Well, the end of the 2024 GHSA football season is almost over, and with that, the fall sports season comes to a close.
The biggest story line coming into the 2024-25 athletic season was the post season rankings, or PSR for short.
Classes A-Division 1 through 3A were the guinea pigs for this brand new system that took private schools out of play for the postseason and put them in their own bracket.
And while the focus might have been football as that is arguably the flagship high school sport in Georgia, the PSR is in effect for all team sports, including volleyball and softball in the fall.
So, with the fall seasons complete, that begs the question: did it work?
Let’s start with football. When you look at first-round major upsets (we aren’t taking into account 17 seeds beating 16s or 18s over 15s, given how close those seedings are), there were only four games out of 48 possible first-round matchups that would classify.
This means that for the most part, we saw the top two teams in each region make it to the second round.
And in the finals of those three classifications, you have 2 vs. 4 in 2A, 8 vs. 6 in A-D1 and 1 vs. 6 in 3A.
So, for football, it seems like it worked.
But let’s dive into the other two fall sports to see if it translates to other sports.
Softball is a pretty easy one to see if it worked. Did the top teams make it to Columbus? Well, in all three classifications, you saw six of the top eight seeds advance, with the lowest seed that made it to the final site came out of 2A in Union County at No. 22.
Volleyball was a little more chaotic. While Classes A and 2A saw 1 vs. 2 in the finals, 3A had 5 vs. 7. On the surface, not that far off.
But let’s look at those major upsets in the first round. Out of the 48 first round matchups in the three classifications, 10 saw major upsets, including 30th seed Dawson County going on the road and winning their first round game.
So, even though we have a small sample size, the question again is asked, “Did it work?”
The short answer is yes.
The PSR brackets gave us the best teams in the finals or at the final site. There weren't many early round games against teams ranked in the top 10 across the state, which allowed for the best teams to play longer.
But…there is so much room for improvement.
Take for example in football, all four of the 8-3A teams that made it into the tournament were in the same quadrant with a region rematch in the opening round, second round and quarterfinals. Call it a region tournament to determine who gets to play for a chance at The Benz, because that is exactly what it was.
I would bet on that same type of situation happening multiple more times over the winter and spring sports. Maybe not all four teams from a region being placed in the same quadrant, but I could see three easily ending up that way based on how the bracket is set up. I could say the same thing about the College Football Playoff bracket, but that’s a whole other opinion piece.
For the GHSA, with a couple of tweaks and adjustments, this PSR system is perfect for teams, fans and everyone involved. The best teams in the classifications get the best chances to make it to the end. And that’s what we want to see.
Winter and spring sports will give us more data points, but I think that the GHSA should make the tweaks over the next six months to be ready for the 2025-26 season and expand it to all classifications.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Buford and Gainesville seeded into a bracket? They do the PSRs for all classifications anyway.
