lazarus

big R&B, up until last year (multi-pliers) i believe that GP & DL were the only privates in AA. in addition to that, they played each other in an earlier round. it was only possible for one private to make the finals. at least that was the case after d-2 split off.

"Trousdale Co. does it year in and year out....Don't hear them crying about all of this. Maybe Coach Satterfield is a very good coach" oh yeah, i think coach satterfield is famous for his 'lets keep the privates in here' attitude.

"I'm saying the *non financial aid giving privates* aren't different enough from the publics to warrant a split...And I don't think that telling one group of kids that another group has advantages over them and therefore should be sent away so as to not have to deal with them is helping anybody." yet, somehow, your philosophy towards the financial aid privates seems to be identical to the public attitude toward privates that you criticize. the word for the day would be dichotomy.

an obligatory number for this thread, last year's playoff record for privates was 23-12 (2-year post-split total 43-20 with 2 games to go- 68% winning) now i would like to point out that numbers seem to be bringing stan & two bigs very near the same conclusions. 2% of the members accounting for 71% of championships in an all public class. the winning % there is probably better than any 2 privates in any class. it might only be a 7 year run in one sport, but still quite impressive. as stan & Big R&B both point out, maryville & hillsboro could not be readily differentiated from the other publics, except for their dominant football programs. Maryville/Hillsboro do differ from the typical private sthletic power in that football is their only real claim to fame. they have limited success in other sports. however, across the board athletic success is only the typical private school profile. CPA, for one, also has a football program that outshines their other athletics. across the board athletic success is not limited to the privates either. oak ridge, dobyns bennet, tullahoma, fulton, bearden, and quite a few other publics have strong all-around athletic programs.

i"...f they did I doubt Nashville Christian players and fans would demand that Antioch be removed from the schedule based on the advantages they may have because of a dramtically larger enrollment." an interesting choice for your example... ncs requested a transfer to D-2 next year, because they cannot compete where they are now.

greetings boiled coach. going with the 64% ratio for the year as a whole (playoffs 30 game sample vs around 200 games for the year) the odds of a 2-game private sweep should stand at about 41% the odds of a public sweep at about 13% as far as waiting 10 years to draw any conclusion on the multiplier we have some 400 games in the bank, with privates winning 2/3 of the time. 21 of 22 regular season weeks the privates won more than they lost. with the 40 years of dominance leading up to this point i am ready to draw a conclusion.... but the conclusion is not for a higher multiplier, even i dont think it is all about numbers. all privates are not the same. among that other 1/3 of the games are some people no one seems to care about. zion and ncs have been pushed to the point of begging for mercy (which the tssaa in its wisdom would not give). they arent the only privates that dont hang their hat on gold balls. sure we could work the system out so that things come out even as a whole we could even rearrange the playoffs so that odds would be that privates would win 16% of the d-1 titles. so we have to get the zions beaten bloody every week. so we drive the lighthouses clear out of the tssaa. so st andrews has to log enough miles to circumnavigate the globe to play a football schedule so father ryan has to get beaten up weekly in order to fulfill their mission (and goodpasture can fill a case with gold balls by abandoning theirs) what it is all about is what is best for all the kids. either a merit system or no classifications at all. whoops, there is that danged soapbox again.

derek, wouldnt the logical conclusion of your philosophy be for your school to play within the highest classification? because otherwise you are playing in a watered down division against artificailly weak competition. when you teach kids in the private schools to win by eliminating the competition, are you doing them a favor?

"Summary: 14% of the schools (privates) have won 73% of the playoff games vs. public schools 1A - 3A." stan, i dont have those counts at hand, but your numbers, if not correct, are close enough (for government work) however, i dont think there is any significance that the privates make up 14% of the total schools within this context. whether they constituted 5% or 50% of the total would only affect the probabilities of having private champions over the course of the playoffs, naturally, by winning the higher percentage of the games they made up a higher percentage of the teams remaining after each round the playoffs started with : single a 7/32 (22%) double a 5/32 (16%) triple a 3/32 (9%) total 15/96 (16%) either due to the concentration of the schools or the gerrymandering the tssaa is accused of, the initial numbers were fairly representative of the numbers within the classes.

"...should I have the right to complain about schools like G-town having over a 70,000 dollar baseball budget..." how many times do you bring it up before we can call it complaining?

