World Footy News

The USAFL has announced the seedings for the 2009 National Championships to be held in Mason, Ohio with a record number of teams playing this year. The seeding Committee has finalized the seeding pools for almost all divisions, with Division IV and the women's division still requiring some final revisions (added when available).

As always, this has been a difficult task, especially given the complexity inherent in a national competition (e.g., trying to compare teams that never played each other during the season, or did not play many or any games during the season). The goal of the seedings is to promote a lively and balanced competition based on the information available. The nature of this task is inherently imperfect, and although we know this subject could be fodder for endless debate, we assure you that we have done our best.

The seedings and some rationale behid them can be viewed below.

DIVISION I

The DIVISION I teams are seeded and pooled as follows:

POOL A
1. WASHINGTON/BALTIMORE
2. NEW YORK
3. ORANGE COUNTY
4. SEATTLE


POOL B
1. DENVER
2. VANCOUVER
3. GOLDEN GATE
4. BOSTON

We were faced with an unusual situation this year, as there is no Midwestern region team in Division I. Thus, all teams are from the West or East, though we made sure we didn’t put all East teams in one pool and varied the match ups. This inevitably leads to pools with teams that have already played each other this year. Nonetheless, we believe this represents the top eight teams. As decided and circulated from last years’ Executive Board retreat, nationals seeding’s now take into account not only the current years’ results, but also past nationals performances, especially as this is the tournament we’re seeding for. In addition, per teams requests, past nationals match ups were examined and we have tried to enable teams to play teams they have never played, or only played a limited number of times(e.g. Denver and Golden Gate have never played each other, OC has played Denver the past three years and NY and DC have never played at nationals).




DIVISION II

POOL A
1. SAN DIEGO
2. NASHVILLE
3. NORTH CAROLINA
4. MILWAUKEE

POOL B
1. CHICAGO
2. CALGARY
3. MINNESOTA
4. KANSAS CITY

A record number of teams, including almost the entire MAAFL, opted for Division II. Kansas City moves into the final slot after winning Division III last year.

DIVISION III

The DIVISION III teams are seeded and pooled as follows:

POOL A
1. DALLAS
2. COLUMBUS
3. FLORIDA
4. ARIZONA

POOL B
1. PHILADELPHIA
2. AUSTIN
3. ATLANTA
4. PNW(Pacific Northwest)

For the first time, none of the teams in Division III are combined squads. Dallas showed great improvement from last year, and narrowly missed out on a Division II berth.

DIVISION IV

The DIVISION IV teams are seeded and pooled as follows:

POOL A
1. OHIO VALLEY/ST. LOUIS
2. GOLDEN GATE/LAS VEGAS
3. ORANGE COUNTY II/DES MOINES
4. NY/Allcomers

POOL B
1. BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON II
2. MINNESOTA II/KANSAS CITY II
3. COLUMBUS/NASHVILLE
4.

Division IV consists of combined squads and seconds. Any free agents will fill up NY’s squad. Div IV is generally played with 14 – 16’s, depending on how many players each team has (this needs to be agreed upon by coaches prior to match – if both disagree, 14’s takes precendent as previous years). Note this field is smaller – approx 150 yards long and 110 wide.


WOMEN'S SEEDINGS:

POOL A
Calgary Blue
Arizona
New York
Toronto-Montreal

POOL B
Milwaukee
Atlanta
Denver
Calgary White