New class 5A for HS Football.

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heitclone

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This will be a mind blower for the young'uns. Back in 1988 Jefferson-Scranton played Ankeny in the girls district basketball finals in Boone. The Jeffettes coasted to a ho hum win.

I remember schools like Ventura and Elk Horn KImballton running 4a schools out of Vets back then. The girls tourney during 6 player was great. JS wouldn't even have really been a small school by comparison.
 

CloneJD

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Regular season scheduling should be about competitiveness, not enrollment. There are creative ways to do that but unfortunately administrators are stuck in their ways.
 
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bozclone

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For reference, here are the enrollment numbers used for the 2020-21 school year classifications. Note that they only use enrollment for grades 9-11, which is what's listed.


I live in Indiana, out of curiosity I looked at the Indiana enrollment numbers for football. Waukee would only be the 24th largest school in the state. The largest school is Carmel with an HS enrollment of 5286. In Indiana there are 6 classes for football, no 8-man football, and all teams play in the post season similar to basketball. Everyone is assigned a sectional and then the sectional winner moves on to the next round.

Crazy story about Iowa playoff qualifiers. When I was in 7th grade, Iowa only allowed 8 teams into the playoffs per class. It was based on a point system. That year my high school team was really good, but they lost their opening game 14-13. They then went on to win all the rest of their games and they did it without allowing a single point in any of the games. Unfortunately, due to the point system they did not make the playoffs. On a positive note, we ended up winning state the next two years.
 

CoachHines3

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I live in Indiana, out of curiosity I looked at the Indiana enrollment numbers for football. Waukee would only be the 24th largest school in the state. The largest school is Carmel with an HS enrollment of 5286. In Indiana there are 6 classes for football, no 8-man football, and all teams play in the post season similar to basketball. Everyone is assigned a sectional and then the sectional winner moves on to the next round.

Crazy story about Iowa playoff qualifiers. When I was in 7th grade, Iowa only allowed 8 teams into the playoffs per class. It was based on a point system. That year my high school team was really good, but they lost their opening game 14-13. They then went on to win all the rest of their games and they did it without allowing a single point in any of the games. Unfortunately, due to the point system they did not make the playoffs. On a positive note, we ended up winning state the next two years.

this also happened to Dexfield, i believe
 
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CYEATHAWK

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Regular season scheduling should be about competitiveness, not enrollment. There are creative ways to do that but unfortunately administrators are stuck in their ways.
I don't remember when they went to districts in football and why. And why switch every two years? My kids school is in the Des Moines area and our closet district opponent was Atlantic.
 

theshadow

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I don't remember when they went to districts in football and why. And why switch every two years? My kids school is in the Des Moines area and our closet district opponent was Atlantic.

1992 was the first year.

If you were a 2A team in a conference with mostly 3A teams, you got an automatic bump in points toward the playoffs. If you were a 2A team in a conference with mostly 1A teams, you were at a disadvantage for making the playoffs due to the lack of available points.

Smaller teams were having hard times finding teams their own size to play out of conference (and often took beatings from larger schools in their own conference), and there were a bunch of independents that had to play all over hell just to fill a schedule.

The two-year rotation allows for a home-and-home, while keeping current on enrollment/classification.
 
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CYEATHAWK

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1992 was the first year.

If you were a 2A team in a conference with mostly 3A teams, you got an automatic bump in points toward the playoffs. If you were a 2A team in a conference with mostly 1A teams, you were at a disadvantage for making the playoffs due to the lack of available points.

Smaller teams were having hard times finding teams their own size to play out of conference, and there were a bunch of independents that had to play all over hell just to fill a schedule.

The two-year rotation allows for a home-and-home, while keeping current on enrollment/classification.

Some of that makes sense.....but by changing districts every two years doesn't that make every school an "independent" and almost force them to play all over hell? Like I stated....my kids school here in the DSM metro area and last fall/next fall had/have Red Oak, Clarinda, Shenandoah, Greene County and Atlantic as our district. What the H?
 

BryceC

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then you just use total #s out for freshmen-varsity, not how many are out for each individual team. I mean we pulled freshmen up every once and a while even at Ankeny, Lanning was a freshman when he started varsity my junior year.

Yeah I think the only way to have it be remotely fair is to have a total enrollment component and a total roster component 9-12.
 
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theshadow

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Some of that makes sense.....but by changing districts every two years doesn't that make every school an "independent" and almost force them to play all over hell? Like I stated....my kids school here in the DSM metro area had Red Oak, Clarinda, Shenandoah, Greene County and Atlantic as our district. What the H?

All over hell...as in different states.

Teams are being grouped geographically by class. Geographic outliers are part of it, especially for 2A and above in the western half of the state.
 

BryceC

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When I was in high school (early 2000s), Waukee was in the same conference as Boone.

