els36
Sophomore Member
Posts: 239 
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Post by els36 on Oct 12, 2017 18:45:35 GMT -6
All,
As a school we have tossed around the idea of changing leagues. I am new at this district as the HC and feel it may not be a bad move. From a football perspective the school is has had one winning season in league play in the last 15 years. I am kind of up in the air, but maybe a change of opponents may help. The new league we would look at is more schools our size and most schools are actually closer in proximity. One argument I keep hearing is "the rivalry and not having ties to the new league." Mind you the school I am at has not beat their rival in 17 years. Obviously other sports play a huge factor, and we are not competitive in other sports besides basketball. When is it time to move leagues? Thoughts from others (especially those who have been part of this process.)
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Post by carookie on Oct 12, 2017 21:13:41 GMT -6
There are two high schools near where I grew up that had a rivalry stretching over 50 years (and many more fistfights). About 7 years ago one of the schools fell too far behind the league they were both in to make a mark, so they left and scheduled the rival in non-league.
If it makes sense to switch to a smaller league then make it so.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2017 23:06:07 GMT -6
Yeah, switch leagues and try to schedule one or two rivals as non-league games. It'll give you the best of both worlds.
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Post by fcboiler87 on Oct 15, 2017 8:58:10 GMT -6
If you are a school that hasn't been competitive in a long time, it is something to seriously consider. I hear that argument all the time at my current school and it drives me nuts. "We were founding members of this conference," "It's tradition," blah blah blah. Yeah well have fun getting your arses kicked like you have for the last 20 years in all major sports. Times change, schools change and it is fair to adjust accordingly. We are the smallest school in our conference by 300 people, the largest schools in our conference are 2 and a half times our enrollment. We'd be better served moving. It just makes too much sense.
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Post by mariner42 on Oct 15, 2017 11:22:40 GMT -6
We just recently did it, although not 100% voluntarily.
We were kicking our league's butt too badly (hadn't lost a league game in 7 years, didn't allow a touchdown in league play 3 years ago, only had 1 close game last year because our QB broke his foot on Weds) and so the league disbanded for football.
We were happy because we actually get to play meaningful games in October, but at the same time hated the move because rather than, y'know, GET BETTER, our opposing coaches weaseled out of the situation.
I know some schools have situations that actively prevent success, one of our league opponents is the very definition of that, but most of the rest of our opponents have the means to improve and just don't.
IDK, it's tough. You should do what's right for your program, but is the easier way the best way?
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Post by coachd5085 on Oct 15, 2017 12:18:28 GMT -6
Just curious how many schools have this kind of autonomy? In Louisiana, the districts (I am assuming that is what is being referred to as a league) are set by the state association.
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Post by fcboiler87 on Oct 15, 2017 19:04:26 GMT -6
Just curious how many schools have this kind of autonomy? In Louisiana, the districts (I am assuming that is what is being referred to as a league) are set by the state association. Some states like yours have districts that are set periodically based on enrollment. Kentucky is one as well. I know in Kentucky, some programs actually apply to the state to drop out of district play in order to schedule freely to try to get some wins and build their program. The only catch is that they are then ineligible for the playoffs. For the teams that do this, it makes sense, as they may not get many wins otherwise. In Indiana, you play your conference opponents. Conferences are born largely from traditional alliances formed decades ago. There has been a fair amount of movement lately here with it, but many are still stuck and do not want to change. Some conferences have teams that are 2 or 3 classes separate, meaning their enrollment disparity is incredible. Enrollment isn't always the main factor, but it can make a big difference. |
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Post by coachklee on Oct 15, 2017 19:59:53 GMT -6
Michigan is also a free for all based loosely on long standing traditions. Even new conferences are just re-incarnations of old ones that often disbanded due to the dominance of a single team or drastic enrollment changes over time.
Where I am currently, we have had 3 conference affiliations in the last 7 years. We are a smaller Class B (480 students) that traditionally played in a large Class C (typically 270-400 students) conference. The school left for fear of the conference breaking up & leaving the 4 Class Bs independent.
The results were a disastrous 3-18 record for 3 years as the smallest school in an all Class B conference.
We left that 3 years ago & after some more changes in a year will be in a weird 2 conference / 4 division format that basically starts with 1/2 of the old conference to open.
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Post by Chris Clement on Oct 15, 2017 20:28:17 GMT -6
It's actually a big thing here. In Quebec City there are 4 monster schools that for years just played in their own league because they didn't want to waste their time and nobody wanted to play them. It's some Texas-level stuff. They essentially created their own league above the highest division nominally offered.
This year they decided they were bored of playing each other over and over so they folded their league and joined the top division (far far weaker than them, even if it's a really good HS league).
So dominoes shuffle because nobody wants to drive two hours every week to get pounded, and because it was too late to sit down and restructure things logically you now have a league where two teams are five hours drive from the core of the league.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2017 22:07:59 GMT -6
Just curious how many schools have this kind of autonomy? In Louisiana, the districts (I am assuming that is what is being referred to as a league) are set by the state association. Here, they're set by the state association, but when redistricting/reclassification comes around (now every 4 years) they can petition to be put into a specific district or they may be moved down by the state association. However, in the last round of reclassification happened, a lot of teams opted to play up in classification because they didn't want to travel to faraway opponents or just wanted to keep traditional rivalries intact. Most of the 4A regional powerhouses our area moved up to 5A, for example. Our state was discussing some "bizarre" things involving dividing teams up by average income, just making everyone in a geographic region autonomous and letting them make their own conferences, etc. but opted to go with this system. Prior to this we had 3 major classes for the regular season and a weird (and flawed--the state literally had their math wrong two years in a row) BCS-like points system to divide teams up into 6 classes for the postseason, then we briefly went to an even weirder thing where the 32 largest teams were all guaranteed playoff spots and put into 4 conferences with insane travel times while the others were divided into 5 classes with conventional districts. |
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