Tokay coaches, players puzzled by playoff bracket

When the Sac-Joaquin Section released its playoff brackets Saturday, the Tokay High football coaches and players were a little confused as to why the Tigers were the No. 14 seed when teams with similar records, or worse records, were seeded higher in the Division II bracket.

The No. 14 seed pairs the Tigers with No. 3 Grant — the D-II defending champion and winners of 24 games in a row, including the CIF Open Division championship bowl game last season.

By looking at records alone, Tokay has the same as Sacramento, which drew the No. 12 seed. Sacramento finished fourth in the Metro League which gave them a higher seed because Tokay finished fifth in the Tri-City Athletic League. West and Tokay both went 2-3 in TCAL, but West earned the fourth-place spot because it won the head-to-head matchup with Tokay by beating the Tigers 48-47 in the regular-season finale.

Will DeBoard, the section's director of communications, said that Tokay was originally seeded No. 13, but was dropped to 14th to avoid other conflicts. Teams can be shifted according to section rules, such as preventing teams from the same leagues from facing each other in the first round.

Moves can also be made to prohibit teams ranked Nos. 13-16 from traveling over 150 round-trip miles for first-round games. So moves were made. That's why Woodcreek is seeded a spot above the Tigers. If Tokay would have finished as the No. 12 seed, it would have avoided the moves.

"Tokay got caught up in the mix," DeBoard said.

Tokay head coach Louis Franklin said he would like for the section to be more forthcoming in explaining how the final bracket is produced and why his team is at No. 14 and facing Grant instead of being No. 13 and taking on No. 4 Folsom.

"Obviously we were happy we made the playoffs. If you want to win the D-II playoffs, you are going to play good teams. You are going to play them eventually," he said. "We just wanted an explanation."

Reader Feedback

al da long wrote on Nov 19, 2009 9:34 PM:

" why are teams with a 2-3 league records even in the playoffs? Why are teams with that record complaining about their seeding? "

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Whoa Nellie! wrote on Nov 19, 2009 8:36 AM:

" RUFKM brings up a factual point.

But, we can all agree that the teams Tokay played Out Of Conference (OOC) were cupcakes. The Tigers "Strength of Schedule" is weak due to that fact, hence a lower seeding. I'm guessing the Sac Dragons played better overall teams then Tokay did over the course of the season. "

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RUFKM wrote on Nov 19, 2009 7:12 AM:

" Tokay should have just won more games! Easily could have been 7-3 or an 8-2 if they come out on the other end of two one point losses. "

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whyteman wrote on Nov 19, 2009 6:48 AM:

" Grant is saying the same thing at being #3...I think Saco is cooking something up, could it be "playoffgate" lol? "

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