Changes in Georgia Class A

photo Gordon Lee High School football head coach Charlie Wiggins discusses a play with linebacker Bryce Bailey, left, and running back Adam Vandiver during practice in Chickamauga, Ga.

Welcome to March Madness -- Georgia high school football Class A style.

While teams in Georgia's top five classes go about the traditional way of making the playoffs, teams in Class A this season will be using calculators, slide rules, soothsayers and maybe a rabbit's foot or two to keep up with their playoff hopes.

When the GHSA agreed to split public and private Class A schools for the postseason, the major concern was determining how teams would qualify for the playoffs. The final solution is a system much like the NCAA's RPI rating, where teams like Gordon Lee and Trio -- Region 6's only public schools among its 14 total teams -- will earn points based on regular season wins and how well their opponents fare.

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Needless to say, very little will be decided until the final two weeks.

"You can't map it out before because you won't really know until the final weeks where you stand," Gordon Lee coach Charlie Wiggins said. "It's interesting. Supposedly they are going to put out an update every week that will show you where you stand, but I want to see it first."

Region champions will automatically qualify. After that, the point system will determine the rest of the 16-team public and private fields and, just like the NCAA basketball tournament, a team's strength of schedule and its opponent's record is very important.

Here are the basics:

• A team receives 10 points for a win against a Class A opponent and an additional two points against a team a class up. Those bonus points go up two points per class.

• A team receives two points for a loss against a team a class up and goes up by two points per class.

• The final power rating number is the opponents' strength, which is the team's number of wins divided by 10.

For example, if Trion were to defeat Class AAAA foe LaFayette, it would get the 10 points for win and six bonus points for beating a team three classes up. If LaFayette finishes the season 6-4 the total points Trion would for that game would be 22.

The bottom line is a team's non-region games are in most cases more important than region games.

"It's wild," Trion coach Justin Brown said. "It's very important to beat teams not in our region. Our first game with [Class AAA] Armuchee means more than our region games. If you don't win your region you have to be in the top 16 in power rating at the end of the season. The way we figured it, if you go 6-4 you'll be on the bubble, but you could easily go 7-3 and sit at home."

If the coaches are having such a difficult time getting a handle on the system, how long will it take for the players to master it?

"I don't have a clue how it works," said Gordon Lee senior lineman Randall Smith. "All I know is we need to win. Do that and we'll be in, right?"

Maybe.

Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296.

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