FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[reality check]

Thx Senator -

It's a quick trip but I will have one night to check out a spot for dinner.  Staying at the Hyatt on N High Street.

Saterday night?

[Blutarsky]

.....just had to mention how impressed I am with the comprehensive knowledge of culinary institutes displayed on this forum.  We aren't just experts in football...........dude.

[FloridaRaider]

Never thought Id see Mount Union football in a comic strip. Check out what I saw in Ripleys Believe It or Not Comic Strip.

http://comics.com/ripleys_believe_it_or_not/2011-03-02/

[joelmama]

Never thought Id see Mount Union football in a comic strip. Check out what I saw in Ripleys Believe It or Not Comic Strip.

http://comics.com/ripleys_believe_it_or_not/2011-03-02/

I believe it!!

[reality check]

Never thought Id see Mount Union football in a comic strip. Check out what I saw in Ripleys Believe It or Not Comic Strip.

http://comics.com/ripleys_believe_it_or_not/2011-03-02/

Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that they got everything right in the illustration and the information.  Pretty cool.

[Raider 68]

Never thought Id see Mount Union football in a comic strip. Check out what I saw in Ripleys Believe It or Not Comic Strip.

http://comics.com/ripleys_believe_it_or_not/2011-03-02/

FloridaRaider,

Thanks for sharing! +k

[reality check]

I can't believe I am typing this but after working in high school athletics for the last five years in Arizona, I really wish I was fortunate enough to work in Ohio and dealing with the OHSAA.  

We just received our schedule for 2011 from the AIA (AZ's equivalent to the OHSAA).  The biggest difference, aside from the fact that the AIA is run by those chimps from the careerbuilder.com commercials from Super Bowls past, is that the OHSAA basically coordinates and handles the state playoffs/tournaments leaving conferences and athletic directors to do the regular season scheduling and whatnot while the AIA tries to dictate everything there is including schedules, conference/division/section placement and so forth.

Consequently there are no reasonable conferences with long-standing rivalries.  There are few grudge matches and heated histories because of the constant shifting of schedules and sections.  Instead the AIA "realigns" everyone every two years because they are more concerned with fair play and putting similiarly sized schools up against each other.  So in effect, there are no conferences and no conference rivalries.  We spent the last two years getting hammered by larger schools because the AIA projected we would be at around 1700 students when we were filled with all four high school classes.  Well they only missed their projection by 800 students so we've been playing way over our heads for two years.  

We got excited because last season, in spite of being outmatched in numbers, we were still competitive and managed a 3-5 regular season.  We were told we would be playing in a division that would match us against schools more our size and things were looking up.  The AIA revamped things to more similarly align with Ohio's setup (Div. 1 being larges and Div. 6 being smallest) instead of their weird 5A-1 being largest and 1A being smallest.  Things were looking up.  We were told we would be in a section with 11 other schools with similar enrollment numbers (between 700 and 1000 students).  We just needed to see our schedules.

Well they came out this week and were computer generated.  The computer generated 8 games, with each school given 2 freedom games to choose their opponents independently.  In an effort to play locally, the computer was set up to choose opponents in your division  within 30 miles.  If that didn't fill the games, then it was to choose opponents up or down one division within 30 miles.  If that didn't fill the games, it was to choose opponents in your division 31-60 miles away.  

The end result?  We are geographically pigeon-holed as the only Division 4 school surrounded by mostly larger schools.  We play one game in our division.  Just one.  We have two games against Division 5 schools and we have 5 of our 8 games against higher division schools.  7 of the 8 teams we face in 2011 were playoff teams in 2010 and our opponents winning percentage is .667 (62-31 overall) including the state runner up in the division above us which is more loaded now than ever.  I researched it and found out we have the toughest schedule (winning percentage) out of 196 teams in the state of AZ not even accounting for the fact that 5 of our games are against playoff teams a division above us.  We will be fighting for playoff spots in Division 4 while only playing one game in our placement and with virtually no common opponents.  

I've concluded the AIA is broken and/or God doesn't like us.

[HScoach]

^ That system is beyond stupid.

[rscl70]

MTU 69
UWW 55

[reality check]

^ That system is beyond stupid.

When we asked about an appeal process, the AIA commisioner (who played at ASU with our AD and is a personal friend of his) said basically, "Sucks for you guys.  At least it's only two years."

The appeal process was designed not to appeal the computerized schedules but rather to appeal the divisional placements.  Well we weren't upset at all with our placement but considering only one of our 8 games is against a school in our division we were blown away.  We have picked up the two at-large games against two other teams in our section which is good but we could theoretically make the playoffs this year going 3-7 or even maybe 2-8 because of the computer points we get from playing up and playing so many playoff caliber teams.  Does that sound broken too?!?   

[seventiesraider]

MTU 69
UWW 55

Congratulations to Mount Union women on their win over Whitewater. Got a headache from watching it on my computer. Good luck tomorrow against the Saints

[Raider 68]

Congrats to the Raider Women's Basketball on their victory over UWW. They have a shot against #1 Thomas More!

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Another Tampa area "signee" for Mount Union.  He plays for one of the schools in my conference, but we didn't play them this past season as we were a first year school and played a split schedule (5 Varsity and 5 JV Games).  He also wrestled at 215.

SmallButSlow may have some more information on him for y'all:

Gulf's Palasky signs with Mount Union

Max Preps

[Raider 68]

Another Tampa area "signee" for Mount Union.  He plays for one of the schools in my conference, but we didn't play them this past season as we were a first year school and played a split schedule (5 Varsity and 5 JV Games).  He also wrestled at 215.

SmallButSlow may have some more information on him for y'all:

Gulf's Palasky signs with Mount Union

Max Preps

K & J's Dad,

Thanks for the update!

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

@ Reality Check,

FL does something similar where they realign the schools every two years.  Teams then are required to play the teams in their district, which is a lot better than the computer generated scheduling system that you have.

The one caveat for the FL system is that all districts don't have an equal number of teams and ONLY the top two teams from each district make the playoffs.  Our school has been assigned to Class 5A, District 6, which has 8 teams.  But, there are other districts in 5A that have 3, 4, 5, 6 or 9 schools in their district.

FL schools play 10 games so a team in our district could have an 8-2 record (5-2 in District), lose to the top two teams in the district and not make the playoffs.  But a team in a 4 team district could have a 3-7 record (2-1 in District) and make the playoffs.  Or a team in a 3 team district could be 1-9 (1-1 in District) and they make the playoffs.

There have been two local team the past two years in our county who finished 8-2 and didn't make the playoffs.