The enrollment differential in class 4 is the worst it has ever been. There are teams with 500-600 larger enrollments. Class 5 in my opinion is a joke. There is not enough teams in the division period.
Is this the biggest debacle MSHSAA has ever had?
- Thread starter mofootballcoach
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Based on what I'm seeing it looks like Lebanon is the biggest class 4 with 1060 and West Plains is the smallest at 754. I agree that class 5 and 6 having so few teams is a joke, but complaining about enrollment differences in football is laughable when compared to basketball. Last year basketball had a district with Rolla at 932 and Owensville at 417. I follow all high school sports in my area so I'm not anti-football, but no sport is as coddled as football by MSHSAA when it comes to getting trophies for as many teams as possible.
You only need 5 kids for a basketball team playing in an air conditioned gym. Apples and oranges.
Well maybe you need to get glasses or actually look at the enrollment figures. Kirksville at 566 is the smallest class 4 school I don't think Lebanon is the largest. So that means from the smallest to the largest it is doubled.
according Jason West MSHSAA will not release the numbers until late November. I think at that time you will see Class 4 size differently is way bad.
I thought from smallest to largest no class was supposed to be more than 2x ??? (Smallest school is 600 then largest could be no more than 1200) thought I read that someplace semi official
maybe the answer is to come up with set enrollment figures for each class and however many fall into it so be it. Its never going to seem fair as long as you are just trying to fill class with a certain number of schools
What's the fix? It would be simple this year, just move up schools into 5 until you get under the ratio. Next year with 1 as the catch-all you are going to have to disrupt four classes to get equity in one.
Looked at the map wrong, yeah Kirksville is the smallest based off last year's enrollment. The top classes having 68 teams combined is the major issue. That doesn't make sense.
All of it has been vastly too complicated, and waiting until the last minute to release makes zero sense. In basketball and baseball especially coaches will schedule games against District opponents to help shake out the seeding process. If you get placed in a surprise district then that becomes hard to schedule. I know of teams this past season that have gotten burned on that big time.
Don't know cards. The same reason they didn't start the championship factor this year. Both could have started this year.Could have went back six years and moved private to the appropriate class and the 2 to1.
I would think there would be a good chance they would have to expand to 7 classes if they really do that??
If one really small school decided to play 11 man football it could throw a monkey wrench in the entire process
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I don't see how air conditioning has anything to do with anything. As for the five kids argument, that is irrelevant when looking at sustained success within a classification. Regardless of sport, especially in the mid-large classifications, the most successful programs long-term are either private schools or amongst the largest schools in their classifications/district. That runs totally contrary to the theory of, "Oh there's less kids on the team so enrollment is inconsequential." There are five players on the court, so each player makes a substantially bigger impact. Schools with well over twice as many kids have a much higher probability of having one or two Lebrons or Jordans come through along with one or two quality role players or several quality players to overwhelm opponents.
The answer is simple... Make it to where it is 8 teams per classification, everyone is on the same enrollment number, we have 75 state champions each year, MSHSAA makes money and everyone gets a trophy and can go home happy!
I do believe it's the only sport that doesn't award consolation round trophies.
Why is that the answer? Seems to me just move some of the larger schools to class 5? Do you work for Mshsaa because you seem to be making the answer harder than in needs to be. There are 36 schools in Class 5 and 64 in class 4 why not even those out based on enrollment maybe increase some in class 6.
Why do the bottom 4 classes have to have 64 why do they need to be even? Heck make the districts odd number with 7 give the top seed a first round bye.
Why do we have six classes? We simply don't have the population or number of schools to justify it.
If more small schools keep going to 8-man I think we will have to look to reduce classifications. But that still won't fix the issue of have a school of 500 going up against a school of 1100 if MSHSAA still insist on keeping the number of schools in each Classification equal.
That would have to be done if there were not 8 teams in the 75 districts anyway.
Well actually the hold up is trying to find 75 different host sites to play the championship games at. The Dome in St. Louis was set to host them over a 2 week period, but the owner decided to skip town.
I don't know if it still happens, but I can remember when the teams that lost the semifinal game got a third-place trophy.
Yes it is. It's time to go back to 5 Classes or Expand 5 and 6. District 5 in C5 is ridiculous, you have 4 teams with a winning record of 5 or lower last year. We could have the first ever district championship winner with a record or 3 or fewer wins this year.
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The answer is to cancel the postseason. In every sport. Schedule the games you want to play. Have fun. Be done with it.
There's no way in high school athletics to re-create the fairness that everyone is growing up with in youth sports.
There's no way in high school athletics to re-create the fairness that everyone is growing up with in youth sports.
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The trophy has on it - SEMI-FINALIST, not THIRD PLACE
I would also argue that larger classifications shouldn't have buys. Wouldn't it make since for lower classifications to get a buy week late in the season so they can have some recovery? Most of them are two way players. Larger classifications have over 100 kids to choose from and two platoon.
Six classes in football is a joke. Go to four classes, and since everyone whines about private schools put all of them in their own class for their own post-season (regardless of their size). There have been some very mediocre teams making it to the semi's and even the state championship games over the past few years because the competition is watered down with so many classes. Make the championship mean something.
I will notify all champions and runners up for the past 20+ years that their accomplishments mean zilch! All watered down like my wife’s tomato plants.
How many state semi-final games had 21+ point victory margins or worse last year? Some teams making it this far are only doing so because the competition is spread to thin with 6 classes. Don't we want the most competitive games possible? Schools losing semi-final or championship games by 30-40 points really need to ask themselves if they were really "that good", or if they just didn't have to beat anyone to get there. I'm not saying there haven't been some great teams in the past few years, but I think the road to a championship would be much more entertaining, and more meaningful with fewer classes.
