been the difference in 1A west if we did not care about conferences. I can't do the different RPI ranking due to NCHSAA not posting the values only final RPI.
| School | RPI | 2025 Seed | Change |
| Mount Airy High School | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Mountain Heritage High School | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Murphy High School | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Eastern Randolph High School | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Starmount High School | 5 | 9 | 4 |
| Corvian Community School | 6 | 5 | -1 |
| East Wilkes High School | 7 | 10 | 3 |
| Robbinsville High School | 8 | 11 | 3 |
| Mitchell High School | 9 | 12 | 3 |
| Cherokee High School | 10 | 13 | 3 |
| Bessemer City High School | 11 | 6 | -5 |
| Alleghany High School | 12 | 14 | 2 |
| North Rowan High School | 13 | 7 | -6 |
| Union Academy | 14 | 15 | 1 |
| South Stanly High School | 15 | 8 | -7 |
| Mountain Island Charter School | 16 | 16 | 0 |
| Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School | 17 | 17 | 0 |
| Hayesville High School | 18 | 18 | 0 |
| Christ the King Catholic High School | 19 | 19 | 0 |
| Carver High School | 20 | 20 | 0 |
| Jimmy C. Draughn High School | 21 | 21 | 0 |
| Thomasville High School | 22 | 22 | 0 |
| Albemarle High School | 23 | 23 | 0 |
| Andrews High School | 24 | 24 | 0 |
| Avery County High School | 25 | 25 | 0 |
| Cherryville High School | 26 | 26 | 0 |
| South Stokes High School | 27 | 27 | 0 |
| Elkin High School | 28 | 28 | 0 |
| Swain County High School | 29 | 29 | 0 |
| Highland School of Technology | 30 | 30 | 0 |
| North Stokes High School | 31 | 31 | 0 |
| Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy | 32 | 32 | 0 |
| Winston-Salem Preparatory Academy | 33 | ||
| Polk County High School | 34 | ||
| South Davidson | 35 | ||
| Rosman High School | 36 |
That's really good information footballstar_17. So this change will probably be majorly against a few but not kick anybody out of the playoffs. Some conference winners will have to go on the road though.
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Will letting teams pick their games create exciting matchups or widen the gap between strong and weak programs?
