B-oldtimer wrote:NDHSAA is going to have hard time to put together a football plan in the future because enrollment numbers doesn't guarantee that a school can compete at certain level because of enrollment numbers. This is being shown already with likes of several schools now because they are opting out program because numbers are not there to field teams for the future. The problem is how do keep the playing field kind of level so there is some equality of who's competing against each other. Right now the number of 11 man teams is the problem especially when you look at make of 11 man football the class A and AA schools competing the numbers and difference in size of schools. I think you could come up with one class but it would mean more than half of the class A schools would no longer be 11 man schools but would be part of I believe part of larger 9 man schools. Second I know the politics of this a lot of these smaller 11 man schools coaches and administrations would fight going to 9 man class they could not accept playing 9 man game. I think time is going to solve a lot of these problems because football is changing and I believe the game will need to change if its going to survive. The violent contact is going to be reduced I believe if the game is to survive but how all this is done to be determined.
North Dakota High School Activities Association should really take a look at completely changing what they do with football. I do not understand why the football committee or the High School Activities Association believes they are smarter when it comes to football than those people who created the current Class A and Class B system for K-12 education. Why is it that in basketball we don't care if a little Epping has to compete against the largest Class B schools in the state? But in football, if a small class a school has to compete against a large Class A School we just can't bring ourselves to allow that to happen.
the K-12 education system already has parameters that creates a class system. I believe it is time that all Class A schools stay together for football and all Class B school will stay together for football. If you want to divide the class A schools into class A 11-man in class A nine-man or divide all the class A schools into class A and class double A based on enrollment that would be fine. Then you can do the same with the class B schools, Class B 11-man and Class B 9 man.
some will point to the current competitive balance in the double a system and believe that it was the right decision. But I don't know any school administrator that could honestly make a case that sending Wahpeton all the way to Watford City for a football game is what's best for kids or the program. Meanwhile, schools that are 20 miles apart and compete against each other in every other aspect of their school existence, do not play each other on the football field. the current double-a format is fundamentally flawed, but because you might have a close game between two communities that are 8 hours apart that's the justification that it's the right system.
And you cannot poll athletic directors and coaches and ask them where they belong. Because at the end of the day, personal agendas and a desire to win at whatever level they're at is what drives the decision. If your enrollment places you was a Class A School you belong playing other class A schools in your extracurricular activities. If your enrollment size determines your a Class B school, then you should play other class B schools in extracurriculars. When High School enrollment exceed the requirement to move up to class A, nobody asks the administrators if that's where they belong and then choose to make a different decision. the enrollment criteria that divides Class A and Class B schools is predetermined and you have to be above that number for three consecutive years I believe. You don't go above that number and then get asked do you really think you belong there and if not maybe we'll move you.
and I'm so tired of the argument that, somebody's always going to be unhappy because they will be the smallest School in whatever level they're in. That is only because every two years the rules change. Set the criteria for football much like the criteria is for other sports, and then leave it alone. If you don't like the current criteria that separates Class A and Class B then work on changing that. But to have a change every two years based on somebody's vested interest during that 2 year cycle just makes absolutely no sense.