A new formula will determine Florida high school football rankings. What you need to know
The Florida High School Athletic Association has once again made a change to how at-large teams will reach the high school football playoffs.
So long, points system. Hello RPI rankings.
The decision became official on Monday when the FHSAA board of directors voted 11-3 to endorse the new structure. It will take place beginning this season.
“The FHSAA Football Advisory Committee, made up of eight football coaches from each section of our state, along with one rep from the Florida Athletic Coaches Association, felt a move to a RPI ranking system was needed to create more accurate rankings for football playoff qualification and seeding,” the FHSAA wrote in a post announcing the decision. “Furthermore, they felt the previous ranking system, which consisted of your own winning percentage and your opponents’ winning percentage, was shallow. Lastly, the committee cited bonus points specifically as creating scheduling havoc.”
So how does the RPI (short for Ratings Percentage Index) work? It’s a three-prong formula used to measure a team’s strength of schedule relative to other teams. The weighted breakdown is as follows:
▪ A team’s winning percentage (35 percent)
▪ The winning percentage of the team’s opponents (35 percent)
▪ The winning percentage of the opponents’ opponents (30 percent)
All varsity regular-season games will be factored into the formula. No bonus points will be awarded like in the previous points system. Margin of victory is not taken into account. MaxPreps will calculate the RPI rankings based on the FHSAA’s formula.
The RPI rankings will be used to determine which teams receive at-large berths into the state series. In the four large-school classifications (8A-5A), the 16 district champions earn automatic bids into the playoffs with four teams from each of the four regions earning at-large bids. In the four small-school classifications (4A-1A), six teams from each region will advance to the playoffs solely based on the RPI ranking.
South Florida had six football teams advance to state championships last season. Three of those schools — Class 6A Northwestern, Class 5A Cardinal Gibbons and Class 3A Chaminade-Madonna — won state titles. Northwestern became the first team in Florida high school football history to win a state title after finishing third in its district during the regular season.
This story was originally published January 28, 2019 at 12:04 PM.
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