MSSportsGuy

I'd say it also made 1A weaker because many of the schools, even those will football, struggle to get enough boys to play because they just dont' have may to choose from. Beating this dead horse is my speciality but if they had made 6A the top 24, 5A the next 24, it would have pushed 16 teams down into 4A. When spread out that's 4 teams per class extra, not even enough to add one team to each region. That wouldn't have substantially increased competition or given too many people headaches with numbers.

Going back to five classes wouldn't necessarily require consolidation but rather the will to do so and for the association to bring it up. They wont due to $$. As I've posted the 6A and 5A dividing lines could have been adjusted to reduce the gap and achieved basically the same result but that meant less revenue. The NE corner of MS has been one of the major consolidation hold outs and it usually comes down to: 1. Athletics/Tradition 2. belief it would cause a demographic shift 3. A small number of people like a board or key families who would lose power and influence. I'm a bigger fan of district consolidation as there are just too many for a state our size with 6 figure superintendents and staffs for not many more students than a large high school. My home county has two districts, is pretty small, and it's "the way it's always been". These school facilities won't last forever and I believe that's a big reason consolidation will eventually come to some of these places.

Some of these schools, many of them near where I grew up, are hanging on by a thread and I have to believe at some point at least a couple will have to consolidate, even if due to the poor facilites and lack of a tax base to build new ones.

I cant' speak for all of them or what things are like now but I grew up in NE MS next to a couple of those counties where districts had both football and non football schools. Generally speaking in those districts if the kid and family wanted to play the district would permit a transfer. Even if it was to a school in another district I don't think there was huge pushback unless the schools themselves objected, like say an athlete moving from one district to another. The association would step in occassionally but only if there was a case made by the former school. There wasn't a ton of district jumping in my county but there were a couple of cases and it was really more of the non athletes.

It's far too early to predict what things will look like in 2026 when these numbers actually play out but I anticipate NTHS will be 3A if the system we are using today remains in place, maybe on the smaller end of the scale.

I'm confident those three schools won't stay tied with those exact numbers as there will always be a little churn during the summer and fall. Also when getting down to 1A/2A lines a big or small class can shift a school pretty easily. Baldwyn is 1A for this cycle but is safely 2A based on the visible numbers while Ingomar is currently 2A but looks to possibly go back to 1A. ' For the record I still hate 7 classes and think 5 is actually plenty as more schools will wind up consolidating.

You do a good job with these but have missed what will definitely be a 2A. Walnut is a K-12 school but the area has a K-8 school, Chalybeate, that feeds into Walnut when the kids enter 9th grade.Walnut 8-10 enrollment per the MDE tool is 137. Chalybeate has 36 8th graders so their total would be 173 give or take a handful. As referenced in another thread in 2027 the entire district will shift as Falkner becomes only K-5, Chalybeate will be K-5, and the Walnut campus becomes only 6-12 and takes the name North Tippah High School. I figure they wind up 3A. I grew up in an adjacent county to Tippah so am pretty familliar with the area.

Many students are transient and we won't have any clue how these numbers shake out until fall. Overall public school enrollment is dropping across the state though a few places may move up or down that are right at the cutoff point. Wingfield is a known closure by fall but there could be others. Strayhorn honestly should have been reexamined after the Coldwater closure, or have another school get moved to give 4 teams in that football district, or both. Being a North Mississippian, I can say East Union is finally beginning to see some larger increases that may push them to 3A. Especially with the lower classes, an unusually large or smaller group can make the difference in where a school lands.

I can agree with some of this. I think these days it's just tougher to get the community and students interested in much of anything. Everyone is super busy or thinks they are. Parents still support their kids but the kids are more "entertained" now than even when I was young. Youth sports culture, for better or worse, has replaced high school teams for how young spend their extracurricular time and also a chunk of the family's entertainment. My wife and I did it for our kids but not to the degree some families do. Plus, and I saw this with my own kids, many schools have so many student centered activities going on it makes it difficult for the average student to pay much attention to the school teams I think ticket, concession, and gas prices are a concern for a middle to lower middle class family who may opt to stream or keep up with the game via social media rather than pay the expense

Picayune is included. There are many I've never been to and most in the Pine Belt/Gulf Coast area I'm not familiar with at all.

