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IHSAA approves plan to use MaxPreps in non-football state tournament seeding

by JAKE CACCAVARO
Staff Writer | October 1, 2020 11:05 AM

BONNERS FERRY — The Idaho High School Activities Association announced on Tuesday that it had finalized a plan to seed non-football team sport state tournaments using MaxPreps rankings beginning in the 2021-22 school year.

According to Michael Lycklama of the Idaho Statesman, more than two-thirds (68%) of Idaho’s coaches, athletic directors and principals voted in favor of using a computer ranking to seed the state tournaments.

Qualifying teams will not be determined using MaxPreps, but once all the playoff teams are chosen, the MaxPreps Computer Rankings will sort the teams out for seeding purposes.

MaxPreps’ rankings are entirely computer-based, and there are no coaches, media or fan polls. Much of the ranking system MaxPreps uses is shrouded in secrecy, but the massive prep sports database does offer a brief explanation.

“The system utilizes the huge number of game results stored in the MaxPreps database. Generally, the more a team wins, the higher the ranking. However, the system takes into account quality wins (against other highly ranked opponents) and strength of schedule.

For example, a team's ranking is hurt more by losing to a team that is ranked below them than a team ranked ahead.”

Basically, teams are evaluated and ranked based entirely on theirs and their opponents’ on-field performance; there is no subjectivity in MaxPreps’ computer system and preseason rankings are irrelevant to the system.

Idaho will join a growing number of states all across the country that use MaxPreps for seeding, and the change in how seeding is conducted will not affect this year’s state tournaments, but will begin in the fall of the 2021-22 school year.