Eagles still have slim chance to make playoffs
Friday, October 08, 2004
From staff reports
Can St. Edward make the Division I state football playoffs, even after the OHSAA ruled Thursday it must forfeit four games for using an ineligible player?
One of the state's experts on the OHSAA's computer playoff system has crunched some numbers and says that
if the Eagles can win their last four games to finish 6-4, a playoff berth is not only possible, it's probable.
Few people in Ohio know the computer points system as thoroughly as Joe Eitel. For several years, his Internet site,
www.joeeitel.com, has provided fans an inside look at how their teams are faring.
Under the OHSAA system, a team receives Level 1 points for defeating an opponent - from 6.0 for a Division I team to 5.5 for a Division II team down to 3.5 for a Division VI team.
A team also receives Level 2 points, which are the points from every game a defeated opponent wins.
At the end of the season, the eight teams with the highest point averages in each of the state's 24 regions qualify for the playoffs.
Eitel looked at the computer averages of the eighth-place qualifier in Region 1, St. Edward's region, over the last five seasons. He found the following:
In 1999, Strongsville finished 7-3 and qualified with a 20.8500 computer average.
In 2000, St. Edward finished 6-3 and had 19.1237.
In 2001, Mayfield finished 8-2 and had 23.325.
In 2002, Strongsville finished 7-3 and had 21.35.
Last season, Lakewood finished 7-3 and had 18.25.
Given those numbers, Eitel projects that a 21.5000 average should be enough to qualify this year, as it would have been in four of those five years.
"If St. Edward were to win out and finish 6-4, it would have 33.5 Level 1 points," Eitel said. "Divide that by their 10 games, and they have a 3.35 Level 1 average.
"In order to get to 21.5000, St. Ed would need an 18.15 Level 2 average. In other words, their six defeated opponents would have to earn about 181.5 Level 2 points."
To provide St. Ed with 181.5 points, Eitel's conservative estimate is that the Eagles' six defeated opponents would need about 33 total wins by the end of the season.
Those six teams would be two teams St. Edward has beaten already (Maple Heights and Washington, D.C., Coolidge); and the four it still must defeat (St. Ignatius, Massillon, Cincinnati Moeller and Benedictine).
"If you look, these teams already have won 25 games," Eitel said.
So, over the last four weeks of the season, those six teams would need to combine to win eight games out of 20 possible.
"This would seem to be a cinch," Eitel said. "The main questions then, are whether St. Edward can win its last four games, and whether this arbitrary 21.5000 average will hold up."
