Some Things Are New For 2020

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few months about competitive balance in Iowa high school football - a lot - and it appears the Iowa High School Athletic Association is mulling over some ideas to perhaps take a stab at addressing the issue.

A little background: over the past several years, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have remained poor in Iowa high school football, both in win-loss totals and playoff results. In Class 4A Dowling has won seven straight state championships, and eight of the last 11. In Class 3A Xavier and Pella have won five out of the last six; Iowa City Regina has won six titles in 2A and 1A since 2009; and Gilbertville Don Bosco has won four of the past seven titles in 8-player. Many will note that four of the five teams I've mentioned here are private Catholic schools, which some claim gives those programs an unfair advantage. (Private schools have won 24 out of the 66 total state championships since 2009, including half of the 22 title games in 4A and 3A.)

Some of the largest 4A schools in the Des Moines area have struggled mightily to have any success at all - the last time a Des Moines public city school defeated a suburban Polk County school was August of 2008, when Des Moines Lincoln edged Urbandale 13-12. Since 2009 the city schools are 0-115 against their suburban county foes, with an average score of 49-9.

Naturally, outcomes like these have many concerned about the future of high school football in the state. Teams that are continually beat down season after season have difficulty getting students to come out for the squad. Schools with large student populations struggle to get adequate teams together for freshman and sophomore games, let alone varsity contests. The solutions are complicated. Iowa City High coach Dan Sabers came out with a proposal last year to use more factors than just school size to set the classifications, with a call to use things like past success of the program and socioeconomic factors (like free and reduced lunch populations) for each school as part of the determination of what class your team would compete in.

The IHSAA seems to be listening. The release of classifications and districts for the upcoming season were delayed from their original planned dates, as classification committees and the Board of Control took more time to debate potential changes and rethinking of the process. Finally, last week, the classes and districts were released - and only minor changes were made for this year. But there's two things to take away: while the other classes see very little change from past seasons, Class 4A will see some significant changes in scheduling and playoff qualifying this year; and this structure will only be used for one year, 2020, instead of the two-year cycle the state has been using for many years.

CHANGES FOR CLASS 4A

Here's the most significant adjustment for 2020. In Class 4A, there are no more districts and no more automatic playoff qualifiers. The IHSAA reduced the class to the top 40 schools in size, then aligned them into "groups" instead of districts. The state developed a "success model" using each program's performance over the past four seasons to put the schools into tiers, from one through six. Each group has a member from each tier; then, the higher-ranked tiers play opponents from similar tiers, with the lower tiers also playing programs of similar strength. For example, Tier 1 teams will not play teams in their group below Tier 4; Tier 6 games will not play teams in their group above Tier 3. It's somewhat complex, but designed to even the playing field at least a little bit.

It also makes things different from the past in that group members will not play a round-robin like the district format; there will be no "group champions" or automatic playoff qualifiers. The 16-team playoff field will be entirely filled by where they finish in RPI. There's more information at the IHSAA website.

Therefore, a map of the Class 4A groups doesn't really tell you much about travel or opponents. But I made one anyway, mainly because it very interestingly portrays the distribution of Class 4A programs in the state, almost totally between Highway 20 and Interstate 80.

ON TO THE OTHER MAPS!

CLASS 3A

Class 3A remains very much like 2018-19, with 54 total members arranged in nine districts of six teams each. Each team will have five district games and four non-district games. Sixteen teams make the playoffs, with nine district champions and seven at-large teams chosen by RPI.

After two years as a 3A program, as expected Iowa City Liberty moves up into 4A. With 4A reduced to 40 teams, Burlington, Mason City, and Des Moines Hoover move down into 3A. Moving up to 3A are Benton Community, Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley, and Nevada. Schools dropping out of 3A this year are Center Point-Urbana, Independence, Maquoketa, Solon, and South Tama.

