District Duals talk

   There's been a lot of talk in the last few hours about the District 5 Dual Meet standings, how things are calculated, and maybe how they should be.
   From reading postings today at Knop's Knotes and Bleacher Coaches, there was some ire directed to comments made by Eric Knopsnyder regarding Bedford, and whether dual meet tournaments should count toward the standings, which they currently do not.
   You can check out the above links to view them, and Eric has since clarified things in his most recent post, but I think most of us can agree that there is no system that is going to please everyone.
   I have long advocated that there needs to be a human element involved in the process, not just taking what each team does during the counted duals and figuring out the math to determine seeding based on a points system.
   In this year's case, the official seedings have Chestnut Ridge, Bedford, and Berlin in that order at the top. As noted by Odoyel Rules on Bleacher Coaches, if dual meet tournaments would have counted, the top three would be Berlin, Bedford, and Chestnut Ridge.
   My so-called human element would take in head-to-head matchups for example. Chestnut Ridge owns wins over Berlin and Bedford, and thus that would be factored in. In a perfect world, I think strength of schedule should have some weight, but that can be difficult to determine. It's easy to say the Brookville Ultimate Duals is perhaps the best dual meet tournament in Pennsylvania, and the Lions could be rewarded for a 3-2 record there if the system added dual meet events.
   But was Berlin's Mountaineer Duals better than Towanda's Dandy Mini Mart Duals, or the Line Mountain Duals, or vice versa either way? That's hard to calculate what teams that participate deserve in the points system in my opinion for wins, because team rankings of opponents are just that — rankings that give the sport something great to talk about. Nothing more, nothing less.
   Beginning recently, Tom Elling's PA Wrestling began calculating (based on the PIAA Football points system), purely unofficially, a team ranking for each district as well as a statewide ranking in both Class AA and AAA. You can find his most recent listing here for District 5 (District 5 Rankings). It is based on input into the NWCA Scoreboard by coaches. As of Tuesday's report, which does include any dual meet tournaments entered into NWCA, the District 5 top three order would be Bedford, Chestnut Ridge, and Berlin.
   Elling says that there is no "weighted factor" to those rankings, and that things like strength of district, etc. are not under consideration right now. Still, I believe that system could be an eventual barometer to figure it all out.
   But with that also said, over the years, I've talked to many coaches across the state and in others that believe more in going to individual tournaments with their eyes on the individual postseason. I find nothing wrong with that, and should their teams be hurt in the team rankings because of it? It's not any team's fault that their respective league might be in a downward year also.
   There are also districts which are going to determine "true" placewinners, in a better way of determining state team qualifiers. I've applauded that move and wrote about it before the season began on this blog. It's a shame in District 3-AA that Boiling Springs and Bermudian Springs, both highly regarded in state rankings, are likely semifinal opponents because of points, and only one of them will get to go to the PIAA Tournament next week. Of course, I'm basing that perception on the rankings and I could be completely underestimating Hamburg or Northern Lebanon.
   District 5 doesn't have that sort of problem, as only the champion moves on to Hershey, but I still believe the system could be tweaked. But how we do it and who factors in (current coaches, retired coaches, media, others, or a combination thereof) is the big question.