Oct 6, 2014 5 min read

Ladies and gentleman, will you please take out your calculators?

If you’re a fan of high school football, there’s a good chance you’ll need one. I miss the simple days of the 2013 season where head-to-head matchups determined which teams punched their ticket to the WPIAL playoffs.

Week 7 is upon us, and as expected, the playoff picture is clouded. It’s nothing new, really. The WPIAL always has a few conferences where the dreaded Gardner Points system will be needed.

Gardner Points are used as a secondary tie-breaking system, and it looks like we’re going to have some math to do in three weeks.

The WPIAL has a step-by-step system to break ties in high school football. The first and easiest tiebreaker is head-to-head competition, which will be necessary in the Quad-A Southeastern Conference.

Peters Township, Upper St. Clair and Bethel Park are still very much alive for the conference’s fourth playoff spot. The Indians (1-4, 2-4) must defeat Baldwin this week and Bethel Park on the road next week to have a chance. The Panthers (2-3, 2-4) have Canon-McMillan this week with a conference finale against Mt. Lebanon.

The Black Hawks (2-2, 3-3) are at Penn Hills, on the road at PT and at Baldwin. Penn Hills should beat Bethel Park and, with the Black Hawks holding the advantage over USC with a win in head-to-head competition, BP controls its own destiny.

If Bethel Park wins two of its final three games, it will make the postseason. If the Black Hawks falter, Upper St. Clair has the advantage over Peters Township in head-to-head competition. The Indians need to win both conference games, Bethel Park to lose to Penn Hills and USC to lose to Canon-McMillan and Mt. Lebanon.

Class AA’s Interstate Conference is pretty simple. Waynesburg must defeat Southmoreland this week and McGuffey must win at least one of its final three games. Those outcomes are pretty predicatable, considering the Scotties have been wildly inconsistent and the Highlanders are facing Burgettstown this week.

Is your head spinning yet? We haven’t touched on the conference that might be the most congested in the WPIAL, so take an aspirin and get ready for some math.

In Gardner Points, only conference games are counted. The winning team gets 10 points for each of the defeated team’s victories. For example, if Team A beats Team B and Team B has a 4-2 conference record, Team A gets 40 points.

Add up the Gardner Points for tied teams. If there is still a tie between two or more teams, the WPIAL tiebreaker system is used. Under the tiebreaker system, a maximum of 10 points are earned in a victory and a maximum of 10 points are lost in a defeat. Points are based on comparative scores. (For example, a 8-0 victory is worth eight points. A 15-7 loss is minus-eight.)

So where are we going to need this confusing system? Class A’s Tri-County South Conference, of course. The most crowded conference will need to determine its fourth and final playoff spot with four teams still in contention.

The final three weeks are likely to clear the picture up a bit, but Carmichaels (3-2, 3-3), Bentworth (3-3, 3-3), Jefferson-Morgan (3-3, 3-3) and Avella (2-3, 3-3) are all in contention

Beth-Center, Frazier and Mapletown arm firmly in control of spots 1 through 3, while the others will compete to see who gets the honor of facing Clairton or North Catholic in round one.

The Mikes have games remaining against Frazier, Avella and J-M. Bentworth has Mapletown and B-C left. J-M has Carmichaels and B-C. Avella has B-C, Carmichaels and West Greene.

If Carmichaels can win two out of its three games, the Mikes are in. If the Bearcats can take down Mapletown and Avella, that will help its cause, but a Week 1 loss to Carmichaels will cost them the head-to-head tie-breaker.

The Rockets need to defeat B-C and Carmichaels, which is a long shot, while the Eagles need to win at least two out of three. It’s likely to come down to a Week 9 match up between Carmichaels and Jefferson-Morgan unless Avella can upset B-C this week.

So who is in the best spot to reach the postseason? If head-to-head competition prevails, the Mikes are in good shape, but so is Avella. The Eagles have a thinner Beth-Center team this week, followed by two winnable games. Head-to-head matchups should give us a playoff team, but don’t count anything out in this conference. The unexpected keeps happening.

Start counting those Gardner Points. With the field still large, there is plenty up in the air with three weeks remaining in the season. In the conference, each week has either been a blowout win or loss for those teams, so it’s going to come down to the wire.

Who would have it any other way? Unless you hate math, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. If that’s the case, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

Lance Lysowski can be reached at llysowski@observer-reporter.com