Setting better guidelines on eligibility exemptions.

[LoganMathis]

I bring this up after my team (SIUE) went to ACF Winter and went 0-6 in the prelims (although some of the games were close) and felt generally like we weren't standing much of a chance against a good portion of the field, not getting most questions until late in them and 10ing many of our bonuses (12.70PPB). This becomes a noted issues as this was the only tournament not played on a High School set (only thanks to Jefferson CC hosting tournaments, which is only a thing in the Midwest) that we could have reasonably played in the fall, with there being no 1.5 dot tournaments in the fall (or spring!) schedule and our only other options being stuff of similar/slightly harder difficulty that we would similarly struggle with (Arcadia and C++, although C++ doesn't have a Midwest mirror) or the 1 dot tournaments that eligibility requirements say we can't compete in.

Randomly, on our way to lunch, we got into a conversation with one of the folks from WUSTL, who informed us that despite us having 3 players that broke the 50PPG rule (one of which was not able to participate at ACF Winter), we likely could have gotten an exemption and played ACF Fall the past 2 years (with possibly needing to split our teams up into 2).

Looking at the forum posts for the last two iterations of ACF Fall, the message was not exactly clear that there was wiggle room outside of the set rules for participating in the tournament.

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2021 ACF Midwest Site Eligibility Text:
Eligibility
To make this tournament more accessible to new teams and players, ACF is enforcing eligibility guidelines for ACF Fall. Players are not eligible to compete at 2021 ACF Fall if, at any point, they:
Scored more than 50 PPG in the prelims of a college mirror of ACF Fall, OR
Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that finished in the top 15% of the field, rounded up, at ACF Fall, OR
Scored more than 40 PP20TUH in the prelims of HSNCT or 60 PPG in the prelims of PACE NSC, OR
Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that finished in the top 30 at HSNCT or top 10 at PACE NSC, OR
Finished in the top 12 in IPNCT
Players are responsible for determining their own eligibility; if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to email [email protected]. Failure to abide by these eligibility guidelines may result in disqualification from ACF Fall and/or future ACF tournaments.

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2022 ACF Midwest Site Eligibility Text:
Eligibility
To make this tournament more accessible to new teams and players, ACF is enforcing eligibility guidelines for ACF Fall. Players are not eligible to compete at 2021 ACF Fall if, at any point, they:
Scored more than 50 PPG in the prelims of a college mirror of ACF Fall, OR
Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that finished in the top 15% of the field, rounded up, at ACF Fall, OR
Scored more than 40 PP20TUH in the prelims of HSNCT or 60 PPG in the prelims of PACE NSC, OR
Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that finished in the top 30 at HSNCT or top 10 at PACE NSC, OR
Finished in the top 12 in IPNCT
Scored more than 20 PPG in the prelims of ACF Nationals
The eligibility restrictions do not apply to high school only mirrors.

Players are responsible for determining their own eligibility. If you have questions, email [email protected]. Failure to abide by these eligibility guidelines may result in disqualification from ACF Fall and/or future ACF tournaments.

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Perhaps this is my own fault for not heeding the end note, but when it specifically says that players are not eligible if "if at any point they scored more than 50 PPG in the prelims of a college mirror of ACF Fall", asking for an exemption didn't cross my mind or the mind of anyone on our team.

Going off of this, PPG alone is pretty clearly not the best way to determine the relative strength of players. Using my own experience as an example, at both ACF Fall 2019 and ACF Fall 2020 (which did not have the common eligibility requirements of never achieving >50ppg) I broke this barrier two years in a row despite placing 17th and 16th as a team due to playing with less than 4 people and being the bulk scorer on my team. I don't know enough about quizbowl to set any firm lines exactly, but a mix of PPG and PPB would likely serve as a better way to tell players when they are likely at a higher caliber than what a tournament is looking for, along with forum posts making it more clear that these are not hard lines but general guidelines.
My 2019 ACF Fall Stats (While playing for Lake Land): https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/5 ... dividuals/
My 2020 ACF Fall Stats (While playing for Lake Land): https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/6 ... dividuals/

[Charbroil]

Randomly, on our way to lunch, we got into a conversation with one of the folks from WUSTL, who informed us that despite us having 3 players that broke the 50PPG rule (one of which was not able to participate at ACF Winter), we likely could have gotten an exemption and played ACF Fall the past 2 years (with possibly needing to split our teams up into 2).

As the WUSTL player in question, I do want to walk back my comments a little bit, since they might have come across as being more definite than intended. I was making the overall point that if you're nominally ineligible but you don't think you're too strong for the field, you should reach out about getting an exemption, especially if you're willing to make a good faith effort to avoid being too strong for the field (like by splitting your team).

I do apologize if that came across explicitly as a statement that SIUE "likely could have gotten an exemption," which is obviously not something I could say with certainty. The point I was trying to make was that such requests are often granted, especially since many tournament announcements do say that you can ask for one (or at least suggest that you reach out if you have eligibility questions).

I do endorse the overall sentiment in Logan's post.

Anyway, sorry for any confusion my comments may have caused!

[Cheynem]

I understand the frustrations in the first post. I guess in my opinion I would rather see more 1.5 or 2 dot tournaments than keep tweaking the exemptions for Fall. Of course, no eligibility guidelines can be completely inclusive and there should always be exemptions, but I generally think Fall should not be played by quasi-experienced teams.

[dni]

Changing the eligibility requirements themselves is an entirely different discussion, but I agree with Logan's main point that the wording in the ACF Fall announcements do not make it clear that exemptions are a possibility. I don't want to scrutinize every word of those sentences, but I think the vast majority of people going off just the announcement, myself included, would not think to ask for an exemption based on the wording, which emphasizes the importance of following the eligibility rules. I don't know if this is how it plays out in practice, but I could see this leading only teams who either know the TD or were otherwise plugged into the community knowing to ask for an exemption.

To briefly address the lack of easier tournaments: I don't think more easy college sets need to be written, I think hard high school sets should run college mirrors.