maddog1971 wrote:Well put but I will not argue that numbers make a huge difference in football. Yes with more numbers you have a higher chance that you will get a stud athlete or two. Or you will find more kids that are willing to spend that time in the weight room, all year, even tho they are playing 3 different sports.
A group of kids that will play a double OT basketball game, take a 3 hour bus ride, get home do their homework and still get up at 6 AM to still lift with team mates. Or they make their parents get up and drive them and a couple teammates to school.... that is the part I don't like.
I don't like the gap of 79 to 299... I think that is way to big a gap. If you are playing 9th,10th grade kids on your Varsity... they should not be going against an all senior class of grown young men.
Right now the enrollment numbers for 11B are roughly 73-152. If they were changed to 79-299 with the parameters of schools w/out district lines would have to play at least in the middle class that would drop 2 teams down to the lowest class (Bowman and WNG) WNG already opts up. It would allow 4 teams to drop down to the middle class (Valley City, Wahpeton, Bismarck St. Mary's and Fargo Shanley). Shanley already opts up into the top class. You would have 3 more schools who are close to the 299 cut off (Watford City, Devils Lake and Belcourt).
It would also put teams like Grand Forks Central, Grand Forks Red River, Fargo North, Fargo South, Dickinson and Jamestown in the top class, where they belong.
Of the schools that would drop down into the new class made up of primarily the current 11B schools only Bismarck St. Mary's has a lot of recent success in football.