Waukee is now #1 on your list (2,267) and Boone is #61 (482).

I graduated from Boone in 2000... and there was like 800 kids in the school at the time. That's pretty crazy honestly.
 

CYEATHAWK

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All over hell...as in different states.

Teams are being grouped geographically by class. Geographic outliers are part of it, especially for 2A and above in the western half of the state.

I understand. And I know population in many of these smaller rural towns is dwindling. But I guess it would IMO make more sense to have a conference in SW Iowa even if some of the schools were smaller/larger and use that point system rather than force say Shenandoah to drive 7 hours(round trip) to central Iowa just to make sure they play a similar size school.
 

CYEATHAWK

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I graduated from Boone in 2000... and there was like 800 kids in the school at the time. That's pretty crazy honestly.

I think even further back Boone was in the same conference as Ankeny and Urbandale. Look at some of the conference history and it's amazing the changes that have happened over the years.
 

qwerty

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Don't some other states do that? I think Illinois does or at least they use to.
I believe Illinois bumps up private schools IF they have post season success, which makes sense. Why bump up a school that doesn't attract athletic talent (Morning Star Academy in Bettendorf comes to mind). I don't remember specifics but I read an article a couple years back that outlined it. I think if they make state finals 2 years in a row they are bumped one level, 4 out 5 bumped 2 levels. Something like that.
 

Sigmapolis

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I graduated from Boone in 2000... and there was like 800 kids in the school at the time. That's pretty crazy honestly.

I graduated in 2005. My high school class started with ~250 and finished with a little over 200.

The class after that was about 20 smaller. Then again. Then again. Then again.

Boone's demographics are about the best example of the end of the "echo" from the Baby Boom that I've ever found. Boomers end in 1964, which if you advance forward 25 to 35 years, equals 1989 to 1999.

Which translates into the Class of 2007 through the Class of 2017. And that is right when Boone's class sizes collapsed.
 

qwerty

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I graduated from Boone in 2000... and there was like 800 kids in the school at the time. That's pretty crazy honestly.
Those numbers are 3 grades only (9-11) so Boone was at 200 per grade and is now at 160 per grade. A decline but not as severe as you imagined.
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
Regular season scheduling should be about competitiveness, not enrollment. There are creative ways to do that but unfortunately administrators are stuck in their ways.
Local school had an old coach (up til a couple years ago) who still thought it was 1960/1970 in every way imaginable. He still thought that there was an advantage in playing crappy schools 2 sizes larger and bragging about it even though they would go 0-9/1-8 type seasons and it would not help them get ready one bit. They still have that mentality though. Like you said, many of the admins are stuck in their ways and can't learn new ideas.
 

VeloClone

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Yeah I think the only way to have it be remotely fair is to have a total enrollment component and a total roster component 9-12.
Instead of a roster component it should be a number of players trying out. A school could artificially limit the number of players on their JV and other squads to keep playing in a lower class even though they have a lot of players to pick from when they are developing their rosters. High School sports should be about opportunity not selectivity.
 

IsUaClone2

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I live in Indiana, out of curiosity I looked at the Indiana enrollment numbers for football. Waukee would only be the 24th largest school in the state. The largest school is Carmel with an HS enrollment of 5286. In Indiana there are 6 classes for football, no 8-man football, and all teams play in the post season similar to basketball. Everyone is assigned a sectional and then the sectional winner moves on to the next round.

Crazy story about Iowa playoff qualifiers. When I was in 7th grade, Iowa only allowed 8 teams into the playoffs per class. It was based on a point system. That year my high school team was really good, but they lost their opening game 14-13. They then went on to win all the rest of their games and they did it without allowing a single point in any of the games. Unfortunately, due to the point system they did not make the playoffs. On a positive note, we ended up winning state the next two years.

For people unfamiliar with Carmel, IN; it is a suburb next to Indianapolis and has only one public high school. It is an extremely wealthy city due to many medical-related companies and many, if not most, professional athletes from the Colts and Pacers live there. I recall that Georges Niang lived there during his stay with the Pacers.

Two of my grandchildren went to Carmel HS. They have four or five degree programs ranging from Basic, Honors, Ivy League, and one or two more. Classes are two-hour blocks and are scheduled on a rotating day basis (Blue and Gold days) so that you take half of your classes on one day and the other half on the next day (not linked to the day of the week). There are four main buildings (or wings if you wish), one of which is dedicated solely to freshmen with their own cafeteria, etc. Freshmen do leave their wing for honors or advanced placement classes but Sophs and above are not allowed in the Freshmen wing. I was told their Shop Program (my words not theirs, they would probably say Manual Arts Program) includes building a new house each year.

I remain both awed and repelled when comparing Carmel HS to my Iowa high school experience from 1958 to 1962. It's like comparing apples to road apples and I can't figure out which is which.