Last week the UHSAA Board of Trustees voted unanimously to start seeding state tournaments for traditional team sports and invite all teams to participate.
The sports that will be impacted are baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball, volleyball and lacrosse.
- The Ratings Percentage Index that will determine seeding will use the following formula: team’s winning percentage (40 percent), winning percentage of a team’s opponents (40 percent) and winning percentage of a team’s opponent’s opponents (20 percent).
- All games will count toward the RPI index, not just region games. Preseason games will therefore count equally toward qualifying for the playoffs.
- The RPI score will be operated by MaxPreps.
- According to a UHSAA press release on Thursday, other team sports like cross-country, tennis, track & field and wrestling will stick with the traditional region-qualifying format. Golf, drill team and swimming will have different qualifying methods.
The Deseret News asked coaches from different sports to comment on their thoughts about the changes, and those responses are listed below:
"My hope is that using an RPI systems doesn’t change how coaches schedule preseason games and tournaments. Knowing that W/L is the most critical, will larger schools not see the benefit in playing rural schools and vice versa? I realize the need for a seeded tournament, the two best teams should meet in the finals and it hasn’t always happened that way. I also understand teams in tougher regions, of which there is no control, have a far harder time qualifying for postseason play. There are also some factors that aren’t calculated in the new RPI system, for example, home vs. away and neutral site games. For those in rural schools that travel greater distances, it simply is hard to win on the road after you’ve been on a bus for 3-plus hours. It certainly shouldn’t be, but it is. Another factor will be tournament games, (usually best 2 of 3) vs. regular season matches 3 out of 5. One would argue the better team will usually win the 3 out of 5 matches, but 2 out of 3 may need to be evaluated differently. Good teams will win the matches/games they need to win. Good teams will place well at state tournaments regardless of what system you use or how brackets line-up.
I know the issue with qualifying for postseason play was a factor, making it an all-comers event solves that problem. My sincere hope is that coaches/admin don’t try to manipulate the RPI by scheduling differently than they have in the past. As coaches, especially in volleyball where tournaments make up a large portion of your schedule, we’re going to have be mindful of the field, tournament directors may or may not limit who will allow in their events to make it more appealing to teams and once again are smaller classifications going to struggle to find matches if they hurt another team's RPI.
My final concern is results. I know some coaches don’t report scores. We can control our results, we cannot control our opponent’s opponent reporting scores, which if I understand correctly is 20%. If a score gets missed or not reported, how will that change things or affect my RPI.
Without any experience, I’m not sure I even know the questions to be asked. As in all changes that are made, we control what we can control. Train our kids, form the best teams possible, create a schedule that is good for our school/team/district, compete in our region and see if you can make a run at the state tournament. Bottom line, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing, control our wins and losses by the product we put on the floor and hope to have a great experience playing North Sanpete Volleyball year after year."
— North Sanpete volleyball coach Ricki Stewart
"I’m a bit indifferent about the RPI. I understand the issue with a stacked region. On the other hand I do have some issues with the formula. I do not like the formula of 40 percent of what a team does on the field matters while 60 percent doesn’t. I wish it was switched. According to the RPI for last year’s 6A tournament Fremont has a better seed than Weber who beat Fremont to win the region. Kearns would have had a bye game and would have played Davis who also had a bye game. Kearns was the higher seed so there is no advantage other than a home game.
If a team does have a bye game they would be 17 days without a football game if they played on UEA week. If they didn’t it would be 20-plus days.
Why have regions if region placement doesn’t matter? I called the UHSAA with a lot of these questions and was told that it will all work out in the end. I understand this was voted unanimously by the board of trustees. I found out that our region and Granite School District does not have a representative in the board of Trustees and that is troubling."
— Kearns football coach Matt Rickards
“I was skeptical at first, but I think it solves a lot of the issues. It is impossible to make the regions balanced, and this makes that a nonissue. It tackles the fairness issue of better teams from year to year that do not even make playoffs, and it solves the problem of regions that have far more teams but still only get four spots. I think it is the best way to be as fair as possible. We have to stop the 4th-best team from having to play the 5th-best team in the state in the first round of playoffs.”
