PSR may provide this unintended benefit for South Georgia football teams
The GHSA football playoffs are approaching, and the new postseason seeding format could give south Georgia teams a significant boost, particularly when it comes to hosting games.
The change stems from the use of the Post Season Ranking model across all classifications. The strength-of-record-based format could favor 7A and 6A south Georgia teams more than the GHSA’s prior system, which seeded the top four finishers in every region.
That’s because only five of the 16 regions in 7A and 6A have a team from the southern half of the state. Over the last two years, a maximum of two 7A teams and four 6A teams from south Georgia could host first-round games.
Over the last 10 years, just 18% of first-round playoff games in the highest two classifications have been played in the southern half of Georgia.
The PSR system won’t limit playoff berths per region, though. So theoretically, every team from a region could earn a top-16 seed, opening the door for a strong team that didn’t finish top two in its region to host a first-round playoff game.
For instance, Region 1 in 7A — which features south Georgia powerhouses Colquitt County, Valdosta, Lowndes, Richmond Hill and Camden County — has only been able to produce two first-round playoff hosts in the past.
This season, three of the five teams in Region 1-7A are projected to finish in the top 16 and host the first round, according to the Maxwell Ratings’ playoff projections. All five south Georgia 7A teams are projected to make the playoffs.
Class 7A
In Class 6A, five teams are projected to host first-round games south of Macon. Another four are projected to make the playoffs.
Class 6A
“Before, in the old model, if you didn’t win the region, as soon as the second round started, you were headed north on 75 every time unless you were lucky on a coin toss (which decided home-field advantage for equally seeded teams),” Thomas County Central coach Justin Rogers told the AJC in September. “But now, you’re fixing to use that southbound lane a little bit more because I think you’re going to see a lot of south Georgia teams ranked pretty high in that PSR, and people are going to have to start making multiple trips down here.”
Home-field advantage is even more impactful in the playoffs than it is in the regular season.
Playoff road games can cause much longer drives than the average away game in the regular season. A team from the northwest corner of the state could be seeded against a team in the southeast corner, creating a longer drive with higher travel expenses, potentially including a hotel.
Colquitt County coach Sean Calhoun experienced it last season. Calhoun’s team finished the regular season at 8-2. The Packers were in a three-way tie with Lowndes and Valdosta for first place in Region 1-7A but were the region’s No. 3 playoff seed because of tiebreakers.
If Colquitt County was seeded by PSR last season, it would have hosted in the first round as the No. 6 overall seed. Instead, the Packers drove 235 miles to Mill Creek for a 35-24 win. They drove home and back to Gwinnett County the following Friday for a season-ending 31-10 loss at Grayson.
“The No. 1 thing that I think about ... is your fan base,” Calhoun said. “It’s hard for your fan base to, one, make long trips like that, and then two, if you have to make multiple, sometimes people just can’t afford that.”
Calhoun added that logistics before, during and after game day are complicated by long away trips. He also said the difficulty compounds with every road trip.
“It is brutal because, again, your regular routine is a lot out of whack,” Calhoun said. “For us, we’re not in our bed on Thursday nights. ... Everything is sped up a day. We’re just getting everything ready for us because we’ve got to leave a day early, and it’s taxing on your body.
“And obviously, when you’re physically tired, you can get mentally tired super easy.”
The 5-3 Packers are currently No. 8 in the PSR standings, and their final two games are against teams with a combined record of 12-3.
Losing to Valdosta on Friday boosted Colquitt County’s PSR standing by one spot because Valdosta is undefeated.
Calhoun agrees with Rogers — he believes the PSR could continue to help his team into November.
“Before this year, getting the No. 1 seed was crucial,” Calhoun said. “If you’re a No. 1, (the PSR) bracket will be just like a regular NCAA basketball bracket, correct? No. 1 will be the high seed, and you’ll play four home games.
“That’s really cool, because I mean, you truly hold your own fate and destiny, when before this, everybody was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, coin toss, coin toss, coin toss,’ and you’re like, ‘Oh, this sucks.’ And now, it’s like, ‘Hey boys, we win, and we’re at home.’”