It's here again! High school football's first and only national 64-team postseason bracket. We call it PrepNation's January Madness -- 2006 edition.
The mission: Find the "Last Team Standing," by letting you, the prep football fan, choose a mythical national champion for the 2005 season by voting for winners through a mythical 64-team, NCAA basketball tournament style bracket. It's a little exercise we call PrepNation's January Madness.
Just like in the NCAA basketball tournament, "mid-major" teams that won championships were rewarded with automatic bids. In our case, we've awarded at least one automatic bid to each and every state and the District of Columbia.
The remaining 13 at-large bids were awarded to the most deserving non-at-large teams based upon strength of schedule and final ranking in the National Prep Poll. Note: At-large selections and seedings were derived almost directly from final Prep Poll rankings, however we reserved the right to allow a non-ranked at-large team in over a ranked team that did not receive a bid. Per our discretion to create the best tournament field and most competitive brackets, we awarded preseason No. 1-ranked Mission Viejo (Calif.) with an at-large bid even though the Diablos finished unranked and behind some ranked teams that did not receive a bid.
Teams are seeded from 1 to 16 in each of four regions, just like the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Seeding was based upon final rankings in the National Prep Poll and strength of schedule. Here are the brackets:
PrepNation January Madness 2006
National 64-Team Fan Vote Brackets
We are turning to you, the high school football fan, to simulate the bracket-by-bracket action with your votes. Each round of games will last for the duration of one week of voting. Registered users of the PrepNation.com and TexasHSFootball.com message boards will be eligible to vote for the full list of winners (who you think would win, not who you would want to win), all the way in to February with the final four and the PrepNation January Madness "Last Team Standing."
The weekly list of match-ups will be posted at and voting will take place at two locations on the Web:
On the national high school football message boards here at PrepNation: The Gridiron At TexasHSFootball.com's National High School Football Board
January Madness Voting Schedule Round Two games: January 16-22 Region Semifinals: January 23-29 Region Finals: January 30-February 5 National Semifinals: February 6-12 Championship game: February 12-February 18 Congratulations to 2004's PrepNation January Madness "Last Team Standing," the Cincinnati Colerain Cardinals. Click here to review last year's voting results.
Any questions about January Madness should be emailed directly to Jamie DeMoney at PrepNation@aol.com. It should be a fun way to officially end the football season!
