WHITEHALL — The high school football landscape in Pennsylvania as we know it could be changing drastically in the near future.
District 11 held an informational session for high school football coaches, athletic directors and the media Tuesday night at Whitehall High School to discuss proposed classification changes in football.
At its May meeting, the PIAA passed a first reading of eight proposals for high school football. The second reading of those eight proposals will come in July, so District 11 chairman Bob Hartman wanted to make sure all of the schools in his district were aware of the proposed changes.
Hartman and football committee chairman Jason Zimmerman, the Northwestern Lehigh athletic director, presented an hour-long program that detailed all the possible changes and how they could affect schools in District 11.
“I think it’s neat to have these discussions,” said Hartman, who is also the Whitehall High School athletic director. “Athletics is not just watching games. It’s always neat to engage a ton of people and talk about this type of stuff.
“This could be a huge change across the landscape. Or nothing could happen.”
Currently, the 584 high schools that field football teams in Pennsylvania are broken into four classes based on enrollment. The top 25 percent of the schools participate in Class AAAA, the next 25 percent in Class AAA, and so forth.
The PIAA operates on two-year cycles, meaning that every other Oct. 1 each school submits enrollment figures of the freshman, sophomore and junior boys in their school. Those figures include students who attend charter schools, cyber-charter schools, alternative education or vocational-technical schools full-time.
The PIAA then takes those numbers and breaks the schools into classifications. This fall will mark the halfway point of the existing cycle, which began in August 2014 and ends in June 2016.
Four of the proposals use that method of calculating a school’s enrollment.
The other four proposals use the “10-percent factor,” which is the number of freshman, sophomore and junior boys in the home school, plus 10 percent of the number of boys that attend charter schools, cyber-charter schools, alternative education or vocational-technical schools full-time.
The “10-percent factor” reduces the enrollment number for public schools, but doesn’t alter the number for Catholic, private or charter schools that compete in the PIAA.
The PIAA approved the following proposals at its May meeting, under both the current enrollment system and the “10-percent factor” format:
• Four classes (current setup) — 25 percent of the schools per classification;
• Six classes — 16.67 percent of the schools per classification;
• Super 700 — Six classes, with the top class containing schools with an enrollment of 700 students or larger, then 20 percent of the remaining schools split over the next five classifications;
• Super 800 — Six classes, with the top class containing schools with an enrollment of 800 students or larger, then 20 percent of the remaining schools split over the next five classifications.
Hartman released a chart containing enrollment numbers and classifications for all of the schools in District 11 under each proposal. Using numbers from the current PIAA cycle, here’s how it would work out for District 11 schools in this area, with 10-percent numbers in parentheses if different:
Four classes — AAA: Pottsville, Blue Mountain, Jim Thorpe (AA), Lehighton (AA); AA: Tamaqua, North Schuylkill, Pine Grove, Panther Valley (A); A: Minersville, Schuylkill Haven, Mahanoy Area, Marian, Williams Valley, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Nativity;
Six classes — AAAA: Pottsville, Blue Mountain, Jim Thorpe (AAA), Lehighton (AAA); AAA: Tamaqua, North Schuylkill; AA: Pine Grove, Panther Valley, Minersville, Schuylkill Haven (A); A: Mahanoy Area, Marian (AA), Williams Valley, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Nativity;
Super 700 — AAAA: Pottsville, Blue Mountain; AAA: Jim Thorpe, Lehighton, Tamaqua, North Schuylkill; AA: Pine Grove, Panther Valley, Minersville, Schuylkill Haven (A); A: Mahanoy Area, Marian (AA), Williams Valley, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Nativity;
Super 800 — AAAA: Pottsville, Blue Mountain; AAA: Jim Thorpe, Lehighton, Tamaqua, North Schuylkill; AA: Pine Grove, Panther Valley, Minersville; A: Schuylkill Haven, Mahanoy Area, Marian, Williams Valley, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Nativity.
Hartman said District 11’s next step is to have the coaches and athletic directors take the information from Tuesday’s session back to their school officials and decide what’s best for their school and their league.
He hopes to collect feedback from member schools and leagues before the PIAA’s next meeting July 20-21 in Mechanicsburg.
“Do we want to keep considering this? That’s our next step,” Hartman said. “Do we want to keep considering this concept, or do we want to close this down.
“I want to hear about it, I want to see what’s out there, I want to be able to provide that to our schools.
“We’ll use a representative democracy model. We’ll ask the league reps on our district committee to filter information up the pole and I’ll take that to the state and see what they have to say.”
The PIAA’s purpose in changing the number of classes in high school football is to reduce the number of possible games from 16 to 15. Some big negatives to the existing format is the football season extends into the winter sports season, the championship games are played the week before Christmas and the weather is a factor.
This fall, the PIAA state championship games would be held Dec. 18-19 in Hershey.
District 11 schools, however, don’t want to shorten the regular season from 10 to nine games. Thus, the game that would be cut would be in the district playoffs.
There are some changes — some negative, some positive — that would accompany the PIAA switching to six classes in football.
First, the number of district qualifiers in each class would be cut in half in almost every class. For example, Class A, Class AA and Class AAAA would only have two teams qualify for the District 11 playoffs, instead of the four under the current four-class system. Class AAA gets four district qualifiers in most of the scenarios.
Second, it’s unknown how switching to six classes would affect the District 11 power rating, and the leagues that District 11 teams play in. For example, starting in 2016, the Anthracite Football League would have teams in four different classes.
Third, if the PIAA switches to six classes, so would the Eastern Football Conference. The EC would keep its semifinal and final format, meaning better quality teams could get into that tournament.
Hartman concluded the session by answering questions from those in attendance, and stressed that it could take a long time before any of this comes to fruition.
Whatever happens in July would have to pass a third reading in October.
The PIAA considered similar changes four years ago, only to have the proposals killed in the third reading in a close vote.
“I think it was very informative,” Pottsville athletic director Eric Rismiller said. “I think Bob Hartman and Jason Zimmerman did a great job presenting this. I still think we’re a long ways off yet on what could happen.
“As the AD for Pottsville, I think this is good for Pottsville. I think it’s good for our league, too.”
PIAA proposals
The PIAA approved the following proposals at its May meeting, under both the current enrollment system and the “10-percent factor” format:
• Four classes (current setup) — 25 percent of the schools per classification
• Six classes — 16.67 percent of the schools per classification
• Super 700 — Six classes, with the top class containing schools with an enrollment of 700 students or larger, then 20 percent of the remaining schools split over the next five classifications
• Super 800 — Six classes, with the top class containing schools with an enrollment of 800 students or larger, then 20 percent of the remaining schools split over the next five classifications