[Don Wright]

Just my thoughts on this...

First of all, I don't think the ranking system really affects the non-FIRST people that are coming into the arena and watching the tournament. Most of them really don't watch a ranking screen to see everyone's rank. They see the competition and how the matches turn out. Of course, explaining to them why all the robots might be all scoring on one side might be fun...but usually, if all the teams are scoring and playing offense, then I think it looks good to them.

I was surprised at how well the rankings worked out at Kettering. From my general observations, the top 8 teams were deserving and I didn't see any "oh they shouldn't be up there" teams. I think it was also backed up by most of the top 8 picking other top 8 teams which showed to me that the rankings were right.

Sure, it's a strange system, but I'm anxious to see how it plays out for the rest of the season. We all just have to do two things...

1. Tell everyone to stop playing defense in quals. I think when people are surprised when they lose a match and still go up in standings the message will get across, but the more points scored in a match on either side helps everyone!

2. Please, please, please fix your robots to stop taking penalties. And if you have taken penalties in a match and have a yellow card for it, please be careful to not get a red card. It was sad to see two red card matches and disqualifications in elimination rounds at Kettering.