Who do they play if they advance from the finals? What game are they knocked out of if they lose in the finals?

When you get right down to it, it's a game like any other. There's as much reason to determine a winner or leave it tied as in any other game. Tying for the title is the same as tying for anything else. It's only in knockouts that you must determine who advances and who gets knocked out.

Thats the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Determining a champion is the whole reason for having a playoff tournament in the first place.

Texas used to break ties by "penetrations." If teams ended up tied, they'd go to who broke the 20 the most times (only once per possession). If that was tied, they went to first downs. I wasn't officiating then, but I watched several big games end in ties. My home town team "lost" 2 games one year on penetrations -- one in district and the other in the playoffs. The tie in district didn't hurt them as the other team lost. The playoff "loss" was to the eventual state runner up, who did lose to a team that lost earlier that year. My team was the only undefeated team in state but had a 2nd round playoff "loss" to show for it.

While in theory, it made some sense (essentially moved the goal line back 20 yards). However, trust me: you wanted no part of that rule. Teams didn't play to cross the 20, they played to score. They found out mid-way through the 4th that they MIGHT have to play to cross the 20. They found out a few minutes later that they weren't advancing to the playoffs or in the playoffs due to a rule that was impossible to prepare for or defend against because it was indeterminable. The worst OT rule is better than a) a tie game and b) the old penetrations rule.

I have read a few newspaper accounts of "penetrations" being used in our area for certain games in the late 50's, early 60's but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when it was used.

My alma mater lost a tie playoff game to our county rival in '74 based on total yardage. The first NFHS OT procedure game played here was in '76.

This post brought to you by the 1950s.

1973 for the regular season in Minnesota. It was in place for our first year of football playoffs in 1972 but none of the 15 games(3 games in each of five classes) went to OT. NO OT in the regular season in 1972 in Minnesoata

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.

This is not the first time a team has failed to win a conference title, but won a state championship. This year alone, from the 8 divisions of MHSAA 11 man football playoffs, the champions in Division 1 (Davison), Division 2 (Mona Shores), Division 5 (Lansing Catholic), and Division 6 (Monroe St. Mary's CC) won state titles without winning their conference. Mona Shores and Monroe St. Mary's CC both lost their conference titles to teams in other divisions. Davison and Lansing Catholic both beat the team in the playoffs that won their conference title.

I don't agree with the 6 win and in system Michigan uses, but that is being replaced for 2020. It will now be pre-determined divisions based on enrollment, with the top 32 teams (out of roughly 67 teams) in each division, making the playoffs based on the new playoff point system that will be used. Those teams will then be bracketed geographically like they are now.

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. 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.

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.
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.
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.