Too many teams are making playoffs

Two weeks ago in this space, I wrote about how Maine high school football this fall has become a little more like the NFL, wherein that any given Sunday (or Friday) night, any team is capable of being beat.

But that’s not the only way high school football in the Pine Tree State is becoming a little bit more like professional sports. Only this time, it’s not in a good way, because much like in a number of major American pro sports leagues, there are simply too many teams making the playoffs.

For context, here’s a breakdown of the way the playoffs work in the four divisions in Western Maine: Six of eight teams make the postseason in Class A; it’s eight of 11 in Class B and eight of 10 in Class C, while, worst of all, eight of nine teams make the playoffs in Class D.

That means that 30 of the 38 high school football teams in Western Maine have made the playoffs, which will start this Friday night. That includes 11 teams who finished with a record below .500: Biddeford (3-5) in Class A; Westbrook (3-5), Fryeburg Academy (3-5) and Kennebunk (2-6) in Class B; Poland (3-5), Mountain Valley (2-6) and Lake Region (2-6) in Class C; Winthrop/Monmouth (3-4), Maranacook (3-4), Boothbay (3-4) and Telstar (1-7) in Class D.

Simply put, so many teams making the postseason with losing records has diluted the meaning of the regular season. Every game doesn’t count, because a team can conceivably lose more than half of its games ”“ or in team like Kennebunk’s case, 75 percent of them ”“ and still make the postseason comfortably.

That has made some regular-season games complete throw aways, while others that would have had much more urgency ”“ the Week 6 game between Biddeford and Sanford, for instance, would have been a virtual elimination game ”“ are instead just another contest.

Having so many playoff teams is also going to lead to plenty of blowouts this weekend. Take Class C: Lake Region, the No. 8 and final seed in Class C, lost to playoff opponent Leavitt by 44 points during the regular season; Mountain Valley, the No. 7 seed, lost to playoff opponent Spruce Mountain by 34 points during the regular season, the same margin by which No. 6 seed Poland lost to this week’s opponent, Wells, by during the regular season.

There are examples of that in all four classes in the Western region, and it seems unnecessary to put both sides through lopsided games like that again ”“ the lower seeded team doesn’t need another big loss to end its season on, and the higher seeded team shouldn’t have to worry about losing key players to injury in a game it shouldn’t have to play in the first place.

It’s true that one or two of these games could be competitive ”“ Kennebunk lost to this week’s opponent York by only two points during the regular season, and could conceivably make a great game of it again. After all, this season has shown that just about every team is capable of being upset under the right circumstances.

But by winning just two of its eight games so far, did the Rams really earn this chance, or were they gifted it by a flawed system? And on the other end, should York, which was 7-1 during the regular season, be put in the situation that it could have its season ended in 48 minutes by a team that lost five more games during the length of the regular season? It would make a great story and a great upset if it happened, but it couldn’t also be called fair.

So, if there’s this big problem, what’s the solution? Actually, it’s pretty simple, and one division in Maine high school football already partly uses it.

Eastern Class D has just four of its 11 teams make the playoffs, shortening the postseason by one week. The flaw in Class D East’s current system is that it still plays only eight regular season games over those nine weeks, an error that can be easily corrected.

So here’s the plan: All eight divisions in the state play a nine-game regular season and have four teams qualify for the playoffs, thus lengthening the regular season by a week and shortening the playoffs by a week. Western Class B and Eastern Class A used this nine-game, four-playoff team system until just a couple of years ago, and it worked like a charm.

What it would mean is that every team, regardless of quality, gets to play at least nine games, which rewards the players from every school with as much of an opportunity to play as possible.

In divisions with 10 teams, it would also provide for a true round robin, with each team playing the nine others, ensuring the best four teams make the playoffs; conveniently, it would also give half the teams in the state one more home regular-season game each season, meaning more cash from the gate receipts.

In addition, less than half of the teams in each division making the playoffs would lend a sense of importance to each and every regular season game, and would mean that very few and possibly no teams with a record below .500 are playoff bound.

Lastly, just four teams in the playoffs would also of course provide us with more competitive games in the postseason, weeding out some of the unnecessary blowouts that we now see during the first week. The difference between the best and eighth-best team in each division is huge; the difference between the fourth best and best team is not nearly as large, at least in many cases.

This isn’t a problem for just football, as it could be reasonably argued that too many teams make the postseason in just about every Maine high school sport. But in a season that at the moment includes just eight regular season games, and in a sport that can see so many physical mismatches, the too many-playoff-teams problem is a lot more glaring in football, which after all, is along with basketball the most popular high school spectator sport in Maine.

So when the large blowout scores start rolling in this Friday night and Saturday afternoon ”“ and make no mistake, many, many games this weekend will be over by halftime ”“ just remember that there is a better, fairer, and in the end more exciting system out there, just waiting to be put in place.

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