Another Look At This Year's Districts

My previous post (showing the new districts for Iowa high school football for 2021-22) was thrown together in a big hurry. I just whipped together my colored spiderweb district maps, leaving it to the reader to look up the actual members of each district and all.

Given a bit more time - and also taking the opportunity to play around with the paint.net program (which is the real reason I spent the time to do all these) - I wasn't satisfied with those thrown-together maps. So, here you will find maps that include the school names, as well as a general idea of district boundaries. You can use them in conjunction with the spider-web maps I made earlier to get a complete idea of how the districts will shake out for 2021-22.

The big change for 2021-22 is the creation of a new Class 5A, breaking out the 36 largest schools into the top class; by keeping 4A and 3A at 36 members as well, the breakpoints between classes are considerably different than they have been in recent years. This also creates two additional semifinal playoff games in a weekend that really doesn't have room for more games (the previous six-class schedule had 8-Player and 3A semifinals on Thursday, A and 4A semifinals on Friday, and 2A and 3A semifinals on Saturday). Where will two more semifinal games go? Speculation is that the 8-Player semis could be moved to Wednesday (with the 8-Player third round games the previous week adjusted to Thursday night, to allow enough recovery time between games), but that's all guesswork at the moment.

CLASS 5A

Again, these aren't "districts." The Iowa High School Athletic Association is trying something different for 5A, the 36 largest football schools in the state. They are put together in six "groups," with each group being tiered by some kind of formula (mostly past win-loss and playoff success): each group has one team in Tier 1, one in Tier 2, one in Tier 3, and so on. The groups do not necessarily play a full round-robin - the games scheduled by the state include four of their group opponents, not five, with Tier 1 and Tier 6 not playing each other. In addition, the state has scheduled a fifth game for each team against a team from the same tier in a different group. Schools can complete their schedule with four other games against any other opponent they can schedule.

Sixteen teams in 5A will make the playoffs, with all sixteen determined purely by RPI. 

CLASS 4A

From here on we do have traditional districts. There are 36 total teams in Class 4A, with six districts of six. All district members will play each other for five games of their schedule, with the other four coming through mutual wish-lists. Sixteen teams will make the 4A playoffs: the top two finishers in each district, along with four other teams with the highest RPI.

These districts are fairly well put together, I think - Districts 1 and 2 are pretty far-flung in northwest and northeast Iowa, but you can't do much about that. District 4 could be intriguing, with traditional powers Xavier and Pella together in the same district (they've met in the playoffs four times since 2014, with an epic 34-30 last-play victory by Pella in the 2016 semifinals, a win by Xavier in the 2017 3A championship, and a thrilling 14-6 slugfest win by Xavier in the 2018 second round). That district also sees Cedar Rapids Washington, for the first time dropping out of the state's largest football class, as a new metro district opponent for Xavier. 

There was always going to be a question of who got included in the district with Mount Pleasant, Burlington, and Fort Madison - those three southeastern teams just didn't fit in very well with anybody else. The state chose to put them in District 3 with Iowa City Liberty, North Scott, and Clinton. Enrollment changes and the new breakpoints between classes added Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson to District 6, giving Lewis Central and Glenwood a new neighbor and making that district a half west/half central sort of arrangement.

CLASS 3A

The plan for 3A is exactly the same as 4A. Thirty-six total members, six districts of six, nine regular-season games (five district, four non-district), and sixteen playoff qualifiers (top two in each district and four more by RPI).

There are some definite outliers here: Carroll in District 1, Grinnell in District 5 and Knoxville in District 6 will have some long bus rides involved. District 2 is pretty stretched out from Algona and Humboldt to North Polk and Ballard; I imagine Humboldt is excited about some new district opponents that aren't from the northwest part of the state. South Tama also seems a bit out of place in District 3, but who would you trade them for?