I suppose consolidation is on hold again? Knew it was a few years off and someone posted here it was facing some legal challenges. Know it wasn't scheduled to happen next fall anyway but just wondering if the plans to merge were moving forward.

I was given this as a Christmas gift and it's a great book. There will always be some fields who get left out but it did a good job covering the ones included.

Yeah I gathered even if attendance was higher it wasn't stopping the team from moving, but a lot of us are still bummed about it. I took my son often when he was small and the team was relatively new but have only been once in the past five or six years and that was pre pandemic.

The JPS board approved the plan to close eleven schools total last night and Wingfield is on the list. It's probably the most controversial closure although I believe there will be legal challenges that may stop it (at least for now). I truly hate it for the students and alumni but the district has lost so many students and the trend isn't slowing down. This will move students to Forest Hill and Jim Hill which may or may not impact their numbers enough to move the needle for them during the next reclassification round. I could see at least one or two more high schools closing in my lifetime as the district and city will continue to be hollowed out as the population declines. Sad day for many families across JPS but I respect the board for making the tough decision. There are other places in our state who should follow their lead.

There is still a lot of talent in Mississippi but it's very underdeveloped when compared to states with more large schools that are essentially football factories. The population difference between us and Alabama is pretty drastic and it's tough to match up with them most years.

I truly don't think the area has a good football culture, which could be part of the challenge retaining coaches or sustaining success even when programs win. It is a good place to live overall, but probably not as nice as people outside think. It's proximity to Memphis of course has benefits and drawbacks. The overall population tends to be transient with families and students routinely coming in and out frequently. It seems like there is a churn among the schools there that isn't present even in the Jackson area since they are broken over 3 counties as opposed to one in Desoto. A kid can move rental houses or apartments a couple of miles but are now in a different school zone there. One of the arguments that was used for 7 classes was the gap between the top of 6A, where DC is, to the bottom so the 7A class was formed. To me that was silly because some of those schools have large enrollments but that doesn't mean they are necessarily at a competitive advantage athletically and Desoto County to me is an example of this. My friends who live there enjoy it but have moved their kids to private school at Northpointe Christian and there will continue to be families who will enroll in the Shelby County private schools.

I truly wish the state would help with the funds to build JSU a 25K stadium closer to campus and tear down that gosh awful thing on state street. It's long outlived it's purpose.

Frankly both stadiums are very good and the crowds would appear to be tiny due to the venue size, as would be the case at Veteran's in Jackson. USM has a small stadium and it's not great (at least the last time I was at a game there) but it would give the appearance of a more filled venue. Hattiesburg has more hotel rooms than Oxford or Starkville (I would guess) but the need for them would vary based on where the teams are coming from, which is unknown when these things are scheduled.

Good thing that extra class created more excitement by having the survivor of a 12 team 5A south half go up against a dominant opponent. I'm just being my usual sarcastic self about the stupidity of the extra class of course but I will never forget the director saying this was to increase excitement when in reality it was just a money grab.

I didn't say it hurt them, but just that it wasn't done for them. Like most things in the world, this was done 95% for money and 5% to appease a few coaches. It's true one more group of kids and parents can celebrate and they will have earned that right based on the structure of the system but I compare the MHSAA actions to those of conferencer realignment at the collegiate level where the decisions are made for football, money, and little else is considered. That's my biggest gripe to see it spill over to the high school level.

Despite my vocal and total dislike for 7 classes I won't go so far as to say anything was "ruined" but rather just changed to benefit the association and appease some coaches. None of this was done for the kids, fans, or better of the sport. It's just like the NCAA only on a smaller scale.

I agree with you and I'm a native of Northeast Mississippi where many of the small schools have opposed any consolidation. I don't think bigger is necessarily better but there are places where there are 1A/2A schools within a 10/15 minute drive of each other in aging facilities. What keeps these schools going is largely: 1a. Athletics 1b. Keeping schools racially exclusive or at worst balanced. 2. Tradition and history, both of which have 1A and 1B as factors. I'm more of a fan of district consolidation. My home county where my mother and brother still live has 2 school districts for no reason other than that's how it was set up and people are happy with it. Those citizens will say consolidation needs to happen but if you mention "their" school all heck breaks loose.

