Havin Fun;605025 wrote:I think a simple and fair solution would be to continue having all six title games but limit D V and VI to public schools only. All private schools would have to play in either D I, II, III or IV. The smaller public schools simply do not have enough eligible kids to compete year in year out with a private school that is drawing from multiple counties. Private schools have virtually no mentally or physicaly handicapped students in their enrollment numbers while public schools have 12-15% of student population that fits this description.
Take a D-VI school with 30 boys in a class or 120 boys 9-12. Figure the district is limited to kids who live in a small geographical area, rarely gets even one open enrolled student and then remove 12-15% who are handicapped. The odds of competiting with a Delphos St. Johns are slim to none. My guess is DSJ would rather play in a much tougher title game as well so under my idea they would play in the D-IV playoff and actually be able to take more pride in winning against a much better opponent.
If this is your thinking, then I'm sorry...but you are absolutely wrong. No public schools can compete with private schools in D5 and D6? Really? Let's look at the state champions in those divisions...
D5: 16 private championships / 23 public championships
D6: 8 private championships / 9 public championships
Move the private schools out of those divisions, and small public schools like St. Henry, Maria Stein Marion Local, Coldwater, and Versailles will win almost every state championship.
Why do so many of you think that moving the privates up and out will create this amazing parity that wasn't there before? Look at the list of the state final appearances. It's the same names over and over and over again in the lower divisions. If you move the privates out of the low divisions, you might as well just hand the state title trophies to the MAC every year. Sure they aren't going to win every year. But they are going to win a whole lot more than they already do.
And again, all of this talk about moving the private schools up is based on three schools in D5 and D6: Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic. There are plenty of other private schools in D5 and D6 who are lucky to finish 5-5 on the year. Why move them up?
Private schools are on a run right now. Nobody was complaining when public schools won 10 out of 11 state titles in D4 from 1993-2003. And during that time frame, only 2 private schools even made the state title game. So for 11 state championship games, we saw public vs. public 9 times, and saw a private vs. public final twice (with Ursuline winning one and Cleveland VASJ losing the other). Nobody talked about a multiplier when the public schools played each other 8 times from 1994-2004 in D5. And of the 3 public vs. private matchups during that stretch, publics went 1-2...for a total of 9 state championships in that stretch. D6 is just a constant back and forth. 8 of the 9 state titles for public schools came in an all public final.
So private schools are on a run right now in the lower divisions. But historically, that happens for both privates and publics. Why make a long lasting change to a system that has worked for years simply because the privates are doing well right now?
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