Comments about ‘High school football: 6 classes for football clears hurdle’

Does Utah 1-a schoos play 8 man football? Idaho now has two divisions for basketball as well as football in that league.

8 teams in a classification, how small can we slice this pie

LAME!!! Besides the elite "6A" and 5A divisions, the rest (4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A) would be like winning a region championship, not a state championship. Stop the madness!!

This is like closing then barn door after the horse already got out. there are several issues that the BOT need to address of more importance than 6 classifications. Recruiting, private schools, out of boundary hop scotch, AAU and club coaches controlling high school athletes and filling there heads full of promises that they can not keep. If we fix those problems it would go a long way to level the playing field. Let's have 10 classifications so you could just call your region championship -- state.

There is no question that this proposal wiil accomplish nothing toward the helping of the very issue in question here!
6A,5A,and 4A are the schools with the smallest ratio even after the proposal.
The ratio after the proposal in 3A,2A and 1A are the same as they are now(three times that of 6A-4A).

How does this help 1A-3A?

"It really came down to one simple fact," Schulte said. "The committee wanted to try and have schools closer in size competing against each other. Even with more classifications, the schools were more similiar than with fewer classifications. There wasn't any other agenda besides that."

At leaset the co-chair of the realignment committee is finally being honest about the real reason they are wanting to make this change. The argument that this was a safety issue was ridiculous.
Still, even their argument that this will make smaller schools more competative is absurd. How about hiring a quality football coach for your programs. That would make them more competative. As long as you continue to be under the dilusion that adding a classification will solve your problems you will continue to have losing seasons. And I have to agree with "apocalypse", congratulations to the new 4A-1A on your region championships.

I'm wondering where the lines will be drawn? Will the larger 3A schools like Park City, Wasatch, Uintah, Spanish Fork and the St. George schools, be bumped up to 4A for football only? Or will it be that the smaller 3A schools, like Delta, Morgan be downgraded to 2A? This whole plan stinks IMHO.

Why not just make the open boundary schools play up a division and finally come up with some actual enrollment numbers that work? Quit worrying about traditional rivalries and old lines and start new ones! Change is inevitable, growth is optional.

If Utah had more high schools, this proposal would have more support. The UHSAA just realigned and is in its first cycle of reassign every two years comparing enrollments of juniors & seniors only. Let's give it a try before switching again.

Whiteshoes, exactly, if Utah had more high schools. The fact is, though, that it doesn't. States like Texas and California are really the only ones that need confusing state divisions and classifications because of absurd numbers of teams. When you only have around 100 schools competing in football, 5 different classifications is stretching it already. You really want to be fair to the kids, teach them that success in life is about hard work and improving from where you're at, not lowering the competition around you.

What about different kids on the same team who have different strength and conditioning routines, commitments, and capacities? Pretty soon the state will conclude that certain players ought not to be allowed to practice against or hit each other, even if they are on the same team. If a kid wants to play football, he had better be committed and determined enough to get tough enough to be able to play with the big boys. This seems dumb and like it is watering down a championship. A good coach, no matter what classification he coaches in, will make sure his kids are tough enough to compete with the teams he schedules them to play. Stop any cheating that might be out there, and then trust the alignment that is so newly created. The association isn't even trusting what just barely put in place. I predict this will probably go down once the public gets to start weighing in on it.

Lets just give everyone a trophy.....three divisions, not six.

Now we can have almost as many state champs as little league. In little league the state champ is who wins their 6team league. Wow.

For all of those that think this won't happen, think again. The only people who will show up to the public meeting are those whiners who want the 6 classifications. Thus, the UHSAA will get what they want. They get 50% of the gate for all playoff games, so this will help. Clearly, there are some bias feelings by the committee or some parents with major influence here. In a few years we can go to 7 classifications with 8-16 schools in each class, so that more schools can win. I guess little league is finally taking over completely. Everyone has to win, get a trophy and an orange slice.

On the recruiting/open enrollment stuff.

The American Legion model is the ONLY way to stop the madness. It is based on what was used in American Legion baseball, maybe still us.

For a school's population for realignment and classification would be based on this. If a school say has athletes on its football team from say five different school boundaries, they would count all five schools. Everything is on the up and up. You can be as open enrollment as you want to be, but you will count every school's population where you draw players.

Some rural schools like Delta are only drawing from one school boundary (Delta) where other 3A schools like Juan Diego have students from multiple boundaries. This doesn't seem right or fair. After all the students are accounted for, then realign based on these population figures.

Do this model and I think the need for six classifications goes away. The biggest obvious issue in 3A is where many smaller rural schools like Delta, Juab etc. are competing with larger urban schools say in Salt Lake Valley/St. George that can draw athlete from many sources.

This model can address this problem...

Whiteshoes, as I recall, prior to the last re-alignment OREM had plenty of whining. Seems as though Orem was able to get what they wanted despite being outside of the format of change. I guess once things go your way, then who cares how it works for everyone else...
And yes, Eagle...I do believe that would solve a lot of problems.

This is a joke. Keep 5 Classifications!