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KISS.
Does everyone remember that acronym -- keep it simple stupid?
Actually, that's a pretty good daily reminder of how one could go about life.
Basically, try not to make things any harder than they have to be.
Now that my least favorite day of the year has gone by the wayside -- the summer solstice -- and I'm back from taking some time off to recharge, one of the first things I wanted to delve into was the new ratings plan for prep football here in the Mountain State.
Wayne Ryan, an assistant executive director at the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, gave a recent interview where he explained the changes.
I watched the interview, tried to figure out what was going on and then hopped on over to wvtailgatecentral.com.
Much like , the tailgate website has a plethora of information on it and that includes the WVSSAC ratings from previous years.
When it comes to math, in general, I always have been a pretty big fan of the subject.
However, the last time I had so many problems trying to do math was back in college at then Salem-Teikyo University when I took what I thought would be a simple class called statistics.
Needless to say, trying to do those "stats" was unlike any other kind of "statistics" I had been exposed to at that point in my life.
The tailgate website has a message board on it and there's been a decent amount of chatter about the new ratings system. A few people even posted what they thought the Class A ratings would've looked like this past fall if the new system had been in place.
I looked through some of that, but wasn't sure if anyone was correct and decided to just go try and figure it out for myself.
How complicated could it be?
Let's just say I had to call Mr. Ryan at the WVSSAC office to make sure what I thought was correct.
For anyone who wants to try and figure things out on their own, the best piece of advice I can give you is KISS.
Using the tailgate website will be a must and one might also want to bookmark the website https://www.wvmat.com/statetou/24classes.pdf, which lists current W.Va. school enrollment figures.
The reason one needs the school enrollment is due to teams now being awarded bonus points for every loss.
On top of that, one also needs to know when it comes to every out of state program which classification they fall under for the current ratings system.
I'll make this as clear as possible for people to understand, but the old system and way of figuring ratings will be exactly the same as it has been for years.
However, the caveat comes when teams do not go undefeated and suffer setbacks.
Think of it this way for single-A football in 2022. If the WVSSAC had the new system implemented, No. 1 James Monroe (10-0, 11.0 rating), No. 3 Cameron (10-0, 9.90 rating), No. 4 Wahama (10-0, 9.50 rating) and No. 6 Van (10-0, 8.80 rating) would have the exact same rating because they didn't suffer a loss.
After that is when the fun begins and the new ratings points for losses start to add up.
"It's just like always, every win in your class or above. If you lose to a team, if their win is in their class or above, it's based on whether they are single-A, double-A or triple-A," Ryan said.
The new rule gives 0.6 (A), 0.9 (AA) and 1.2 (AAA) bonus points for each team you lose to if they have other wins in their class or higher.
For example, Tygarts Valley finished last fall at 0-10 and thus their final rating was 0.00 because we all know any number divided by zero is zero.
However, in order to figure out what their rating would've been based on the new configuration, one has to look at their schedule and start counting opponent wins.
TVHS played all single-A programs, which makes it easy.
They lost to Valley to open the season and the Lumberjacks won six games. Tucker County in week two was a loss and the Mountain Lions won nine times.
Thus, for those two teams alone Tygarts Valley would receive three points from Valley (0.6 x 5 wins) and 4.8 points from Tucker County (0.6 x 8 wins).
State champion Williamstown and head coach Chris Beck would've had the No. 1 spot instead of James Monroe if this system was in place a year ago.
The only setback for the Yellowjackets came against Fort Frye, which won nine games. Based on the new rules that loss would've given WHS 4.8 more points (0.6 x the Cadets' eight other wins) and moved their final rating from 11.00 (99 points in nine games) to 11.53 with 103.8 points in nine games.
Currently, there isn't anything official available in writing to look at, but that's the crux of the new system that's supposed to encourage teams to play stronger schedules.
I was talking with ratings guru Ed Forshey on Tuesday as we tried to make sure we were on the same page.
As far as Class AAA goes from a year ago, No. 3 Martinsburg would've bumped to the overall top seed with Parkersburg South going from first to third and Huntington remaining at second.
The same 16 triple-A programs which made the playoffs this year wouldn't have changed if the new bonus rules were in place.
After Williamstown and James Monroe, third through fifth in single-A would've remained constant with Cameron, Wahama and Wheeling Central rounding out the top five.
Van, though, would've gone from the No. 6 seed and a home game to hitting the road as the No. 10 seed.
The biggest riser other than Man would've been South Harrison, which finished in ninth place but thanks to their losses would've jumped to a home game and the No. 6 seed.
Tucker County and Greenbrier West, which were seventh and eighth in the final year of the old rankings, would've swapped positions.
Man also went up three spots from their actual No. 12 seed to what would've been a No. 9 seed.
Petersburg, which finished 16th and earned the final spot last fall, would've dropped out of the playoff field with Midland Trail taking the spot.
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com