We take this Saturday evening to make one more set of playoff projections for eight man football. CHSAA will release the official bracket on Sunday with league champions getting automatic bids and the rest of the field determined by RPI.
Our projections do not include any updates on what we call the composite rankings that take into account votes from RPI, MaxPreps, Packard and the CHSAA coaches poll. A formula based on those data points can be used by the seeding committee to place teams in the bracket. Once teams are seeded, they can be moved for geographic purposes and then head-to-head results may also come into play for teams that are connected on the seed line. For example, a #4 team can move ahead of #3 if they won the head-to-head but a #5 team cannot move ahead of the #3 team even if they won a head-to-head matchup during the regular season.
One other item involves league champions who finish in the RPI Top 10. Those clubs are guaranteed to play at home unless they’re paired with another league champion. League champs outside the Top 10 are included in the bracket but not guaranteed a game at home.
If we use straight RPI from Saturday morning before games were played; then the bracket appears in this order:
- #1 Sedgwick County vs #16 Swink
- #8 Merino vs #9 Pikes Peak Christian (PPC would host)
- #4 Vail Christian vs #13 Rangely
- #5 Mancos vs #12 Sargent
- #3 Dayspring Christian vs #14 Holly
- #6 Fowler vs #11 Caliche
- #2 Sanford vs #15 Simla
- #7 West Grand vs #10 Elbert (Elbert would host)
There are concerns with this bracket as Rangely-Vail Christian and Mancos-Sargent would need to be altered to prevent conference matchups in round one. Travel though seems in good shape.
We don’t expect this to be the final bracket though as a surprising result from Saturday will shake up the pairings quite a bit. Elbert is the Central league championship but they finished the regular season with a 14-0 loss to South Park. So when new RPI standings are issued either later tonight or early Sunday morning, we expect the Bulldogs to drop out of the RPI Top 10 which means they’re no longer guaranteed a home game in round one. We also believe this will alter the back half of the bracket somewhat.
Now in laying our final bracket, we move teams around quite a bit and the goal is to get balance for the top clubs statewide. Our final bracket splits up the top two teams from each conference and places them in opposite sides of the bracket. To achieve the balance, there are surprising moves as Dayspring Christian jumps ahead of league champions Sanford and Vail Christian and then West Grand is bumped ahead of Pikes Peak Christian. But here is a look at what we feel would be a great bracket; giving stronger conferences a good chance to move through the bracket.
- #1 Sedgwick County vs #16 Swink
- #8 Pikes Peak Christian vs #9 Merino
- #4 Sanford vs #13 Holly
- #5 Vail Christian vs #12 Sargent
- #3 Dayspring Christian vs #14 Rangely
- #6 Mancos vs #11 Elbert
- #2 Fowler vs #15 Simla
- #7 West Grand vs #10 Caliche
These are not official in any manner but simply the opinion of Colorado Preps. New RPI standings will be posted and they will be used, along with conference finish, to place teams in the bracket. The official pairings are due out on Sunday with first round games set for this coming Friday and Saturday. The state champion will be crowned on November 30th.
