In his monthly commissioner’s message, CIF Southern Section (CIF-SS) Commissioner Rob Wigod outlined the proposed changes to how the organization approaches the creation of playoff brackets and seeding that the CIF-SS Council is set to consider in a January meeting.

The proposed change would see the elimination of pre-season divisional alignment in favor of an overall power ranking for every football team in the Southern Section, updated weekly, according to the letter.

“The new system is basically all about your power ranking, who you are and what you’ve done, which I like more, because it’s cut and dry,” said Golden Valley football Head Coach Dan Kelley.

The rankings system is to be developed by CalPreps, which would update the rankings each week based on the scores entered by each of the section’s teams.

Coach Kelley and the Grizzly staff have paid close attention to the outlined proposed changes, as their team’s season ended in disappointing fashion.

After a school best 8-2 regular season ended in a three-way tie for second-place in the Foothill League between Golden Valley, Hart and West Ranch, Golden Valley lost a three-way coin flip to determine which of the teams would receive an automatic playoff bid.

“It doesn’t make sense that the kid that battled all year to get a second-place finish in league, that their playoff opportunity comes down to a coin flip,” Kelley said. “I don’t know exactly how we can fix that, but I think we’re pointed in the right direction.”

Under the proposed changes, divisional placements for the playoffs would not be determined until after the final week of the regular season.

At the conclusion of the regular season, the final power rankings would include divisional placements and would be expected to serve as the basis for creating the 2020 Football Playoff Brackets.

The playoff brackets are to be built around the 178 automatic playoff qualifiers. Last season, 216 teams made the playoffs in total.

Under the new format, the automatic qualifiers would be seeded first based on their power ranking, distributed evenly among the various brackets. Then the available at-large bids are to be filled in by non-automatic qualifiers based on the final power rankings, regardless of league affiliation or finish.

The proposal has been developed in collaboration between CIF-SS and the Football Coaches Advisory Committee and is expected to be presented to the Southern Section Council in January.

That January presentation is also expected to include more fleshed out details, particularly the inclusion of an example of what the 2019 playoff brackets would have looked like if the new system had been implemented.

The commissioner’s letter is available in its entirety, here.

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