artie_fufkin wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

It's the best team I've ever covered in any sport. The starters haven't played a full game since the fourth week

Do you stay with one team, or does your editor move you around?
We usually move around, but my editor has kind of settled me in with an undefeated team, which is fine, except it's the team from the town I live in, and I'm coaching in the youth program younger brothers of kids on the high school team. Technically, there's no conflict, but there have been some uncomfortable moments, like when the father of the fourth string halfback complained that I didn't mention in the story his kid had three carries for 12 yards during 4th quarter garbage time of a 35-point blowout.
I suppose I could tell my editor to send me somewhere else, but this is the first time in more than 100 years the high school football program in my town has ever started a season with a record of 7-0, so it's a great story. And every other team we cover is going nowhere.

There's only one team to cover. We're a pretty small outfit.

People around here used to jump on my ass if I didn't fluff up their kids, but they've given up on it. This is the first time the school has ever had an undefeated regular season so it's a pretty big deal. How far they go is really up in the air because Missouri adopted a new playoff system that's as complicated as the BCS.

"Missouri adopted a new playoff system that's as complicated as the BCS."

I can't imagine anything wimpier than what Massachusetts does. They have four divisions plus the Boston city division, so you end up with five different "champions," and that's only in the eastern part of the state. Central and Western Mass. have their own playoff system. The MIAA is the most abjectly incompetent organization on the planet. And the people who run it are unrepentantly greedy. They charge $13 admission to their "Super Bowls," which determine nothing. And Bob Kraft gets all the parking and concession revenue because he graciously loans the MIAA his stadium.

"How can anyone be satisfied with that sort of ending?"

No one is, except for the MIAA's accountants. And Kraft.

"You get 20 points for a win, 10 points for a loss and 15 points for a tie. You get 10 points if you play a school above your class. You get points for margin of victory +/- 13. You get points for your opponents' wins and losses. Then, MSHSAA takes all of this, plugs it into a formula and spits out the rankings. There are eight teams to a district and those eight teams play a tournament based on the points system."

We had that until Doug Flutie's alma mater got squeezed out despite a 40-some odd game win streak. Because their first game of the season was against a team that ended up going 1-9, and two other undefeated teams played opponents that ended up with better records.
In a way, the MIAA is in the same situation as the NCAA. They have a choice of maintaining the integrity of maintaining the Thanksgiving Day games, or having a true playoff system that would begin in the middle of November. But their compromise ends up doing neither.