Since their inception last year in the N.C. High School Athletic Association football playoffs, the "pods" used to form a bracket to cut down on travel has been a hot-button topic.

Previously the NCHSAA seeded teams 1-16 in the east and west. But pods divided each side into smaller groups based on location from east-to-west. These pods were created to save schools mileage and money through the first three rounds.

Some fans and almost all coaches have become somewhat disgruntled with increased regular-season re-matches in the playoffs, as well as some teams losing home games due to the new format.

However, the question above all else remains - do the pods save travel, and if so, how much?

Research shows that the pod system saved 5,364.7 miles in first-round travel, or 48.8 miles per team affected.

The second and third rounds, also affected by the pod system, are tricky to calculate because the original bracket - what it would look like if the 1-16 seeds were in their normal positions - gets distorted. For instance, a 7-seed and 10-seed can both win first-round games.

The NCHSAA said last year's pods saved 8,000 miles in travel, but there is no question that the pod sometimes creates its own "miles saved" by displacing a higher seed and giving that home game to a 9- or 10-seed.

And that is the biggest impact the pod systems had. This is the reality of the pod system - being in the upper half of your bracket does not necessarily mean you will host a playoff game, and being in the lower half doesn't necessarily mean you're on the road.

A subset of data was created to see how many miles the pod system eliminated, without including games where a team gained or lost a home game. That eliminated 24 teams.

The pods saved 3,943.2 miles among teams not affected by gaining or losing a home game - or, an average of 45.9 miles per team affected. That's right in line with how much the pods were saving teams without excluding those games, so it appears that the create-your-own-savings did little to skew the data.

Although 12 teams added considerable mileage due to lost home games, the 12 teams who received home games outweighed them in travel saved.

Altogether, those 24 teams saved an average of 137.4 miles.

Sixty-nine teams saved first-round travel mileage due to the pods, while 41 added mileage. That means more than a quarter of the NCHSAA playoff teams saved first-round mileage with the pods, or 62.7 percent of teams who were affected.

Coaches may still not like the system, but as whole it is doing what it was intended to do. The pods saved mileage for just more than a quarter of all playoff teams. The majority of affected teams saw a decline in miles traveled for the first round.