Explaining 7A Region 4

The playoffs are set, and the postseason is expected to begin this week with one Thursday night 6A game and the rest of the games on Friday, November 7.

As always, there were a lot of good region battles to help determine the seeding for each classification. Perhaps none more competitive than 7A Region 4, which ended in a FOUR-way tie for first place with James Clemens, Austin, Sparkman and Florence all sitting at 5-2.

I have been doing this bracketology for a little over a decade now, mostly because I just enjoy doing it. As a player, then as a fan, and now on staff at a high school – you’re always curious about A) will my team make the playoffs and B) what scenarios are there when we get there? There is a lot that goes in to it other than just what two teams take the field each night. The playoffs begin to stretch things out geographically and there is a lot of planning that goes into making each week happen.

That has never been the case more than this year with 7A Region 4. Due to the new AHSAA playoff structure in Class 7A, the region rotation has made it where the Huntsville region (Region 4) and Mobile region (Region 1) have to play each other in the first round. Never before have teams from these two geographic areas met in the playoffs before the state championship. The largest reason being the amount of travel each team will have to endure. We’re talking about 5-6 hour bus rides one way for a lot of people.

So it’s no surprise that when things end up this way – the powers that be in 7A Region 4 want to make sure it’s right. In talking to one team, they estimated it could be as high as $25,000 to travel to one of these games due to the fact that they will have to get hotel rooms for a lot of people with a drive that long. Another said it would be around $22,000. During my time at Homewood, we had to play at Fairhope on a Friday night, and with a win, turn around and go back down Thursday night to play at BC Rain. And yes…I went to school that next Friday. It was rough, and that was just from Birmingham – so I understand.

So What Happened?

When region play ended after Week 9 (October 24), I did my typical sweep through the regions, and the only region I had issues with was Region 4. Tiebreakers across all sports at all levels are different depending on what you think is more important. Is it head-to-head? Is it winning percentage? Is it strength of schedule? All of these questions are raised every time a team wants to fight for themselves to win a tiebreaker.

In the AHSAA, head-to-head is king, as I believe it should be. Whoever wins a game, should be ahead of the team that lost. Where it gets complicated is when three or more teams are involved.

The AHSAA tiebreakers are listed as follows. Tiebreaker A is head-to-head, then verbatim from their rule book:

IF MORE THAN TWO TEAMS TIE

d) Apply (c) using percentage against the No. 2 ranked team. If two teams tie for the highest winning percentage ahead of all the other teams involved in the tie, the team that defeated the other in their required regular season game will be placed ahead of all tied teams. Then, if necessary, apply (a) or (b) as applicable for the remaining teams in the tie.

Tiebreaker E-J follow tiebreaker D verbatim, just moving through the rankings (winning percentage vs #3, #4, #5, etc. until the end).

My assumption on the tiebreakers has always been that if TWO teams tie at the top for Tiebreakers C-J, then head-to-head splits that tie and we move on. But if THREE or more teams are tied at the top of a tiebreaker, then since that specific tiebreaker can’t be won by one team, then you move on to the next tiebreaker with all teams involved. That is my assumption because the verbiage says “If two teams tie” then use head-to-head. It doesn’t say “if three or more teams tie, then” do whatever.

Another thing to point out is that it has been made clear in the past that a team can not “lose” a tiebreaker, only “win” a tiebreaker. Keep that in mind when it comes to how this is perceived.

So when I went through the tiebreakers for 7A Region 4, I got to these first. Since the top 4 spots were occupied with the tied teams, I moved on to Tiebreaker G that was wins over #5. Sparkman, James Clemens and Florence all defeated Huntsville, who was the #5 team, and Austin did not. My assumption is, because it’s three teams (who all beat each other), we move on to the next tiebreaker with all four teams involved in the original tiebreaker. When you do that, you ultimately get to the non-region tiebreakers, which start with Tiebreaker L. Since that doesn’t apply here, I won’t get into that, just know that if Tiebreaker L was used, it would have been: 1) Florence, 2) James Clemens, 3) Austin, 4) Sparkman.

The AHSAA saw things differently and said that the three teams that did defeat Huntsville should be pulled out and run through the tiebreakers again, and that Austin is eliminated from the tiebreaker. To many, that can be seen as “Austin lost the tiebreaker”. Remember what I just said a few lines up – teams can’t lose a tiebreaker, they can only win it. They will spin it as “Austin didn’t lose, they just didn’t have a chance to win like the others”, but it can be seen as Austin losing.

