2007 College Class A Season Info

What is Class A?

Unlike Class AA, where any team can sign up and play any event, Class A follows a complete season schedule set at the start of the season. Class A is played with a different format than the traditional 5-man format used in Class AA competition. Two teams play a match against each other. Each match is 32 minutes long, divided into two 16-minute halves. A match consists of a series of points. Teams start with 5 players at starting stations at opposite ends of the field and attempt to capture a flag in the middle of the field and take it to the opposing team's starting station to score one point. After a point is scored, there is a 2-minute timeout and another point is played until game time expires. You can read more about the forma in the Class A Rules (link TBA)

While a team only fields 5 players at a time, because of the rapid succession of points, teams may roster up to 15 players to substitute in, and most roster at least 10. Another key difference between Class A and Class AA is Class A is set up around a full-length season schedule, where each school is expected to field a team at all of their scheduled events. Class A is thus reserved for the largest, most established schools in the NCPA to give them the opportunity to compete diretly against other established programs while making room in Class AA for less-established teams.

Who can play?

Any school in the NCPA can participate in Class A, however you must receive a bid at the begining of the season to be included in a Class A Conference schedule. Bids are given out on the judgement of the NCPA executive staff, and take into consideration many factors. Teams that are not in a Class A conference may still play one of the Class A Open events (see below).

Team Size

Class A teams are limited to a minimum of 5 players and a max of 15. This only includes players and does not count coaching staff or pit crew. As always, all players in an NCPA-sanctioned college tournament must be full time students at the same college or university, but staff can be anyone age 10 or older.

2008-2009 Class A Season Goals

This season the NCPA will be focusing on stability of the Class A program, and several decisions have been made to accomodate that goal, including selectivity in regards to awarding conference bids and securing the entirity of a team's season entry fee at the start of the season.

Season Structure

The season will consist of two types of events leading to the National championships: Conference play and Qualifier Open Events.

Conference Events

Each conference team will play 8, 9 or 10 matches in-conference during the regular season (8 for 5-team conferences, 9 for 4-team conferences, 10 for 6-team conferences). (An additional 2-3 matches will be played at the National Championships, see below.)

Qualifier Open Events

There will be two Qualifier Open events, Collegiate World Cup and the National Championships. The top two teams in each Qualifier event advance to the National Championships Finals.

National Championship

The National Championship will include inter-conference play as well as the National Championships Open tournament. All conference teams and non-conference teams will play each other in the same preliminary round, with results counting towards the season rankings for all teams.

Qualifying for National Championships Finals

Class A Team Ranking

Teams will be ranked by total number of wins. Matches played in Open tournament playoffs (after the preliminary round) will not be counted. If a team plays more matches during the season than a conference team plays in their regular season, their number of wins will be scaled to match a regular conference schedule. Ties will be broken by average margin of scores in matches that count towards season ranking.

For example, let's say the fewest number of matches played in a conference during the season is 11. If your team played 11 games and won 7 of them you would score 7 wins for the season. If however you played 12 games and won 8, you would score (8/12)*11 = 7.33 wins. If your team only plays 7 matches and you win all 7, you score 7 for the season.

National Championships Finals

There will be 12 spots in the National Championships Finals bracket.

• 2 for top 2 teams at Collegiate World Cup
• 2 for the top ranked team in each conference (Conference and Nationals play only)
• 2 for 2nd place team in each conference (Conference and Nationals play only)
• 2 for top 2 teams at Nationals Open
• 1 for the 3rd ranked team in the Northeast Conference
• 1 for the conference team with the best regular-season record ddda conference team wins World Cup, they do not automatically advance to the National Championships Finals, but the 3rd place team (4th for Northeast) in their conference will.

  The top 2 teams at Collegiate World Cup (unless they are a conference team) advance directly to the National Championships Finals. After the prelims of the National Championships Open tournament, the top 2 teams in each conference will advance directly to the Finals, and the two teams with the best overall season record at that point will also advance to the Finals. The top remaining teams in the Open tournament will then play off for the remaining two spots.

  Conferences

  There will be three Class A conferences this year:

  • North-East
  • Mid-West
  • Appalachian

  Conference Team Payment

  The Season Entry Fee for Class A is $3800.

  Payments by check can be made to NCPA, Inc. and mailed to:
  
  NCPA, Inc.
  530 E South Ave
  Chippewa Falls, WI 54729
  
  Payments may be made online by credit card or eCheck through paypal. There is a 3% internet processing fee for payments made online. Click the button below to make your payment.