Football seeding meeting its own unique challenge, especially for Brazgel

The irony for the Lake Country Lutheran football program is that it will likely increase enrollment to the point where it will appear in the Division 5 playoffs should it qualify next year -- and that will represent a far easier road than what it has endured among the smaller schools of Division 6.

Heck, it could gain enough students to go Division 4, and that would be an easier road.

In D6, LCL entered the postseason as one of 11 undefeated conference champions competing for the gold ball, and some of those programs are regarded as the best in the state. That includes Level 2 opponent St. Mary's Springs, the two-time defending state champion and one of the favorites to make it a third.

LCL could have just as easily played in a pool of eight teams where another powerhouse, Darlington, was the top seed. Even at 9-0, with a win over another conference champion (Racine St. Catherine's) from a larger division, LCL was able to secure just the fourth seed, which meant it had to play Springs right away in Level 2, as opposed to a week later.

"I knew there were going to be at least three undefeated conference champs in the room with us," Lake Country Lutheran head coach Greg Brazgel said. "I didn't figure we would be No. 4. Losing out to an 8-1 team and 7-2 team. But you don't worry much about the seeds because you're in, and I've got to beat them all anyway. ... (The kids) feel disrespected like anyone kind of would. But there's only one way to get respect, and that's to go out and win."

Brazgel's seeding meeting is unique for a Milwaukee-area coach, competing in a division with so few other Milwaukee teams. Whereas coaches in Divisions 1-3 have a sense which squads will be in the same group of eight, drawing largely on history, LCL gets thrown in a number of geographic directions. Heading into 2016, Lake Country Lutheran had been in the playoffs eight straight years and had been eliminated from the postseason by eight different teams.

"I try to consider myself a very prepared coach," Brazgel said. "The weeks leading up to the seed meeting, I have anything from 17 different teams I could possibly play in the first round. We really only have one other Division 6 down here, Racine Lutheran. I don't know if I'm going southwest or northeast. They don't really have a southeast bracket in Division 6."

At the seeding meeting, coaches drew numbers to determine the order in which they would build a case for their team to get as high a seed as reasonable. Getting an early number in that draw is key.

"I was No. 8, the last one to speak about my team," Brazgel said. "Some other teams have already talked about my team, and negatively. I didn't really have much to say except to look like I'm defending my turf, which doesn't really come off well in those meetings. ... When I was young, I used to speak my mind, and all I was doing is create bulletin board material. I try to take the Bob Hyland (of Springs) approach of just going to the seed meeting, and wherever I get put, I get put, because at the end of the day, I have to win five games no matter what seed I am.

"Everyone in that room is going to state something; they're going to state fact or opinion. But when someone states their opinion, others could perceive it as fact. When I try to create my nonconference schedule with the toughest teams possible in my area, I feel like that holds a lot of water. Someone made the statement in that room that any team would have gone 9-0 with our schedule. That's opinion, by the way, which has now been transferred into fact. The only thing I can do is state the truth. I don't play a single Division 6 team in my conference; most of them are D3, D4, D5. We have one D7 team in my conference, and I love that team, which is why we beat them 49-0 as opposed to 78-0. I will not compensate my integrity to put up a score that reflects how good we are."

After a vote determines the initial ranking of eight, the process gets more interesting. Coaches have the option to challenge for one spot higher on the board -- but only one spot higher -- and after cases are made by both sides, the remaining six coaches hold a vote between the two schools.

Given that so few votes are cast in the runoff, coaches looking to position themselves away from an unfavorable matchup may vote with that in mind. It's one way a squad with a perceptively better resume lands lower on the list. Once a challenge has been validated by a vote, the successful challenger may elect to vie for the next rung on the ladder, or the team seeded below both may elect to challenge the squad that's been dropped down.

For Brazgel, everything is made more complicated by the geography of playing teams outside the area. Like LCL, squads like Darlington and Springs frequently see lesser competition, and credible game film is thus hard to come by.

"When I go to scout another team, it's hard to see St. Mary's Springs play, because it's very rare they play someone of their ability, also," Brazgel said. "If I had gone out to Darlington this year, I would have gotten to see one quarter, maybe two quarters (before reserves enter the game)."

Even though many different conferences are represented in D6, he said, regions of the state will occasionally ally themselves.

"Being up there in Fond du Lac (for the seed meeting), I did feel like some of the schools are aware of each other," Brazgel said. "They're all covered by the same newspaper, they play each other in nonconference and they're reading stories about each other. Up there, I don't think they're reading stories about Lake Country Lutheran. I don't think they come in the same car and have an agreement or anything like that, but they love each other and defend each other and want their conference to look good."

Brazgel said the solution was simply to win and create his team's own stories in the markets encompassing his opponents. It'll be a fresh set of faces should the school moves up to D5 next year, as expected, meaning a renewed need to establish reputation.

"You look at it and say, 'Boy I kind of wish I could be in D5,' but I'm going to wait and not say that until I'm actually in D5 and see what that looks like."