MIAA votes to keep status quo in power rankings system for State Football Tournament seedings

Everett football’s fate this year – 7-1, GBL Champ and no playoffs– city as key case in call for win-loss element in seedings

By Steve Freker

The pleas from schools like Everett High, Springfield Central and others around the state for the consideration and hopeful addition of a win-loss element to the MIAA State Football Tournament seeding considerations did not draw enough support for change Wednesday. At a meeting of the Tournament Management Committee (TMC) of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) at MIAA headquarters in Franklin, the members voted, 11-5, to keep the current state rankings policy – with no new changes.

Since its implementation in the Fall 2021 season, some coaches, athletic directors, and administrators have been uncomfortable with margin of victory being a key component in the state’s Power Ranking formula for tournament seeding. Suggestions were brought to the TMC by some athletic directors that in addition to strength of schedule (SOS) and margin of victory (MOV) considerations, that a school team’s win-loss percentage/number of wins play a role in determining power rankings.

By an 11-5 vote, the TMC voted to retain and maintain the existing format– without adding any win-loss/win total consideration – moving forward. What this means straight up locally for Everett High football is that if the same scenario took place next year, a 7-1 finish and perhaps even an 8-0 undefeated record, would not guarantee a postseason berth once again.

The primary mitigating factor is the existing Greater Boston League strength of members in the grand scheme, with no other Division 1 teams except Everett and subpar performances and win-loss records for the GBL.

“The arguments against [the existing power seedings format] working are becoming more and more difficult to come up with,” TMC Chair Shaun Hart, who is Athletic Director for Burlington Public Schools, said at Wednesday’s meeting in Franklin, of the current format.

“The margin of victory piece, philosophically, I understand there’s a difference to it. I don’t subscribe to it, but I don’t dismiss it either,” the Burlington AD added.

Behind the proposal voted down was the intention to lessen the importance of MOV and SOS in the equation; adding a win-loss component to the formula was put in front of the MIAA’s Tournament Management Committee with an eye to preventing “running up the score” as one unwelcomed derivative.

Lending collected data to the debate, MIAA Deputy Director Sherry Bryant said the percentage of regular-season games exceeding the current cap on margin of victory (three goals in soccer, 10 points in basketball, 14 points in football) has not changed since the change to the statewide tournament in 2021. Before the current postseason, Bryant said, 40 percent of basketball games were 10 points or less, and that number has held steady the past couple of seasons. Results from the fall State Tournament bore notice that the existing power seedings were accurate, Bryant continued, noting the higher-seeded team won 78 percent of the football games, 80 percent of girls volleyball games, 80 percent of boys soccer and girls soccer games and more than 90 percent of field hockey games.

It was a vote that has been considered for months, but the call to add a win-loss component heated up this past fall when Everett High football – a traditionally strong playoff qualifier and winner of 13 Super Bowls in the past 30 seasons – failed to qualify for the Division 1 playoffs despite a 7-1 regular season and Greater Boston League Championship. Everett finished out of the money, ranked 18th and behind two teams, #15-ranked Leominster (4-4) and #16-ranked Braintree, both of which finished regular season at 4-4, in a 16-team bracket. Six games against weaker Greater Boston League competition ended up saddling Everett High football as the only team out of the 33 teams sitting in Division 1 to have a minus opposition teams rating.

Some opinions being floated in football circles are suggestions that Everett High continue to be a full member of the GBL – except for football – and for the Crimson Tide to play an independent football schedule, choosing teams more on its own plane of competition. Everett could continue to play GBL schools on the football field if it so chose, but as a new independent, could also choose to go completely out of the GBL for football scheduling, if such a move came to pass.

This move was openly discussed before, but never carried out, during the former reign of Everett football supremacy in the 2000s and 2010s under legendary former Head Coach John DiBiaso Jr., whose teams – at one point– won 11 of 15 Super Bowl titles in 15 years from 1997-2012, then two more in 2016-2017. Coach DiBiaso left Everett and went to coach at Catholic Memorial after his final Super Bowl win, in 2017.