Davis: Madison West football players deserve answers from WIAA on playoff ban – Madison.com

The four-week win-or-go sprint to Camp Randall Stadium begins in seven 32-team divisions.

In the cases of Madison West and Greenfield, that chance was taken out of their hands.

The Regents and Hustlin’ Hawks were wrongly kept out of the postseason after the WIAA said it was applying past tiebreaker criteria to determine this year’s playoff participants, but used the wrong information, resulting in Madison West and Greenfield being excluded. Meanwhile, Pewaukee and Madison Edgewood were wrongfully incorporated without fault.

“I would definitely say from a team standpoint and from an individual standpoint, it’s pretty disappointing that it happened,” Madison West senior Ike Inguell said. “It could have happened to two other teams, but I think our whole team felt like we deserved to make the playoffs.”

The data backs up the regents’ sentiments. Data from the final playoff qualifying reports for the previous five years shows that the WIAA has changed its application of tiebreakers in determining this year’s field.

Not that anyone can see it.

As of late Thursday night, the WIAA still hadn’t released its football playoff report six days after revealing the postseason brackets … which are configured on that very data.

Furthermore, the WIAA insists that proper procedure was followed.

“We’re just doing things consistently the way we did with the computer,” said Todd Clark, WIAA communications director.

Clark added that the WIAA has no comment at this time in response to my report proving them wrong.

I’m not the only one the WIAA is shunning, either.

Inguell committed to contacting WIAA assistant director Tom Shafransky, who oversees the football playoffs. Inguell said he emailed Shafransky three times, starting Tuesday with an attached appeal letter in hopes of overturning the WIAA’s error. He got only one answer.

“I want to acknowledge receipt of your email here at the WIAA office. Please know that I can recognize your passion for football and athletics. Your contact for this matter is either your Head Football Coach or Mr. Gaines, Athletic Director at Madison West High School. Mr. (Corvon) Gaines works very well with our office and knows how to contact us if he has any questions or concerns,” Shafranski wrote in his only response sent that day.

Inguell said that after two other emails, Shafransky contacted Gaines to ask him to stop sending the emails and go through the requested communication chain.

“I don’t even think he read my appeal letter,” Inguel said. “It was definitely a little irritating.”

Annoying is an understatement, especially when the facts show the Regents have to play Friday in the playoffs.

West finished the season 4-5 overall, including 3-4 in Big Eight Conference play, so the Regents won’t be favorites heading into Camp Randall. But a team has to be in the field to have a chance, and a deep playoff run for a sub-.500 team is not out of the realm of possibility.

When Stoughton coach Jason Becker coached Nekoosa in 2013, his top-seeded Papermakers fell to eventual Division 4 champion Winneconne in the state quarterfinals after the Wolves entered the playoffs 4-5 overall. In fact, Becker’s Vikings entered the postseason last season at 4-5, coincidentally via a 2.2 step tiebreaker. Stoughton, the No. 7 seed, reached the Division 3 semifinals, falling to eventual runner-up Grafton 17-16.

The Regents players and coaches deserved at least one more week of football together to make more memories. I never made it past the first round during my high school career, but I still vividly remember those experiences, especially playing an all-road uniform game.

Gaines said he didn’t want the mistake to “diminish or put a dark cloud over our season and how far we’ve come.”

The WIAA needs to follow suit by speaking up and giving an explanation to the regents.

It’s the least they can do.

“There are questions that myself, teammates, parents and coaches have about how this could happen; how exactly did that happen?” Inguel said. “Who makes that decision and how did that happen in general? But between the questions and the explanations, I think they’re acknowledging the fact that it’s a problem and whether they knew the bracket was screwed up before they finalized it and took it out.”