Let me first clarify that I am not supporting one team over another. Now if in fact, the region tiebreaker is strength of schedule that is quite possibly the worst way to decide a region. Strength of schedule does not show how good a team is. Any team can lose to a good team. An example from college football: Temple played (and lost) one of the hardest schedules in the country. Their strength of schedule would be up near the top and tougher than say Texas, but no one is arguing that Temple is a better team. Granted this scenario is not the same because Texas won all of their games and Temple lost all of theirs, but the principle is the same. Playing better teams does not mean you are a better team. Not to mention that this tiebreaker means that some teams already have an advantage going into the season than others because the schedule is set. Not to mention the inherent error in the system. If Fort Mill did win the region by 1 game (assuming the system uses merely win/loss records from the teams played in the regular season), this means the difference in the seeding was because Northwestern has a better win/loss record than Fort Mill. By switching the records, there would be a win/loss difference of +/- 4 wins and +/- 2 losses (because they played twice). This penalizes Northwestern for beating teams out of conference. By using this tiebreaker system, the region sends out the message that it is better to lose all of your non-conference games (thus boosting SOS) and win your region games.
Having the tiebreaker that is SOS of the teams defeated would be a better system because it gives more merit to the win/loss records. The best system would be for these two teams to meet on the field for a one game, region title determining championship. I know that scheduling and finding referees would be difficult, but the thought is nice. Anyway, these are two great teams, and I hope they meet again in the play-offs.
