District 11 adopts new power-ratings system

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[August 17, 2012]

District 11 adopts new power-ratings system

Aug 17, 2012 (The Morning Call (Allentown - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- District 11 has approved a new power-ratings system that will be used to determine playoff qualifiers starting in the fall, Whitehall athletic director and District 11 vice chairman Bob Hartman announced in a press release this afternoon.

The new system, modeled after the one PIAA District 3 uses to qualify teams for the playoffs, was adopted Wednesday during the District 11 committee meeting. The new power ratings will give greater importance to strength of schedule and put less emphasis on enrollment classifications. In the press release, District 11 said the move should promote local rivalries and in turn decrease transportation costs.

District 11 has contracted with Gary Brownell for a web-based system that will tally the points and be updated constantly on the District 11 website.

"We've been looking at it for a year or so," Hartman said in a phone interview Friday. "We piloted it in girls soccer last spring. We used the whole web-based system in soccer and softball. We reviewed it, liked it and wanted to fully implement it." The system will work as follows, according to the release.

"The system is based on a perfect score of 1.000," the release reads. "That number is actually unachievable, because an undefeated team cannot beat all undefeated teams all season. The higher the number to 1.000, the higher the ranking a team has. There are two components to the rating system, called Team's Weighted Winning Percentage (TWWP) and Opponent's Weighted Winning Percentage (OWWP). The TWWP numbers are derived based on classification and result for TWWP. The OWWP numbers are derived based on the total of your opponents' records. Technology allows us the ability to track these numbers much more easily." District 11 will give schools up to 95 hours to report their results. If schools don't report results, they will face fines from District 11.

Class 4A football and Class 3A and 2A boys volleyball will be exempt from the new system because District 11 teams in those sports are placed in a subregional.

Preferential seeding will still be given to conference champions.

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