Lake Brantley beat Hagerty by 56 points on October 30, and yet Hagerty could still end up ranked ahead of the Patriots when Florida High School Athletic Association playoff brackets are unveiled Friday. The twist comes courtesy of a new ranking formula in its first season of determining postseason seeding statewide, and it has coaches across Central Florida grumbling about an algorithm most of them don’t fully understand.
The FHSAA Board of Directors voted 10-0 earlier this year to adopt MaxPreps rankings as the sole determinant of football playoff seeding in every classification, according to the Palm Beach Post. Before the switch, the FHSAA had relied on its own power rankings to set seeds. That internal system had itself been a version of MaxPreps numbers, but one that excluded margin of victory, according to seed reporting from the Orlando Sentinel. The FHSAA Football Coaches Advisory Committee had requested the move to pure MaxPreps ratings, and the board approved it.
A 56-0 Loss That Might Not Matter
Heading into this past week, Hagerty sat just 0.29 of a decimal point behind Lake Brantley in the MaxPreps formula, close enough that a strong result could flip the two teams despite Brantley’s lopsided win over the Huskies the previous Friday, per the Orlando Sentinel’s reporting on the ongoing playoff picture. Hagerty (6-4) then beat a tough New Smyrna Beach team 25-20 on the road, a result that could nudge it past Brantley in the rankings even though the two teams have already played. That outcome traces back to how little weight the MaxPreps algorithm gives to head-to-head results between teams, according to the seed story’s reporting.
Lake Brantley, now 5-5, had been projected as the No. 8 seed in the Class 6A Region 1 bracket before Tuesday night, but Hagerty’s Tuesday victory could change the next rankings update, expected Thursday. Brantley’s resume includes losses to undefeated Seminole, Oviedo, Manatee and Lake Howell, along with an earlier-season win over Lake Mary. The five teams Brantley did beat had 15 combined wins among them, an average of three wins per opponent, based on the seed article’s accounting.
Coaches Voice Frustration With the Formula
Lake Brantley head coach Garrett Kruczek said he had little confidence in the algorithm determining his team’s playoff future, though he conceded that a victory over Apopka earlier in the season would probably have eased his concern, according to the seed reporting. Apopka, now 5-5 after defeating Timber Creek 49-14 in Tuesday’s makeup game, has been watching the rankings shift along with everyone else. Timber Creek finished 6-4…