Class Realignment (Possible 5A?) (2024)

Just my thoughts on how the current football class system could be realigned. I realize that a lot of people might not agree with these ideas, but feel free to deliberate and start a good conversation on it.

Class 5A: Top 48 schools, 6 districts of 8 teams
Class 4A: Next largest 64, 8 districts of 8 teams
Class 3A: Next largest 64, 8 districts of 8 teams
Class 2A: Next largest 64, 8 districts of 8 teams
Class 1A: Remaining 11-man schools (could be around 48 in the next few years), 6 districts of 8 teams
Class B: 8-man schools (~48), 6 districts of 8 teams

A few things that I consider pros of this system:
1) Having 8 teams in every district maintains a 7 game district schedule for everyone, which would make non-district scheduling easier.
2) This class system could easily be used in basketball and baseball as well, which would remove the dilemma of a school being in 2 different classes in different sports. 1A and B would combine into a 96 team class.
3) This would make more sense now that the IGHSAU has gone to a 5A class format.

Side note: The total number of classes doesn't change.
Side note: Why did we ever decide to call two different classes 1A and A? It's the same thing!

PNation said:

I'd only go with 40 teams in the largest class, maybe even 32

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I agree PNation, but it would make for a very difficult scheduling project. There is to much disparity in the size of the schools from 1 - 48. Although there is still a big difference in 1 - 40 you move the bottom school to around 850 from 630. Probably doesn't make the 850 school much more competitive, but at least acknowledges there is a huge disparity.

WSC72 said:

8 man actually has the largest disparity in size from top to bottom using % larger from largest to smallest school in the class.

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Even though this may be true, it only takes 2-4 athletes to be successful in any sport and almost any school could have this combination. Now if you start comparing the schools like morning star, scattergood and diagonal as your lowest common denominator, then my response is that they could not compete in 8 man football since they only have 22 students in 9-11. That's why there are sharing programs. I would even suggest that these schools should only be allowed to exist as private schools unless they are filling a specific social role. In my opinion, and it obviously carries no weight, Iowa has allowed to many schools to remain open as public schools. There should be a thorough review of all of the districts and consolidation should be on the agenda for many of the them. Probably not politically correct, but necessary.

While off topic but related, in basketball the % larger from smallest to biggest in 4A is 3.43. In 1A the % larger from smallest to largest is 6.32.

In football the smallest % difference is on class 1A at 1.26. Numbers for all classes in football are:

4A = 3.0
3A = 2.03
2A = 1.58
1A = 1.26
A = 1.69
8 = 3.39

While I don't disagree that some schools should look at sharing. I also feel that too much is made of the 4A discrepancy when there are similar issues in other classes.

If one lowers the discrepancy in 4A it most likely creates a larger gap in another class.

I agree with those points but 4A schools tend to have 7-10 times as many kids as 1A schools so logically they should be able to produce at least 3-4 times more exceptional players.

A point to look at is how many champions come from the bottom 10-25% of each class enrollment wise. I don't have those numbers but I know where to access them.

Curious how you came up with 64 or 65. I have been looking at the 8man #'s for a couple months now. I am coming to about 60-63 teams max.

Interesting to see what the final # is.