CLASS 2A

For Class 2A the numbers grow to 48, so there are eight districts of six. There are also just eight regular season games, instead of nine - the classes from here on down will have 32 playoff qualifiers instead of 16, so their playoffs will start in what would be Week 9 of the regular season (teams that do not qualify for the playoffs have the option to schedule a ninth game with another non-playoff team, if they desire). The top four teams in each district will make the playoffs, so no RPI is necessary.

A couple of nicely put together districts (District 1, District 3, District 5) and a few far-flung ones (District 7, from Iowa Falls to Chariton/Albia, is quite a north-south stretch; it's a long way from Centerville to Williamsburg in District 6; and District 8 covers a lot of ground).

CLASS 1A

Just as Class 3A is exactly the same as 4A, Class 1A copies 2A - 48 total teams, six districts of eight, eight regular season games, 32 playoff qualifiers with the top four from each district.

This may be the most elegant grouping of districts I've ever seen. They're all fairly compact and make sense, mostly. I say the IHSAA did a great job with the 1A districts.

CLASS A

Class A is all the 11-player teams left after the 204 sorted into 5A through 1A. It happens to be a happy coincidence that that leaves 56 teams - not only a round number, but one that's easily sorted into eight districts of seven teams each. There will be a couple of oddities from that: each team has six district games and two non-district, but the non-district games will be distributed over the course of the eight-week season (each week one team per district will have to have a non-district game, since there's an odd number of teams in each district).

Again, 32 playoff qualifiers, with the top four in each district advancing. The 24 teams that do not reach the playoffs are allowed to schedule a ninth game with another non-qualifying team, if they want.

These districts, much like 1A, are pretty well distributed, with one exception - Wayne, Corydon is awfully lonely down there in the south of District 6, a long way from Belle Plaine, Madrid, and Ogden. But the fact is, Wayne is a long way from everybody except Mount Ayr, so whatever district they got placed in would be a stretch.

CLASS 8-PLAYER

This class continues to grow, and continues to be the largest single class in Iowa high school football. There were rumors of the IHSAA perhaps splitting 8-Player into two classes as part of the reorganizing that created Class 5A for 2021, but that didn't happen. For the current cycle, there will be 72 schools participating in the 8-Player game. The state set up 10 districts, eight of them with seven members and two of them with eight. There will be 32 playoff qualifiers after an eight-game regular season - the top two teams in each district are in, then the final two playoff teams will be selected using their point differential in district games (limited to 17 points maximum). So it's a little weird in that 56 teams will have six district games/two non-district while 16 others will have seven district games/one non-district.

Some other things to note:

• In District 1, Siouxland Christian had previously paired with Whiting, with games played at Whiting High School. While I haven't seen anything definitive, there was some evidence on the IHSAA website earlier showing Whiting choosing to pair up with West Harrison instead. If that is indeed the case, I'm not sure where Siouxland Christian would play their games (they do not have a field of their own). Siouxland Christian actually ended up forfeiting their final two games in 2019 and didn't play at all last fall, which may be a factor if Whiting decided to have their football players team up with a program more likely to actually play out the season.
• In District 5, Calamus-Wheatland is starting up an 8-Player program this season (they had previously paired with Central DeWitt's 11-player team). All their games this season will be road games, as they do not have a field of their own.
• In District 7, I'm not sure where Woodward Academy is going to play, either. They've previously played 11-player football, I think sharing Woodward-Granger's field - but since the 8-Player field has different dimensions from the 11-player game, they can't share the playing surface any more.

It's possible all three of those teams - Siouxland Christian, Calamus-Wheatland, and Woodward Academy - will play all of their games on the road, but I just don't know.

Okay, with 72 teams you'd think you could get some compact districts put together, but ... District 2 covers an awful lot of ground, and District 4 is a stretch from Lansing to Calamus. The others aren't too bad, though.

And there you have it, maps with district boundaries and school names and all. It was good practice with paint.net, and maybe the visualizations will be helpful for you, too.