Example:
The winner of the 2009 4A championship (09) finished the previous year ranked #11.
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 4A 1 6 2 10 2 11 2 5 11 3A 20 12 2 1 1 19 18 3 5 2A 8 2 4 3A-43 3 9 3 3A-1 1 1A 2 24 9 3 8 15 4 2A-9 3 A 19 3 2 4 12 37 8 1A-8 1 8 2 3 3 5 4 7 20 23 1
A cumulative presentation:
Rank Num ratio Cumul ratio 1 7 .130 7 .130 2 8 .148 15 .278 3 8 .148 23 .426 4 4 .074 27 .500 5 3 .055 30 .556 6 1 .019 31 .574 7 1 .019 32 .593 8 4 .074 36 .667 9 3 .055 39 .722 10 1 .019 40 .741 11 2 .037 42 .778 12 2 .037 44 .815 ... 13-16 1 45 17-20 5 50 other 4 54
Notes:
1. 2008 was definitely the year of teams coming down in class. The winner of the 2008 class 2A, 1A, and A championships had been playing in a higher classification the previous year.
2. Finishing in the top five is a definite advantage to winning next year’s title. Fifty-six percent of all titles are won by a team that places in the top 5 of the previous year.
3. There is an interesting bunch of teams at #8 and #9. Placing 8th or 9th gives your team an averaged 6.5% (13.0%/2) chance of winning next year’s title. I am curious whether this “bump” exists in a 30-year time frame (1972-present) or if this is simply a random bump produced by a this short time frame of 9 years. At this time, I do not have complete enough data for a 30-year study to fully test this idea.
4. Twelfth places seems to be the borderline between contenders and long-shots, with the top 12 positions winning 81.5% of next year’s titles.
5. Biggest long-shot documented above was the 2004 class 2A winner, Waterloo Columbus. After finishing 2003 with 4 wins 5 losses, #43 in 3A, Columbus won the 2A championship 41-0 over Gilbert.
6. No one in this decade has won a championship after moving up a class.