Andy's Rant: How did the WVSSAC find itself in such a mess just days before the start of its football playoffs?

We take a dive into what has become a bit of a mess when it comes to West Virginia's computer rating formula to decide who goes to the playoffs

Just days before the scheduled start of the WVSSAC football state playoffs the West Virginia football postseason is embroiled in numerous legal challenges. / File

In four days, the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission (WVSAAC) high school football playoffs are supposed to start.

Heck, the state's Class A state volleyball tournament, which was scheduled to begin tomorrow (Tuesday), has been postponed indefinitely due to pending litigation. Volleyball isn't the only sport that might be seeing a delay.

West Virginia high school football playoffs could be delayed due to injunction: Report

According to a report by MetroNews out of West Virginia last week, the Wood County Board of Education filed a petition for an injunction on Friday against the WVSAAC, challenging the football playoff rating formula used by the association.

The WVSAAC is expecting on Tuesday that more schools will be filing injunctions regarding being removed from the state's initial football playoff brackets because of disputes with the association's playoff rating formula. Point Pleasant on Monday evening went became the latest school looking to delay the WVSAAC playoffs.

Notice in the X post below by Taylor Kennedy of the Gazette Mail, that West Virginia's football postseason is now has tentative start date of November 15th. That seems to be telling to all that they association is expecting some kind of delay due to the expected legal proceedings.

🚨 BREAKING

Point Pleasant High School has become the latest to take the SSAC to court seeking to delay the Class AAA state football playoffs, which *tentatively* start on Nov. 15, 2024. #wvprepfb pic.twitter.com/Bi8Un8JHev

— Taylor Kennedy (@Taylor_Kennedy7) November 11, 2024

How the heck does this become a major problem just days away from the state's postseason scheduled start date? Well, you just have to take a trip down memory lane about a year to get where everything started.

The WVSAAC's realignment among member schools from almost a year ago is where the main issues originally derive, as the association decided to add a fifth classification to the ranks, which included football. Disagreements began there by member schools regarding the competitive balance formula. This triggered a series of reclassification of schools just before the season started.

Count that at 22 schools to be exact. Imagine in the state of Alabama, California, Georgia, Florida or Texas a season where over 20 member schools of the state's largest high school governing body decided they would like to reclassify just days before the season starts?

Nonetheless, over 20 schools got reclassified, which brought into question even more of the football rating formula used by the WVSSAC. Though 22 schools got waivers and were able to reclassify, nothing was done regarding the football playoff rating formula used by the association.

The regular season has come and gone, with the recent release of the WVSSAC playoff brackets bringing upon the injunction by Wood County.

Wood County's injunction was upheld and four schools were displaced from the postseason brackets, which have now already seen more legal action taken by school boards which further threaten delaying the WVSSAC playoffs.

“Then we would have competing injunctions. We can’t pick and choose which one we are going to follow. That would be up to a higher court to decide that. We would take a look next at what steps to take for that decision to be made. Hopefully it can be done quickly. If not, then we would have to look at possibly postponing or moving back a week or two until that decision is made. Those are all speculation at this point,” WVSSAC Executive Director David Price said via the MetroNews report.

Once again, use your imagination and think if a governing body of one of the aforementioned major states released postseason brackets and then had to remove multiple schools because of an injunction? That's exactly what the WVSSAC had to do because of Wood County's injunction due to the playoff formula that was never reconfigured.

You shouldn't need a legal expert to figure out playoff seeding. The WVSSAC and all members involved should have had the reclassifications and any ramifications from it figured out months ago. Playoffs start in 4 days and you still have teams that don't know who they're playing,…

— WV Sports Talk (@SportsTalk_304) November 11, 2024

Hampshire, Westside, Point Pleasant and Tolsia were all schools that were removed from the WVSSAC's playoffs via the new brackets released on Saturday afternoon. Knowing that each school will likely that legal action, thus holding up 26 playoff games from taking place this week.

This entire ordeal, however, could spill into next week.

There's absolutely no perfect playoff system formula when it comes to high school sports, especially one as competitive and important as football.

When seeing how everything has gone down for the WVSSAC and its 2024 high school football season since the outset, inquiries regarding the formula were left unanswered and now there's a bevy of questions all over the place for folks in West Virginia.

Simply put, what is going on just four days before the WVSSAC playoffs is a bit of a mess and hopes are by many, it can get cleaned up in time so foot can meet leather on Friday night.

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-- Andy Villamarzo | villamarzo@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi