It’s easy to take scheduling for granted in high school football.
    Most fans have one team that they follow. The Friday’s come and they go, with the first 10 games and locations known months ahead of time. If that team happens to make the postseason, seedings seem to fall from the sky to create a smooth flow as schools work their way through the bracket.
    But when looking at the big picture, the process of creating schedules and deciding on postseason eligibility for all of GHSA’s 445 teams can become quite complicated. With regions allowed to determine their own tiebreakers to arrive at its four teams which will advance to the state playoffs — and with those regions varying between five and 12 teams — there are endless ways that many region races could play out over the next week.
    Statesboro is a classic example of how some teams can be hurt by regions being sub-divided or by weird guidelines used to determine the top four teams in each region.
    The Blue Devils were 8-0 and had been ranked in the Class AAAA top-10 poll every week of the season before losing to Wayne County Friday night. Now sitting at 8-1, Statesboro will have to win a play-in game next week or else sit on the sidelines with an 8-2 record and watch the playoffs while plenty of teams with fewer victories punch their tickets to the postseason.
    Even if the Devils win next week, they’ll be behind the 8-ball. The best Statesboro can hope for is a No. 3 seed in the state playoffs, meaning a long trip somewhere out in Southwest Georgia. A 9-1 record — and likely plenty of top-10 votes — shouldn’t be the recipe for having to face a top region team on the road, but such are the ways of building the bracket.
    Southeast Bulloch knows it will be in the state playoffs, but can still finish any of the top three spots in Region 1-AAA. While next week’s games could easily break up win-loss records to put everyone in neat order, a three-way tie would mean that a coin flip — involving no football whatsoever — would determine where Appling County, Pierce County and SEB are heading.
    Last year proved that settling things on the field can be just as messy.
    Three teams in Region 2-AA tied for the final two playoff slots, leading all three to meet up on a Monday afternoon to play a round-robin matchup that lasted a quarter apiece. That sort of jamboree-style schedule is usually only seen in the preseason, yet it determined the 2012 postseason picture.
    Craziest of all is the Class A landscape.
    Last year, the GHSA broke up the Class A postseason into a pair of 16-team brackets — one for public schools and one for private. Region champs are still guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, but a top-4 region finish is no longer good enough. After region champs are placed in their respective brackets, the remaining slots are filled out based on a BCS-style power poll that had most coaches confused throughout last fall.
    Because of weights placed on playing teams from higher classifications, there is also BCS-style controversy amongst Georgia’s smallest schools. In the latest standings, two private schools without winning records would be in if the playoffs began today. Last season, two public schools with 5-5 marks got to the postseason while three teams with winning records were left out.
    Overall, its safe to say that even with just one week of the regular season remaining, nearly half of the playoff spots in all classifications are up for grabs. In the end, there are bound to be some ties. Some will be settled by head-to-head records. Others will focus on sub-region records, point differentials or coin flips. There might even be a three-legged race in some region’s bylaws.
    But let’s not worry. New region alignments will be posted this coming spring and we can begin weaving new strange ways to reach the postseason.

    Mike Anthony may be reached at (912) 489-9404.