— Fremont baseball coach Garrett Clark
“I think it's a great idea and I like the fact that the tournament will be seeded, meaning that the best teams should be on opposite sides of the bracket. One thing that will change for most teams is how they put together their preseason schedules. It will definitely be something new for all coaches to consider when putting together their schedules. I am excited to see how it all pans out this coming fall.”
— Carbon girls basketball coach Ted Bianco
“I like the shift away from the cookie-cutter format of the past. I worry that there is no adjustment for playing teams outside of your own classification. Perhaps a bonus for higher classification teams and a penalty for lower classification teams would help to even things out. I'm curious to see how coaches or schools will attempt to manipulate the system for their own benefit. Are the weaker teams going to be able to find teams willing to play them out of region, knowing that their poor record will influence the seeding of other teams?”
— Judge Memorial soccer coach Scott Platz
“This definitely changes things for volleyball. For one, teams who participate in weaker regions are penalized. Second, MaxPreps’ algorithm has it flaws. In 2018, we took second at state, took third at the Wasatch Festival (only loss to PG, beating teams like Morgan and Spanish Fork), and went undefeated in the region. However, our RPI in MaxPreps has us still ranked fifth in state in 4A. When I reached out, they said my strength of schedule for my region was too weak, which is something we don’t have control over. However, it will force teams to monitor MaxPreps, and create more competitive tournaments and pre-season matches.
The other side is that it puts pressure and a weighted outcome on every match. Whereas before, you could use preseason matches and tournaments as a chance to test lineups, give kids opportunities, try different plays, etc... I think coaches are now inherently pushed to try and win every match, thus defeating a growth mindset culture. I think you’ll see a lot less kids play varsity across all programs and coaches who are very selective in which teams they play. This decision will unintentionally create a separation of schools, essentially eliminating the middle class of teams, where now the strong become stronger and the weak become weaker.”
— Park City volleyball coach Matt Carlson
“I'm really not a fan of the new system. Whenever you rely on rankings or judges, things don't go as well as it can in the field. I would like just five classifications, and relegate according to each sport. Schools could be competitive in each sport, because they would move up and down according to how they do relegating teams that struggle and promoting teams that win. Competition would take place on the field instead of off. I know this won't happen because of geographic concerns, so if they are going to use RPI then let the region champs still be rewarded for winning with a bye and then rank the teams. Because as it sits right now, winning region means nothing.”
— Skyridge soccer coach Jerry Preisendorf
“Personally I think that it is good in some ways and bad in others. Good from the standpoint that now a particular region that has more than four strong teams in one sport will get all of the deserving schools in the playoffs, where before a weaker team could get in, where a better team from another region didn't. In theory it also balances out the brackets. Before, all of the best teams could be on the same side of the bracket. I think the timing was bad. Most of the fall sports teams already had their schedules set for next year. Now teams are scrambling for games. Also with UEA break late in October, if schools don't play a game on UEA, and have a first round bye in the playoffs, you could have three weeks off before you start the playoffs.”
— Dixie football coach Blaine Monkres
“I’m excited for this new change because it gives those teams in strong regions the opportunity to be in the playoffs.”
— Pleasant Grove girls basketball coach Allyce Jones
"Mixed feelings. I understand why they are doing this (greasing the squeaky wheels) but I will miss the importance of region games. Region games will not be as important therefore some of the region rivalries will lose a lot of their excitement. It also forces me to play teams that may be farther away thus, 1. More travel; 2. More time away from school; 3. More cost to my program. I’m already broke, I guess I can be broker. Also, I no longer will be able to play teams that are in a lower classification than I am in because their schedule will kill my ranking.
Here's a for instance for you. Every year I play Grantsville because they are well coached and always have a good team and have a sophomore team that my sophomore team can play. Now, if I play Grantsville, their schedule against 3A competition will kill my ranking. What do I do? It will be better to play a team from Salt Lake Valley even though they have no sophomore teams. I will have to choose my poison."
— Spanish Fork softball coach Don Andrews