The playoffs, the pavement of the road to the state championship, an exciting sequence of events with upsets, blowouts, and all in between. With a new system in place, this road can get bumpier for some teams, and easier for others.
This new system is run by Maxpreps, America’s source for high school sports, with eight teams making the playoffs, just like years before. Now, they seed teams based on three statistics, win margin and the Rating Percent Index (RPI), which is a combination of two statistics, record and schedule difficulty.
Strength of schedule is an important statistic to have so that teams that play more difficult teams gain more traction in the playoff rankings. Schools become more competitive and seen as more difficult through wins and who they beat, through the RPI system. According to Utah High School Activities Association and Maxpreps, a team’s ranking falls further by losing to a team that is ranked below them than a team ranks above them.
RPI factors a team’s record, their opponents’ record, and their opponents’ opponents’ record, meaning that it finds how competitive teams are without factoring scoring or score margins. Maxpreps’ playoffs system seems to only apply to WS’s region, Region C, whereas Region D, with schools like Washington-Liberty high school and James Madison high school, are set up differently. Each region has two districts, like Region C, which has WS’s district, the Patriot district, and the National district, with Lewis high school, Hayfield high school, Edison high school, and others.
Region D’s seeding system seeds the top four in the Concord district and the top four in the Liberty district accordingly. The number one team from Concord would play the number four squad from Liberty, just as the number one squad from Liberty would play the fourth team in Concord, according to The All Hitches Podcast, a podcast about northern Virginia high school football.
Region C and the Spartans’ former system was heavily reliant on record, while still factoring in scoring and opponents record.
“Record is one of the most important stats,” said varsity football head coach Anthony Parker. “Teams that beat everyone they play should be placed higher than teams that have a worse record, even if they lost to these challenging teams.”
The Spartans’ aspirations for the first seed in the playoff were high after Lake Braddock secondary school’s week nine loss to South County secondary school, opening the race for the first spot.
“It’s a blessing to see our hard work start to pay off,” said senior Spartan quarterback Scott Lewis. “[It’s] surreal to be the second [Spartans] squad to win districts since 2008.”
With the playoffs in full swing, the Spartans are looking to conquer the region, after beating West Potomac in the first round.
