Before you complain about Missouri's playoff system, take a look at this one

Just in case you're not a fan of Missouri's high school playoff system, here's a column published Monday by Tom Kreager of the Daily Journal in Murfreesboro, Tenn., addressing the state's disaster of a playoff system:

There was no room for error Saturday morning when the TSSAA unveiled the playoff pairings for its Division I six football classifications under the association’s new playoff plan.

But what we saw — or heard — was anything but perfection.
An all-night bracketing session resulting in errors in virtually every bracket — something assistant director Matthew Gillespie said a day earlier would be “unacceptable” if even one mistake was made.

In fact, he was correct.

What happened Saturday is not acceptable. There have been too many questions and too much criticism of the Z-plan for any error to be made by the state association.
The association had to get it right this first year to give the new plan validity.

Throughout this whole process, the association sounded like it had a firm grasp on the new playoff system. Now, the only thing that is apparent is that they do know how the teams are selected, since that was correct. But once they get to the seeding and pairings part of it, there obviously is a major problem.

If it was one mistake, you could accept it. But errors in at least four of the six classes is not acceptable.

Errors were first caught on the air during the radio broadcast. At that point, the announcements should have ceased and executive director Bernard Childress and Gillespie driven back to the Hermitage office and start rechecking them again.

Instead errors continued. Coaches began making film swaps only for some to find out hours later that the film meant nothing as they had a new opponent.

Some errors were obvious. In Class 6A, White Station was originally a sixth seed in Quadrant 4 and was going on the road.

The problem is White Station is its district champion and it is seeded first. The only other district champions in that pod are Germantown and Brighton.

How do you fix it?

Childress sounds like he ready to scrap it and bring back the old playoff system.

Coaches Ron Aydelott, Thomas McDaniel and Philip Shadowens all said Saturday they would be willing to rip up the contracts for next year’s games if that is the decision of the state association.

That may be a good solution.

If this system remains, tweaks have to be made. Part of the seeding mystery needs to be gotten rid of as its also a mystery to those in charge of the brackets.

Perhaps the first round is played a day later, giving the high school association an extra day to work on the brackets. Or perhaps, Week 10 is played a day earlier.

Whatever system is used, the state association has to get it right.