Here's the Class 3A districts for 2020:

And here's my "web" version, which I think shows the spatial relationships of the districts better:

Overall I think the IHSAA did a pretty good job with grouping the districts. There's a few decent bus trips there, but nothing obviously ridiculous (in past cycles the assignments of Solon/Clear Creek-Amana always seemed botched to me ... but now Solon isn't even part of the equation).

CLASS 2A

Same thing here as 3A; 54 teams, nine districts of six, 16 qualifiers including seven at-large ... status quo from 2018-19. As mentioned above, teams dropping to 2A this year include Center Point-Urbana, Independence, Maquoketa, Solon, and South Tama; schools moving up from 1A are Cherokee Washington, Clarinda, Unity Christian, and West Lyon.

Moving up and out of 2A this year are Benton Community, Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley, and Nevada. Dropping out of 2A this year are Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, Waterloo Columbus, OABCIG, and Southeast Valley. Interestingly, last year's Class 1A champion West Lyon moves to 2A, while last year's 2A champion OABCIG drops to 1A, so they just change places.

The districts:

And the web:

I think Class 2A District 1 is probably the tightest district geographically of any in the state.

CLASS 1A

Just like 3A and 2A, things haven't changed from the previous cycle - 54 teams, nine districts, 16 playoff qualifiers with seven at-large chosen by RPI.

Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, Waterloo Columbus, OABCIG, and Southeast Valley move down into 1A this fall. Moving up from A are a bunch: Belmond-Klemme, Cardinal, Central Decatur, Central Springs, Durant, Hinton, Hudson, Pekin, and Sioux Central.

Cherokee Washington, Clarinda, Unity Christian, and West Lyon moved up and out of 1A since last year, while the following have dropped into Class A: Bellevue, Columbus Community, Lake Mills, Madrid, North Butler, North Cedar, North Linn, Ogden, Wapello, Woodward Academy, and longtime state championship contender Iowa City Regina.

Here are your 1A districts:

And the webs:

CLASS A

Class A ends up with what's left over of 11-player teams after the 202 programs in classes 4A through 1A. This year that makes 60 total, distributed in ten districts of six teams each, with five district games and four non-district. Here there will be ten automatic district champion qualifiers, with the other six playoff teams chosen by RPI.

New members of this class include Iowa City Regina, who played in eight straight state championship games between 2010 and 2017 (winning six of those, including two in Class 2A). Also moving down from 1A are Bellevue, Columbus Community, Lake Mills, Madrid, North Butler, North Cedar, North Linn, Ogden, Wapello, and Woodward Academy. Sidney, a longtime member of the 8-player class, has been assigned to Class A due to their enrollment numbers, but they are currently appealing that decision to the IHSAA. I have included them in these district maps; if they win their appeal and return to 8-player, I assume District 9 would have only five members.

Programs in Class A last year that have chosen to play 8-player football this year are BGM, GMG, Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire, Grand View Christian, and Martensdale-St. Marys.

The districts:

And the webs:

The real outlier here is Wayne, Corydon. They're the only Class A team for miles and miles around there in south-central Iowa - at least they can use Interstate 35 for a lot of their travel.

8-PLAYER

There are 68 schools playing 8-player football this year, up from 62 last season. The IHSAA does have a BEDS enrollment cutoff of 120 for this class; any school above that number (with some exceptions) must play 11-player, while programs below that number can choose to play either 11-player or 8-player. There are eight districts, four of them with nine members and four with eight, so some teams will have eight district games and one non-district while others will have seven district/two non-district games. That means eight district champion qualifiers for the playoffs, with eight at-large selected by RPI.

The teams from Class A last year that are now in 8-player include BGM, GMG, Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire, Grand View Christian, and Martensdale-St. Marys. It appears Clarksville and Siouxland Christian are starting new 8-player programs this fall. Again, Sidney has been assigned to Class A but are appealing to the IHSAA; if they win their appeal, the class will grow to 69 and they'll be added to District 7.

Here are your districts:

And here are your webs:

Once again, it's quite unusual that the IHSAA is only using these districts/structures for one season instead of two. I think it's certain that more, perhaps much more significant changes will be on the way for 2021 and beyond.