HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!
In yesterday's post about the Swedish American Football Federation's (SAFF) possible three-way tie for the Division I Södra championship and only two playoff spots, I said that I did not know how they would break this possible log jam. The problem is that if the regular season ends with the Kristianstad Predators, the Limhamn Griffins and the Ystad Rockets all sharing identical 8-2 records the initial, obvious head-to-head results would not help because all three teams would have split their two game series.
An anonymous tipster alerted me that SAFF's second tie breaker is just under the head-to-head surface. SAFF next looks at the aggregate score of each two game series.
Kristianstad beat Ystad 13-0 in their initial go round but then fell to the Rockets 13-7. That gives Kristianstad the nod by an aggregate score of 20-13.
Ystad beat Limhamn 6-0 in their first game and then lost to the Griffins 21-14. The slimmest advantage goes to Limhamn by an aggregate score of 21-20.
Therefore, in case of a three-way tie, the Ystad Rockets would be the odd team out.
As for the potential Kristianstad-Limhamn tie breaker, the Predators beat the Griffins 51-44 in their only game to date. The two teams hook up again on the last day of the regular season, August 27th, in Limhamn with a couple of possible playoff implication scenarios assumming that all three teams win their remaing games up to this point.
The first scenario is simple. If they win out, Kristianstad would be the #1 seed at 9-1, period. If Ystad wins out, at 8-2 they would be the #2 seed. If Limhamn wins out except for the Predators game, they would finish at 7-3 and out of the playoffs.
The second scenario has all three teams winning out except Limhamn beats Kristianstad in the final game. If the Griffins win by more than seven points they would also win the aggregate score battle with the Predators. Thus all three teams would be 8-2 but the aggregate score tie breaker would make Limhamn the #1 seed while Kristianstad would be the #2 seed. In this scenario Ystad turns in their gear for the year.
The third scenario is the same as the second scenario except Limhamn wins by less than seven points. All three teams are still 8-2 but the aggregate score would now favor Kristianstad over Limhamn. Now the playoff teams from Division I Södra would be Kristianstad seeded #1, Limhamn #2 and Ystad still on the outside looking in.
What if the Limhamn-Kristianstad game ends in a tie? If they have all won their other games, then it would be #1 seed Kristianstad at 8-1-1, #2 seed Ystad at 8-2 and Limhamn dreaming of what might have been at 7-2-1.
What if Limhamn beats Kristianstad by exactly seven points and they now have a tied aggregate score? Ystad is out of the money again but as to who gets the #1 and #2 seeds, beats me!!!
I'll need another anonymous tip on this one.
Kristianstad, Limhamn and Ystad, you better all watch out for bumps in the road. Everybody loves a good upset down the stretch for except the team getting upset!!!
2 comments:
Just to clarify, the score of the Predators/Griffins game was 51-44.
If I interpret the info I got from SAFF correctly, the tiebreaker after aggregate score is overall score differential, followed by total points scored on the season. At this point, Limhamn has played 2 fewer games than Kristianstad, but has allowed 3 more points and scored 71 fewer points. Tough to project, but at this point it looks like Kristianstad has the advantage.
As you (and Al Davis) like to say, "Just win, baby!"
I stand corrected on the score although I did have the point spread correct.
Just win Predators and all is good for the boys from Kristianstad!
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