Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com

NHIAA football will no longer use the New Hampshire Index System to determine playoff teams.

The NHIS, which was put in place earlier this year, will remain in place for all NHIAA sports except football and golf. Ties will be broken using the old formula, which uses the head-to-head result as the first tiebreaker.

In football, the NHIS awarded more points for a road victory (5) than it did for a victory at home (4), regardless of the opponent. Under that formula, two teams could finish with the same record, but the team that lost the head-to-head meeting could be awarded the final playoff spot based on points earned.

Coaches have cited other problems created by the NHIS that they felt were unfair as well. For example, not all teams in the same division play an equal number of road games.

Here is the memo that was issued following Thursday's meeting:

"Today the NHIAA Council listened to a presentation by Football Committee Chair, Carol Dozibrin, regarding discontinuing the use of the NHIAA Index System for the sport of football.  Carol's presentation focused on the difference between football and other sports due to the small number of games and the inequity created in the ability to play an equal number of home and away games with the DIII - DVI nine game schedules.  Also football was cited as the only sport where all teams across all divisions play each other making an equalizer unnecessary.  After a lengthy debate the Council voted to make the change from the NH Index System to the previously utilized football tie breaking procedure and football rating system effective immediately (October 21, 2010) and retroactive to the beginning of the current 2010 football season.  This change was made for football only.   Consequently we will revise the standings report on the web site to reflect this change as soon as we can get the site updated.  The Council was also asked to look at counting all games in the sports of football and Lacrosse.  Because this change is not set to be implemented until the next half of the classification cycle (2012-13) the topic was tabled for discussion at a future meeting.  There was clearly some reluctance to making this change so late in the fall and before the system had actually been utilized for a full season.  In the end, however, the Council found the arguments for doing this in football to be compelling enough to reverse their decision of last year.  Although there was no discussion of other sports, I don't believe there is any intent to make any changes to the Index System in any other sports this year."