"Is the 138-77 the real numbers for the season, or just the games you tracked? Didn't you get a late start?" i went back and picked up the early games. i would expect that there could be an error in there somewhere, but that is pretty much the real numbers. "Why do you think the privates are so dominant in the playoffs?" ummmm, they have better teams. "Would you say that this properly reflects this season to date: Privates won 64% of the regular season games, and Privates won 73% of the playoffs?" if you are asking about the disparity between the regular season and post season percentages, there are several reasons for it to vary. ..it is probably affected by sample size of 30 games. last year the playoff record was closer to the 2/3 figure, altho i dont have the actual count handy here today. ..the playoff winning % tends to run higher than regular season. as has been noted before, not all privates are the same. they have their downtrodden, rbs/gleason type programs. ..there are d-2 games included in the regular season. except for the magnificent 7, the d-2 schools are not as strong as the d-1 schools (as a group). possibly of interest, i only found 20 d-1 vs d-2 private matchups looking thru this year's data. (not only do the d-1's relentlessly accuse the d-2's of recruiting, they dont seem to be very sympathetic to their scheduling needs) D2-AAA went 2-0 against the D1 privates D2-AA went 3-6 D2-A went 3-6 total record was 8-12 excepting the 7 it was 6-12. the D2 privates would seem to have almost identical success against the D1 privates as that enjoyed by the publics. altho the sample size is always small, these numbers have been pretty consistently repeated over the years. todays D1 privates even hold an edge in the minute number of playoff games against todays D2 that were played before the split.

"And (all) publics could do the same. Some of them do (ex; Riverdale), but most of them don't, and that's why I think we're having this discussion." then it would stand to reason that all privates could do what BA has done, but most of them dont, and that's why i think we're having this discussion.

"Yep, and last year 1.5% of small publics won championships and 0% of privates. Of course the private bashers thought that wasn't fair either...after all, there were a couple of privates in the finals..." you know, you really delight in that little bit of data about winning no championships last year, but the truth is the privates still won 2/3 of their playoff games, the same as this year. not actually winning a title is just a math thing. it is a product of the number of playoff games, the number of regions with private members, and the number of times that privates have to play other privates... all combined with a limited data base. by my calculations, if privates win 2/3 of their games, it should come out with them taking a little over half the titles over time. should they sweep this year, that number will be right on target. should the 2/3 figure remain constant, eventually they will win a little over half the titles (no matter how this year comes out).

missed my guess. it was a sweep. privates up 138-77 for the year, 22-8 in the playoffs with 2 games to go. goodpasture-alcoa lipscum-fulton

"Any repurcussions?" yes. we can expect this board to be flooded with inflamatory threads by ill-informed posters, being booted off the football boards... and all private-supporting posters will be required to use spell check in the future.

"I would think that under this system it would be come one, come all." in my mind, recruiting is a separate question. however, i fail to see why a merit system would create any more recruiting than goes on under the current (or any other) system. oh yeah, and i should probably mention that my middle child played hs soccer.

"Would the perception of schools be that they will be placed where they WILL be successful or where they have the chance to be successful? Would the schools have expectations that no system can provide?" i hate to horn in, when you specifically asked for input from the smarter people on here. i am pretty certain i dont fit that description. several people have even told me that i am among the dumbest. none the less... i think the perception would be to be placed where teams have a reasonably equal chance to be successful, but that perception already exists. the creation of classifications is an implied promise that schools of similar capabilities will be placed together. as for whether that is an expectation that no system can provide, there is no way to say without trying. i'd say it is pretty obvious the current system cannot. in all honesty, i believe that an equitable classification system is possible. there are certainly plenty of proposals to choose from, half a dozen on this thread alone. how can we justify not making an attempt? lastly, the answer to the other pressing question: no worthwhile sport penalizes you for beating the defense down the field.

following the quarterfinals, in which fulton (supposedly a closed zone school) kept the privates from sweeping, the privates now lead for the year 134-77 their playoff advantage stands at 18-8. 4 games this week: lipscum vs dyersburg goodpleasure vs milan friendship vs hampton jackson x vs mt pleasure i am going to stick my neck out and pick both pleasures, the friends, and the lips. no sweep this time & a public private matchup in all 3 finals.

nothing new from me, as far as the pluses and minuses of a merit system. but a synopsis of how i think a merit system should look. for those who have heard it all before, i apologize for the repetition: football- throw everyone back together and divide the state teams into 5 numerically equal classes, based on a 3-year running average of the 3 or 4 computer systems currently ranking the teams combined (the more numbers you use, the more accurate the outcome). you avoid the peter principle, since you are not "punishing" anyone for winning titles or having one exceptional season, but simply re-aligning based on recent performance. divide the classes into whatever number of districts it takes to keep the districts at 6 teams or less. district alignment should be based purely on travel distance. ample schedule wiggle room for natural rivals, money games, or the cupcake of the week club. run playoffs for each class similar to what we do now, altho there will be some adjustment required in the number of teams per district, and the method for selecting wildcards. add a state championship playoffs, selecting the top 16 teams, regardless of class, based on the combined computer ranking system average for the year. give every team making it to the playoffs a dadgum gold ball or a banner or something to commemorate the achievement. replace the 16 teams in their respective class playoffs with the next team in line. if privates win the championship every year, go to a 16 team public and 16 team private state playoffs, crown public and private champions and let them play it off in week 5 for the overall crown. basketball, softball & baseball- same as football except maybe fewer classes. golf, track, & wrestling- one set of district, region, and state meets (tournaments). wont waste your time with the reasons here, but small schools actually have a better shot at the title in a combined championship. small school exceptionalA athletes are better served by better competition. volleyball, bowling, badminton, crochet, cheerleading, band- i dont know enough to offer a good opinion. soccer- soccer is an abomination.

