The 2013 football season is little more than a one-year stopover for reclassification.
A new cutoff for six-man football and a revised Class 2A will be established in 2014, and several schools will feel the effects of the new alignments.
This we know: With Rock River joining varsity play in 2014, and the Upton-Sundance co-op in agreement through 2015, the reclass cycle will be based on 64 participating schools. But where will each school end up?
That depends on each school’s enrollment. The ADMs (Average Daily Membership numbers) used by the WHSAA to reclassify schools will not be released until mid-August, but using enrollment figures posted on the Wyoming Department of Education’s website, we can estimate who might be moving where.
(Of course, WDE enrollment numbers and ADMs are different. This is by no means official — consider these educated guesses.)
4A/3A and 3A/2A: No anticipated changes.
2A/1A 11-man: Two teams will drop due to the new cutline of 14 Class 2A schools, down from 16. Right now, I anticipate those two schools will be Tongue River and Moorcroft.
1A 11-man/1A six-man: With the new cutline of 14, some six-man schools may have to be moved up. I anticipate those current six-man schools above the cutline for six-man will be Wyoming Indian and Saratoga; I anticipate that all other current six-man schools will fall below the cutline. I also foresee one school falling below the six-man cutline opting up to play 11-man — Cokeville.
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As for conferences:
4A and 3A will look the same.
New 2A: West: Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Mountain View, Pinedale, Greybull, Lovell. East: Big Horn, Newcastle, Thermopolis, Glenrock, Burns, Wright, Wheatland.
New 1A 11-man: West: Burlington, Cokeville, Wind River, Wyoming Indian, Riverside, Rocky Mountain, Saratoga, Shoshoni. East: Tongue River, Moorcroft, Upton-Sundance, Lusk, Lingle, Pine Bluffs, Southeast.
New 1A six-man: West: Snake River, Dubois, Meeteetse, Ten Sleep, St. Stephens, Farson. East: Hulett, Kaycee, Midwest, Guernsey, Hanna, NSI, Rock River.
In other words, the WHSAA’s worst nightmare — an odd number of teams in both divisions of 1A.
An odd number of schools in each classification creates numerous scheduling problems. The WHSAA’s best option is to try to convince one of the six-man schools to opt up to 11-man to join Cokeville, or to have one of the 11-man schools voluntarily choose to opt down to six-man, even though such a move would make that team ineligible for the playoffs.
Fortunately (?), the state has an even number of programs for both the 2014 and 2015 schools; the future of the Upton-Sundance co-op won’t be known until after the agreement between the two schools ends after the 2015 season.
Again, remember these are only estimates. We won’t know for sure who’s going where until the official numbers are released, and enrollment numbers and ADMs are different. Nevertheless, enrollment numbers tend to be close enough to ADMs to allow for educated guesses like these….
–patrick
I am curious why you do not expect Lusk to jump up a classification. Based on the most recent enrollment figures, it looks like Lusk should have a higher ADM than even Wheatland. What am I missing?
Hi Boyd,
I think Lusk’s numbers as listed are wrong somehow. Lusk’s real enrollment is significantly lower than that (they graduated 22 this year, not 91 as listed on WDE’s site). I more or less threw Lusk’s numbers out because they’re obviously wrong on the WDE end.
–patrick
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