The AHSAA then went to Tiebreaker H, which is wins over #6 Bob Jones, and that eliminated James Clemens to where it was just Sparkman and Florence – where Sparkman won head-to-head and was proclaimed the winner. Then Sparkman was used as the #1 seed for the purposes of breaking the three-way tie for second, which allowed James Clemens to be second with their head-to-head over Austin. Then Austin was third with head-to-head over Florence and Florence was fourth.

The conflict comes from a couple of things. First, it seems like coaches were told one thing (that it would come down to non-region games), then ultimately told another on Monday afternoon. Second, the exact verbiage in the AHSAA’s explanation to Region 4 coaches was:

3 teams defeated No. 5 Huntsville are pulled out –
Florence, James Clemens and Sparkman
each, however, are 1-1 with each other
so these three go to:
Tie Breaker (H) teams that defeated No. 6 seed Bob Jones

The verbiage “3 teams are pulled out” sounds odd. It makes it where there could be an argument of either A) Austin lost the tiebreaker or B) there is no verbiage that says what happens to three teams, only two where head-to-head could be applied.

I got a lot of comments also about winning percentage against the other teams involved in the tie, since James Clemens and Austin went 2-1 against the teams involved while Sparkman and Florence both went 1-2 against the teams involved. When you hear that, you would be inclined to believe that James Clemens and Austin should be “pulled out” and then James Clemens would win head-to-head and be region champ.

However, as it says in Tiebreaker B – “The team that defeated ALL the other tied teams in the required regular season games will be placed ahead of all the other tied teams. If one of the teams did not defeat ALL the other tied teams, the tie cannot be resolved by this factor.” So the argument that James Clemens and Austin went 2-1 won’t ever work because that’s just not how the AHSAA decided to do things.

Is there precedent for this?

I’m glad you asked. There actually is.

In 2016, there was a four-way tie for first place in 3A Region 7 between Sylvania, North Sand Mountain, Plainview and Geraldine. All four teams were 4-2, and the scenario was the exact same. There – the tiebreaker went to tiebreaker L and Sylvania won the tiebreaker. If you interpret the rules as they did this year – Plainview would have won the tiebreaker instead.

Maybe this is just a “new staff” interpreting the rules differently, but when there is precedent, it’s hard to not agree with Florence.

How can this be solved moving forward?

The solution for this moving forward is simple – update the verbiage in the rule book about what exactly can and can’t win a tiebreaker. In Tiebreaker B, they have a phrase that specifically says “if these parameters aren’t met, we move on”. But for every other tiebreaker, it’s only “if two teams tie, then use head-to-head,” and that’s what makes it so confusing.

The lack of communication and understanding with this led to a moment at the bracket unveil Saturday morning where they went through and assigned each playoff match-up. Sparkman went first, and understandably had no problem with it. When they got to Florence, who is now fourth, Florence disagreed because they believed they should be home. They asked for a meeting about everything, and were basically told “No, but we’ll talk to you privately in the hallway for a few minutes.”

After a few minutes, they came back, and continued on like nothing happened and Florence agreed to everything. I don’t know what was said, and I don’t know if Florence actually felt ok accepting their results. I can’t imagine they are happy about it.

So that’s that, and that’s how the bracket laid out. We’ll see how the first round match-ups go and if teams like Florence can get a win on the road at Baker or if Sparkman can get a win at home against Daphne.

The new 7A bracket has some interesting first round match-ups with the drama in Region 4, plus Regions 2 and 3 matching up, forcing two games we’ve already had with Carver-Montgomery at Thompson (where Thompson won early in the season by 31 points) and Vestavia at Auburn (where Vestavia won this season by 28). Plus, maybe the hardest 4-seed ever as Hoover travels to overall #1 Central-Phenix City. We’re guaranteed where only one of Thompson, Central, Hoover will make the Super 7.

This also brings to light the interest around the way the GHSA is now going to handle their playoffs. That system would eliminate all Region 4 teams anyway except for the region champion (so the other region 4 teams would probably fight the tiebreaker that much harder), and give us a much more evenly spaced bracket.

So what do you think? Is the AHSAA’s interpretation the best way to handle things? Should there be a rule change for next season? Let us know on X/Twitter @ALPreps!