"Also, because the public association didn't join with the privates in the 70s the small publics in Texas have been decimated in the last 30 years. In 1a they play 8 man ball. In 2a there is an 8 man and an 11 man league that schools can choose from. Why? Because as a seperate association the publics don't have any way to stop the privates from skimming the cream off the small schools...so they have." that isnt actually very accurate. they play 8 man ball because they have a small population spread over a wide area out in the middle of nowhere. there isnt any way to field larger teams, there arent enough kids. they have played that way since i was a youth. they also play(ed) 8-man (maybe even still 6-man) ball out in the other plains states all the way up to montana. private schools have not had any important role in that area for the same reason. there are not enough kids.

"The public schools competed with the private schools very well for many years. From the time the TSSAA was formed until around 1990" public vs private football playoff games 1969-1989; privates 154 publics 99 (for what it is worth) if you meant to include 1990; privates 15 publics 10

"There are tons of "closed zone" schools. But what you are insinuating is that there are some "closed zone" schools that have kids that attend from outside that zone. " oh, tons? not 10, not 100, not 1,000, but tons. can you give me a list (a ton long)? every time someone names a school as being genuinely closed zone, i find that it is not strictly the truth. not to say that one doesnt exist (that and an ivory bill woodpecker), but the longer i go without finding one, the more i doubt it. i am sorry, i didnt mean to insinuate anything. i am flat out stating that there are kids from "outside the zone" in every school. "You can't stop people from cheating ... but you sure can punish the heck out of the schools that get caught with one" punish them for what? by who? tssaa has no zoning or residency requirements in order to play at a school. they have rules regarding transfers, but the schools can play anyone from anywhere... as long as they start out playing at that school. "How many public school systems can you name that allow kids outside of the county that they are housed in to attend their?" i cannot think of any that do not allow it.

"...it brings up an excellent topic that gets glossed over by public supporters (or privates haters ... but I'm a glass half full guy). That topic is the "open zone". " actually that glass doesnt hold water at all, but that's how you public-haters are. "open zone" may feel good rolling off the tongue, but it is entirely without meaning. to begin with, i continue to await (with bated breath) that list of the mythical "closed zone" publics, who truly have zero students who live outside their zone. alcoa, maryville, hillsboro have enrollment rules that are essentially the same as all the other public schools in their classifications. no one is crying about "open zone" publics, because there isnt anyone to cry about it. (well, except for you) there was an attempt at pressing this point not too long ago, and someone gave me a trio of supposedly closed zone public schools to compare with alcoa, maryville, and riverdale. as it turned out, the supposed closed zone schools; farragut, bearden, and knox central (as i recall) had far superior overall athletic programs to alcoa, maryville, and riverdale. magnets, i just dont know. that is different sort of animal, and relatively new. i prefer to have opinions that can be substantiated with adequate data, rather than just those which make me feel good.

"I, personally, make about 30% less than I would in the Hamilton County system." are there a lot of small rural schools in hamilton county?

"The moral of the story, Privates are welcome by the Public cry babies as long as they can be used as whipping boys.....just don't let them become good." i dont think you can hardly say that. if tssaa was responding to public desires there would be no privates in d-1, whipping cream or not. that said, i cannot fathom why the request was turned down. neither ncs nor zion deserves to be put thru 2 more years of the current setup... altho ncs does sometimes have decent football teams, and their basketball is plenty competitive. as with merit system discussions for publics, all privates are likewise not the same. i suppose i can understand the "between realignments" argument, except; unless i am misreading things, both schools are in overcrowded regions already. just once i would like to see a decision justified by it being the "right thing to do".

"Sorry, didn't know this was a regular feature of Laz. He can have this thread back if he wants it. (I'm just a newby trying to get a grasp on this pub/prv debate!)" this is laz, and i approve this thread. with the privates holding a 132-76 (16-7) lead, i will go with everyone sensible and pick a private sweep (3-0). looks like we can expect more private public matchups next week than this week.