Last Thursday, the South Dakota Football Advisory committee released a proposal that would reduce the number of high school football classes in the state from seven to five.
SDPB's Nate Wek had a chance to sit down and discuss this new proposal with Argus Leader sports reporter Brian Haenchen. The proposal will go next to the athletic directors of South Dakota's member schools. If they pass forward their recommendation on it, the High School Activities Association would have to pass two readings of it for it to become implemented.
What's the big news that was released last week in the high school football world?
So the big news is is that the football advisor got together and out of that meeting, they came forward with a five class proposal to present to the athletic directors and then eventually the board of directors for a vote. And what that means is that it's going to be a 10 team top class, followed by a 16 team class 11A which will include the Pierres and the old 11-AA schools. Then the rest of the teams that the ADM of 56 or higher will get thrown into 11B with the remaining nine man teams getting split up into two classes. A couple interesting notes. I know a lot of attention has turned to the top, but towards the bottom level and something that's encouraging when you look at this proposal and its potential to get past, is they didn't mess with the ADM cutoff for nine man teams.
So there's not really any changes there. And then too, when you look at it going down to two classes from three for nine man, that was looking inevitable as it was because I believe the cutoff is once it hits 64 teams or fewer, something in the SDHSAA bylaws kicks in and they slice it down to two classes anyway. They drop a class. So you kind of look at it from that standpoint, it's inevitable. You look at them leaving the ADM alone for the nine man teams, you think that that's a good chance of getting all 54, or however many of the votes that there are down there in that level, in favor of this proposal. And then if you look at the 11 man level, honestly I think that it's a very big step in the right direction in terms of getting more teams up in the different classes. Splitting it down, getting rid of 11-AA essentially, which was sort of the discussion point, and at sometimes a point of ridicule throughout this past season.
This proposal didn't just come out of the blue. Wouldn't you say that this is something that has been discussed for awhile among coaches, AD's and within the SDHSAA?
That's what was really interesting is that there were two proposals that we knew of. There was one from the Activities Association and one proposed by some of the coaches. It was drawn up by Chad Statum (Washington Warriors head coach). One of his assistant coaches, Ryan Evans used to be in the McCook Central Montrose and Dan Hughes from Sioux Valley. So those were the two proposals that I knew were happening coming in. And then what came out of it was sort of a blend between those two proposals of the SDHSAA six and the coaches five. And it was this five class system.
And from what I've been told, it sounds like all the coaches had a version of the proposal that they went with. They had a version of that going into the meeting. So they knew, and these coaches have been on this and they've been talking about it for a long time now. So I think that that's important to remember too is that the coaches and the administrators it sounds like are well aware of the complaints, the concerns, the issues with the way that things were being run. And I think that there's some positive momentum and at least some effort to get things changed, which is a positive in the big picture.
What are some things you're hearing from coaches in South Dakota about this?
It's a lot of it, that it's at least a step in the right direction. Some coaches would like to see the top class get a little bit bigger. But overall it's been universal, kind of a claim for it and positive reaction to it. I don't think anybody's against it. I don't think anybody's, "We should stay with seven classes." At least nobody that I've spoken with. So it's positive returns at least initially.
What does this mean for the State Football Championships? Will it be a two day event moving forward, or will they try to keep it a three day spectacular?
I guess it could go two, two, one. They could go two the first day, two the second day and then on Saturday you have USD at home. You have the USD game and then leading into the high school, the 11-AA championship that night. I know that they've done that in the past and that actually kind of sounds appealing to me as somebody who likes to cover and watch these games. From a fan perspective, I don't know how that would impact attendance. It might be better just have it two days, so if somebody is wanting to see as many games as possible, they're just hanging out there one night and then they're heading back the next day. But it'll be interesting to see how that part of the equation plays out. I feel like that's probably a bit down the line as they still have to figure out scheduling and some other little bits and nuance and whatnot.
The proposal will go next to the athletic directors of South Dakota. Have you spoken to any of the AD's yet?
I haven't had a chance yet to talk to any ADs. I'm interested to hear what they say. I'm also interested to see if that ADs conference, what sort of tweaks or changes they make. Maybe they're in favor of making the bigger class larger. I think in a lot of ways that might be inevitable, like a necessity, because schools like Brookings is growing pretty fast. Watertown has a big number and I'm kind of wondering if that doesn't necessitate adding two more teams and making it a 12 man, 11-AA and then just seeing where the webs go from there. In terms of implications, we had a longer schedule. You have to shift up the round robin, whatever it is. There's some interesting tweaks that could be coming and some unforeseen wrinkles potentially before thing gets up to a vote by the board.
What does this mean in regards to a potential 6-man football class in the future?
I don't think that it impacts it too much. I think that the bigger thing with six man was probably the addition to the All Nations Conference because that opened the door for a lot of those schools with the lower enrollment problems to get in and have football at the nine man level. I'm not sure how the classifications will impact that. I had some people bring that up to me on Twitter. I just don't see how that had worked because it's not really, like we talked about before, it's not really impacting the nine man schools too much. It's just cutting down a class and putting them all together. So it's hard to see that creating a six man option for more schools. Now as time goes on and enrollment shift, I certainly think that that could come back into play. But for right now, given the lack of interest, it seems like when it came time to put pen to paper for six man football, it's kind of difficult to see that coming to fruition or being influenced at all I guess by this new proposal they put out.
If this proposal passes all of the stages, it wouldn't be implemented until the Fall of 2021, correct?
Right. So it will be that next cycle and the numbers that they would use would come from December, 2020 I believe. So next December is when the Activity Association calculates enrollments and all that and that's when we get an idea of how these classes themselves would shape up. I'm trying, and I'm sure some other people are trying too, to figure that out and crunch the numbers and get those projections together. But yeah, the wheels will really start spinning if it's past next December with the enrollment numbers.
