I think those disparities existed previously and it did not stop the enrollment based system from working. Ideally The CIF would encourage to use the same numbers but they do not have the power to do so. The lack of central power by the CIF creates a lot of problems. It’s Typical for California to be dysfunctional and mismanaged so this is no different
Competitive Equity is a terrible system for several reasons:
- punishes success and rewards mediocrity. This conflicts with the lessons coaches are trying to teach
- makes the lower divisions meaningless and have no historical significance. Nobody cares who wins the NIT, CBIT or weedeater Bowl. Note attendance is way down as a result
- unfair to small schools who are moved up
- it is leading to the strong teams getting stronger and the weak teams getting weaker. Transfers are moving from weak schools to strong schools because they don’t want to play in weak divisions
The old enrollment based system was better than the current one. With that system all the state championship games had great teams with great players and were meaningful games that fans wanted to attend. That is no longer the case at all,
The best system is what the CCS does, which is to pull the power teams up to an Open and everyone else compete in their enrollment division. This system has been in place for 9 years and has worked great and been appreciated by all schools and coaches. They solved the early round blowout problem by using staggered brackets. A much better solution than competitive equity which causes all the problems discussed in your article.
It would be easy to use the “CCS Model” in other sections and for the state playoffs.
I definitely like the staggered brackets. But different sections have different enrollment cutoffs. How do you manage a system based on school size when a school that's small by Southern Section standards is enormous by Northern Section standards?
I think those disparities existed previously and it did not stop the enrollment based system from working. Ideally The CIF would encourage to use the same numbers but they do not have the power to do so. The lack of central power by the CIF creates a lot of problems. It’s Typical for California to be dysfunctional and mismanaged so this is no different
Competitive Equity is a terrible system for several reasons:
- punishes success and rewards mediocrity. This conflicts with the lessons coaches are trying to teach
- makes the lower divisions meaningless and have no historical significance. Nobody cares who wins the NIT, CBIT or weedeater Bowl. Note attendance is way down as a result
- unfair to small schools who are moved up
- it is leading to the strong teams getting stronger and the weak teams getting weaker. Transfers are moving from weak schools to strong schools because they don’t want to play in weak divisions
The old enrollment based system was better than the current one. With that system all the state championship games had great teams with great players and were meaningful games that fans wanted to attend. That is no longer the case at all,
The best system is what the CCS does, which is to pull the power teams up to an Open and everyone else compete in their enrollment division. This system has been in place for 9 years and has worked great and been appreciated by all schools and coaches. They solved the early round blowout problem by using staggered brackets. A much better solution than competitive equity which causes all the problems discussed in your article.
It would be easy to use the “CCS Model” in other sections and for the state playoffs.
I definitely like the staggered brackets. But different sections have different enrollment cutoffs. How do you manage a system based on school size when a school that's small by Southern Section standards is enormous by Northern Section standards?