Unequal regions cause unfair playoff scenarios

I want to preface what I’m about to say in the next couple hundred words that I understand that a very difficult thing to do every two or four years is to take every school in the TSSAA, split them up into divisions, divide those divisions into classifications based on enrollment and split those classifications into regions and districts based on geography.

Because when you do all that splitting, you’re also trying to balance relational geography – how far apart are schools in the same district or region – with fair play and equal access to competing for championships and trying not to break any school’s budget on fuel for their buses to get them to their games.

So I get that’s it’s a hard task, but the Board of Control/Legislative Council/TSSAA has a serious flaw in the current structure of Class 2A football. They had one last year, but it’s worse this year.

In Region 6-2A, our own Jackson Central-Merry will travel to perennial powerhouse Milan this week in what could be an epic clash of undefeated teams. After JCM plays Milan, other teams on its region schedule includes defending state champion Riverside (who looks poised for another run at state), Huntingdon (who’s always good on a state level), Peabody (who’s won four state titles in the last decade, has fallen off from that pace but is still good enough to beat an opposing region champion in the first round of the playoffs), Adamsville (who was a regular in the state semifinal/championship conversation not that long ago) and Camden (who always has potential to be a quality team to make a deep playoff run).

There are seven teams that appear early in the region slate that could legitimately compete for one of the four playoff spots – leaving three teams out in the cold in November to prepare for basketball earlier than their multi-sport athletes wanted to.

Speaking of three teams, the very next region over – Region 7-2A – only has three teams in it. The region had four teams in it, but apparently MLK Prep has dropped football this year, leaving KIPP, Memphis Business Academy and Trezevant as the only three teams in the region.

There are five teams in Region 8-2A, meaning a total of eight teams in Memphis are competing for one semifinal spot in the 2A playoffs, but technically only seven will since Region 7 will only put three teams in the playoffs and give the Region 8 champion – probably Mitchell or Fairley – an automatic bye into the second round.

Meanwhile, three teams that could at least compete for if not win the Region 7 championship will sit at home because they’re in an eight-team region (Gibson County is the eighth team there).

Now to get off my soap box and make my picks.

As far as picking winners, I went 4-1 last week to bring my season total to 13-7. Of my seven losses, three have come because I picked University School of Jackson to lose.

And I’m still looking for a perfect week. With seven games involving Madison County this week, that makes it more difficult. But here we go:

JCM 20, Milan 19: I admit I’m going out on a limb here, but it can happen. The Cougars were up by two scores early last year. This JCM group is more experienced and has played together for four years, and their defensive line is larger than it was this time last year. I pick games on the radio in Milan every Friday morning, and those guys are still talking about how amazed they were seeing the JCM defensive front. I think the defensive front slows down the Milan rushing attack and JCM’s offense scores just enough to get the upset victory.

South Gibson 30, USJ 24: The Hornets have a stout rush defense, but they haven’t had to stop anyone like Noah Spencer yet. Not many were expecting much out of the South Gibson team this year because of all it lost to graduation, and those low expectations dropped even further when their best player suffered a season-ending injury in Week 1. But SGC is a scrappy bunch that has proven so far to play up or down to its talent. I think that’ll happen again this week and the Hornets play well enough for a win … or I miss my fourth USJ game of the season.

South Side 20, Chester Co. 14: Speaking of scrappy teams, South Side is a scrappy bunch of football-playing Hawks. All of their games are close getting into the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, so South Side has had a chance in all its games. I think something similar happens again in this game, but this time, South Side either scores late for the victory or holds on to it to start region play with a win.

TCA 28, Manassas 14: The Lions are talented enough to win by more, but I think their depth issues keep them from doing so while younger players take advantage of a few extra reps when TCA has the game in hand.

Jackson Christian 42, Fayette Aca. 14: The Eagles have tried to move on from last week’s loss, but haven’t yet and won’t until they step onto a field of play on Friday in Somerville. This will be a perfect storm for the Eagles to return to the dominant team they were for much of 2023. They’re probably in a bad mood, have a chip on their shoulder and are looking to burn off some stress. Meanwhile, the coaches and players got a good idea of what Fayette is capable of and will be more ready for whatever the Vikings decide to throw at them.

North Side 34, Hardin Co. 12: The Tigers haven’t shown a lot of fight this year so far in their losses, and there’s not a lot of reason to think they’ll start this week. Meanwhile, North Side could virtually go ahead and wrap up a playoff spot with a second region victory in this game.

Ripley 27, Liberty 12: The Crusaders showed early on last week they have some pride about them and do care about how the game looks. They’ll show more of that this week against a lesser opponent but will still struggle and come up short.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news