Fans always ask, who is the most dominate team over the ages? Illinois Pigskin came up with a thing called the Pigskin Powerhouse Point System.
The process was started last year when Donnie Laur, southernil on IHSS was trying to determine how to rank a powerhouse over time. From that a system was developed in this thread on IHSS. Basically, from there it was modified a bit.
Football Powerhouse - "a team considered to be the best in its class". Looking at that it was decided that total playoff appearances was important. Playoffs are where you basically find out who is the best in its class, in Illinois. Enrollments go up and down but basically you are playing against teams of comparable enrollment, so comparing one to another, works. This doesn't mean that team one in its prime could have beat two. The IHSA playoffs started in 1974, and data is available who made the state championship and received first and second place. A championship carries more weight than a runner-up, we looked at it as a championship, the glory, the fact that people remember you won, might last ten years while five years considered reasonable for a runner-up trophy. Longevity is important and for most years you have to have a winning record to make the IHSA playoffs, so consecutive qualifying streaks are important.
The breakdown
- Add +1 point per year qualified for the IHSA playoffs.
- Add half of a point, .5 pts, per year of a consecutive streak, still current.
- Add 10 points per championship title.
- Add 5 points per runner-up trophy.
- The points are then totaled.
- We are curious about regions, which regions have the best powerhouses, so they are split up by our Illinois Pigskin regions, we use area codes. Area code 618, 217, 309, 815, and the rest is simply Chicago. At this point, the Chicago teams were not included. I might add them in later as the data on those extra teams are included. However, you can use the point system to figure out where your team may stand.
Thumbs up to the Morris page that has a similar rating system. You can find that at http://www.morrisredskinsfootball.com/prepplayoffs.html