I have no issue with the top 4 making the playoffs if a region is 7 or 8 teams, but to get regions that large would mean shrinking the number of classes again.

I'm old and here are the iterations I experieced and have also witnessed: I was in HS in the early 90: 7 or 8 teams in our district (3A), top 2 made the playoffs. My junior year I think we were 8-2, maybe 7-3, but missed out because we lost two districs games to people better than us. Late 90s or early 2000s (I was a newlywed with twin babies so clearly my mind was elsewhere lol): Top 4 were making the playoffs. Most divisions below 5A had 7 teams but eh, whatever. Also 1A due to so many non football members moves to 4 regions with 7 or 8 team districts because coaches complained they couldn't fill out a schedule. 5A also had the same issue when they initially made it top 32. These divisions did have some travel issues for a few teams but I was only an observer at that point. 2009 Association moves to 6A: Read the rationale was the "gap" between 4A. Up to that point 5A had been the largest 32 with 4 on down divided evenly, Too big of a gap in 4A (allegedly) so top 32 6A, next 32 5A, then divided evenly. Districts in lower classes shrink to 6 or so teams. Again, I sort of get it but another trend was happening and that's school consolidation was taking place in some rural communities. With the top 4 making the playoffs in 6 team regions, I started to see 2-8/3-7 teams from some classes in the "Playoffs". 2022 Association goes to 7A: This was done to "increase excitement" and reduce the gap in 6A. The gap argument had some merits and I get it if you were Grenada playing Tupelo or Desoto Central but virtually no thought was given to the lower classes and what this would do. 6A could have become the top 24, 5A the next 24, and the other 16 who were part of the old 5A would have shifted down as things were divided evenly again. Sixteen schools over 4 classes would have mean 4 per class so not even one additional school per region. The numbers dividing the lower classes are basically moot as it's whoever is sitting where the line is drawn. Other considerations: In my 30 years since HS graduation there has been some consolidation in rural communites for small schools. It's true Desoto built 4 new high schools, Madison County 2, and 1 in Harrison County but the total number of schools in the state has been shrinking, as has overall enrollment. This is over the course of three decades so obviously things change and I don't say we should stay frozen in time but we should also be realistic. If I were king, which I won't be, I'd honestly make 5A your largest 24, 4A next 24, then divide the rest up evenly on down as much as possible. The top of 3A to bottom wouldn't be that much of a difference in the big picture unless there were a couple of outliers. If the association doesn't have enough officials to cover all the games now why did we add more (rhetorical question). Maybe the principals and coaches will push back but I doubt it. The moves from the association, such as forcing the hand of the Catholic schools to go MAIS because a couple of soccer and baseball coaches were upset they lost a state finals appearance, tend to be short sighted and reactive.

Last week Georgia's association released prelimnary enrolment nubmers going back to 6A being their largest class after 7A being the largest class for a couple of cycles. This apparently was passed in 2022 but will take effect starting with 2024-25 cycle. Reasons given were to create larger regions and cut down on travel. https://sports.yahoo.com/ghsa-approves-move-back-six-223100095.html Granted they are a much larger state with many more schools but their 6A will have 65 schools. They use a 3.0 multiplier to add for students who are considered to be out of their zone so some numbers look strange, but a quick examination of the FTE for 6A has Brookwood in Gwinnett County with 3880 with the smallest 6A being 2084 in Alpharetta High. I wonder if their assocation was concerned about reducing excitement, or if Alpharetta High will have a fit because they will be in a class with a much larger school on top, as some of the old 6A apparently were upset about being with Tupelo and Desoto Central having so many more students. https://www.ghsa.net/sites/default/files/documents/reclassification/GHSA_Reclassification_2024-26.pdf Of course I'm the jerk who regularly bashed 7 classes and will because we all know it was largely done to make more $$ and to appease a small number of coaches, sold under the guise it was more equitable for the students while basically ignoring the association benefits the most. I really am curious to see if people are happy with the 7 classes if they think about it. 6 was plenty for a state our size and I would guess 5 would still be okay with consolidations inevitably on the horizon.