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Originally Posted by chapmaja
One of the reasons for "having more teams than you need to realistically determined a champion" is that not all schools compete in the same playoff division within a conference.
I will use this season's Michigan High School State Champions as an example.
In Division 2, Mona Shores High School won the state title in Division 2. They did not win their conference championship this season because they were in a conference with Muskegon High School, a team that spent much of the season ranked in the USA Today national Top 25 (and lost the D3 title game). If we only allowed conference championship winning teams into the playoffs we would not not allow a team that was obviously deserving of winning a state title into the post-season.
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How were they "obviously deserving"? Did they choose to play Division 3 schools? If so, then why should they get two bites of the apple? If they were in a Division 3 conference, then as far as I'm concerned, Muskegon knocked them out.
If there's some sort of dual competition going on, where a team's record counts for more than one division, then I don't know what to say, except that that's not an argument for how to arrange playoffs in a state where division competition is separate. Michigan may just require some unique playoff format to go with a unique season format.
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The reason for systems like this is there are teams who may not play well early in the season, but that could make a deep playoff run late in the season when they gel as a team. I've seen 5-4 teams (that get in to "fill the field") win state titles in Michigan before.
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So why should "knockouts" count more heavily for actually knocking an entrant out than the regular season is? If you want to discount games from early in the season, just call them exhibitions and not count them in deciding playoff berths.
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Farmington Hills Harrison did that the first year of the 6 wins and in playoff system. They lost 2 games in the first 6 weeks, then forfeited two games as well. They sat 2-4 after 6 weeks, but won a state title. One of their losses that season was the state champion in a higher division.
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There again, it should be only one bite of the apple. Why not just not count games played out of division? If you want those games to count, you take your chances.