Okay. Some wise guy asked me to give my ideas on how the brackets are going to look. If any of you want to play this game at home, the standings are here: http://standings.tappster.com/bransonsoft/default.asp and the brackets are at: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?t ... vision%20I

Looking at the games from the second column of the chart:

Game 17 - D-4 2nd (Bulverde Bracken) vs D-5 2nd (Sugar Land Logos)
Game 18 - Wild Card vs D1-1st (Abilene Christian or Midland Trinity)
Game 19 - Wild Card vs D2-1st (Dallas Covenant or Rockwall Heritage)
Game 20 - Wild Card vs D3-1st (Austin Hill Co. or New Braunfels Christian)
Game 21 - D-1 2nd (Midland Trinty or Abilene Christian) vs D-2 2nd (Rockwall Heritage or Dallas Covenant)
Game 22 - Wild Card vs D4-1st (Boerne Geneva)
Game 23 - Wild Card vs D3-2nd (Austin Hill Country or New Braunfels Christian)
Game 24 - Wild Card vs D5-1st (Huntsville Alpha Omega)

Identifying the Wild Card teams and where they would fall is a little trickier. I need to have a couple things clarified but as I understand it, the 3rd place teams are first considered by their wild card point totals and then the 4th place teams are ranked by their wild card point totals. If a district is four teams or less, the last place team is ineligible for the playoffs.

Also, I understand the wildcard teams will be assigned their opponents more-or-less on a geographic basis, but I'm going to assume that they would not play a team from their district

I've penciled in the following wild card teams and my guess on their first-round opponent):

Pasadena First Baptist (D2-1st)
Austin Veritas (D4-1st)
San Antonio Winston (D3-2nd)
Wataugua Harvest (D1-1st)
Kerrville Our Lady of the Hills (D5-1st)
Denton Calvary (D3-1st)

But I could be wrong.

So everyone plays on the 17th, correct? Even though the brackets say everyone has a bye in the opening round. TAPPS Calender has "area games" on 17th.

And will all the games be neutral site?

First round starts on November 17th. Pay no attention to the round where everybody has a "bye." TAPPS uses a 32 team bracket as their "template" on the website where brackets are formed.

Second round is November 24th, semifinals December 1 and finals December 8 at Zephyr.

First round games are home games for the higher ranked team. Games 17 & 21 both involve same-ranked teams (2nd place teams), so those games could be at neutral sites or by mutual consent.

I've been involved in games where the two teams realize that a neutral site game would be costly for both schools and decide to "flip" for home field. Paying $2000-3000 for field rental at that ideal "midpoint" site may just not be financially feasible.

Again, a lot of things are negotiable in playoff games. You might agree to use a different officiating chapter than the home team usually does. For example, in the flip situation I described above, the visiting team's officiating chapter provided the officials instead of the home team's chapter.

As a highly influential and respected member of the sixman community, I got some information on wildcard selections. These are my recollections of my conversations, so don't take them as gospel truth.

The TAPPS Athletic Executive Committee will be meeting during this week and will "firm up" details, but basic information includes:

1. District standings trump wildcard points. That means a 4th place team can't qualify for the playoffs over a 3rd place team, even though the 4th place team has more wildcard points. It is a DISTRICT race, afterall -- so doing well in District is rewarded.

2. Only 3rd and 4th place teams will be considered for sixman wildcard playoff seeds. If your district has four teams or less, the last place team for the district is not eligible for the playoffs. The size of the district is determined by TAPPS Realignment for 2012-2014. Schools can withdraw from district (such as Killeen Memorial Christian) prior to the year without penalty and reduce the number of teams in a district, but if a school indicated they would participate in district and then cancelled one or more games this season (such as Amarillo Holy Cross), they would not reduce the number of teams eligible for the playoffs.

3. Wildcard playoff assignments will be made to minimize travel as much as can be possible, but a wildcard team will not play a team from their own district in the first round.

4. It is critical that every team CHECK and UPDATE if necessary scores AND wildcard point totals in TAPPSter during this week AND insure that they are updated after Week 9 and Week 10 games (I would do this no later than Saturday, November 10 morning if you're playing Friday night and immediately after any Saturday game). TAPPS staff will be checking the TAPPSter site on Monday morning, but it's your responsibility to update your record. By the way, TAPPS has collected some $100 fines from schools (which also included a one-game suspension for the head coach) for failure to report scores. I guess it got the message across, since there haven't been any $200 fines.

(Note correction in italics)

Please tell me they did not do that. We are suppose to play them this week and its our homecoming.

Okay. I may not be accurate, but AHC didn't play last week against Midland Trinity. Maybe it was a one-week only forfeit. Let us know what happens.

I heard that they had several injuries and ineligibilities (AHC). I'm hoping that they'll be back and ready to play this week. If not, what started out to be our 4 team district will be down to us and Midland Trinity. Biggest thing in our house this week is the homecoming queen deal. I'd really hate to see the game cancelled when my daughter is one of the nominees. Two weeks without playing a game (due to the other Amarillo school closing) is no good too.

Hope your district offers an opportunity to folks like Carrollton Christian and Richardson Canyon Creek to join the party for 2013 (with, of course, the blessings of the TAPPS leadership).

Just for information - if a school has recorded a win by forfeit does that count as a win as far as wildcard points are concerned

I think so, but understand that's something the AEC is discussing....

The more the merrier......as long as it's not a school from El Paso or some other FAR away place. :)

My son came home from practice and said that AHC called off their forfeit and will come and play our homecoming game after all. I know it's a long drive for a game that probably won't be very competitive, but I do appreciate them sticking to the schedule anyway.

Probably sometime tomorrow (Mon) I will try to post my guesses for playoff scenarios, etc.

I promised some of the wiser poobahs I'd take a look at some of the standings, WCP stuff and come up with some possibilities between now and then.

But from a quick look at the standings and schedules, here's a few big Week 10 games in D1.


Dist 1 - Abilene Christian at Midland Trinity. Winner 1, Loser 2 seed.

Dist 2 - Dallas Covenant at Rockwall Heritage Christian. Ditto

Dist 3 - New Braunfels Christian at Austin Hill Country Christian. Ditto again.

I think 4 (Boerne Geneva) and 5 (Huntsville Alpha Omega) look solid unless something weird happens. Which it might, hey, it's football.

Here are my predictions:

Dist 1 Abilene Christian

Dist 2 Heritage Rockwall

Dist 3 Austin Hill Country

I don't see Rockwall making it past half with DtC