Finishing in the region's top four position will no longer guarantee a playoff berth, except for region champions. The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) has voted to change the method for selecting and seeding playoff teams for all sports that have been using traditional brackets based on region standings. The new system will begin in the 2026–27 school year and will utilize a points formula instead of region standings.
What’s Changing
For years, the top four teams in each region automatically qualified for the playoffs, and their seeding depended on their final standings within the region. Now, only region champions are guaranteed a playoff spot. The rest of the playoff teams and their seedings will be chosen using the GHSA’s Postseason Rankings Formula.
This means that even a second-place team could miss the playoffs, while a fourth-place team could get a better seed than a higher finisher from its own region.
Why GHSA Made the Change
The GHSA states that this will make the playoffs more fair by rewarding teams based on their strength compared to others across the entire state, rather than just within their region.
GHSA executive director Tim Scott, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, said the goal is to make sure “the best eight teams are in the elite eight, the best four in the final four, and the best two in the championship.”
In football, for example, several top-ranked teams often come from just a few regions, which can force elite teams to play each other too early in the playoffs. The new formula would help prevent that.
How the Formula Works
The Postseason Rankings Formula is similar to the NCAA’s RPI system. It considers:
A team’s winning percentage
The winning percentage of its opponents
The winning percentage of its opponents’ opponents
Each sport will also have a minimum number of games required to qualify for the playoffs:
Football: 9
Softball: 20
Volleyball: 30
Basketball: 22
Baseball: 20
Soccer, Lacrosse, Tennis: 14
Sports without head-to-head brackets (like golf or track) will not use this system.
Other GHSA Updates
The GHSA also renamed classifications:
Class A Division I and II will now be referred to as Class A and Class 2A.
The top class will be 7A instead of 6A.
The private-school playoff division will be called 4A–2A Private.
Private-school teams in the lower classes will still participate in separate playoffs.
PHOTO CREDIT: Prep Sports Report Staff
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