OHSAA adding new FB division

The Ohio High School Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion will be adding a sev­enth tour­na­ment divi­sion in foot­ball begin­ning in 2013, Com­mis­sioner Daniel B. Ross has announced.

The addi­tion of a sev­enth divi­sion was approved by the OHSAA’s Board of Direc­tors by a six to three vote dur­ing its reg­u­larly sched­uled meet­ing on Thursday.

The plan will place the top 10 per­cent of schools based on enroll­ment in Divi­sion I, with the remain­ing 644 schools divided evenly among the next six divi­sions. This will leave 72 schools in Divi­sion I with the other six divi­sions aver­ag­ing approx­i­mately 108 schools. Each of the seven divi­sions will con­tinue to qual­ify 32 teams to the tour­na­ment. Cur­rently, the six OHSAA foot­ball divi­sions are com­prised of an aver­age of 120 schools per division.

The plan for adopt­ing an addi­tional divi­sion was in response to a con­cern by some OHSAA mem­ber schools about the enroll­ment dis­par­ity that exists in Divi­sion I, where the cur­rent range is 494 males at the lower end of the divi­sion to 1,164 at the top.

Based on cur­rent enroll­ment data, the lower end of Divi­sion I would increase to 600 males. Com­mit­tee meet­ings were held to address the issue and the rec­om­men­da­tion to add a sev­enth divi­sion came from the committee.

“Adding a sev­enth divi­sion not only helps address the enroll­ment dis­par­ity in Divi­sion I, but it also will cre­ate 32 more tour­na­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for student-athletes, their schools and their com­mu­ni­ties, many of which have never or rarely expe­ri­enced the play­offs,” Ross said. “The com­mit­tee mem­bers believe that this is an issue unique to foot­ball, espe­cially since not all schools qual­ify for the OHSAA foot­ball tournament.”

A sep­a­rate com­mit­tee, com­prised of OHSAA Board and staff mem­bers, school admin­is­tra­tors and offi­cers of the Ohio High School Foot­ball Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion, will be formed to final­ize the details of this plan. Among the details to be deter­mined: adjust­ments to the Harbin Com­puter Rat­ings with the addi­tion of another divi­sion; regional break­downs and assign­ments for Divi­sion I, and dates in which spe­cific divi­sions will play their tour­na­ment con­tests, includ­ing logis­tics of an addi­tional state tour­na­ment contest.

Approval of an “ath­letic count” for­mula, which is included within a com­pet­i­tive bal­ance pro­posal that OHSAA mem­ber school prin­ci­pals will vote on dur­ing the annual ref­er­en­dum process that will occur between May 1 and 15, would also be fac­tored in before plac­ing schools into their respec­tive tour­na­ment divisions.

The next two-year cycle for reas­sign­ing schools to tour­na­ment divi­sions begins in the fall of 2013. Based on cur­rent enroll­ment fig­ures, a sam­ple of the foot­ball tour­na­ment divi­sional enroll­ment ranges when adding a sev­enth divi­sion would be (again, keep­ing in mind that this will change before the 2013 sea­son): Divi­sion I – 600 to 1,164; Divi­sion II – 410 to 599; Divi­sion III – 288 to 409; Divi­sion IV – 216 to 287; Divi­sion V – 159 to 215; Divi­sion VI – 114 to 158, and Divi­sion VII – 30 to 111.

The cur­rent foot­ball tour­na­ment divi­sional enroll­ment ranges, which run through 2012, are: Divi­sion I – 494 to 1,164; Divi­sion II – 327 to 493; Divi­sion III – 243 to 326; Divi­sion IV – 172 to 242; Divi­sion V – 120 to 171, and Divi­sion VI – 30 to 119.

This is the first time the OHSAA has expanded the num­ber of foot­ball tour­na­ment divi­sions since 1994, when a sixth divi­sion was added. Five years later, the num­ber of tour­na­ment qual­i­fiers in each divi­sion expanded from 16 to 32. When the tour­na­ment first began in 1972, there were three foot­ball tour­na­ment divi­sions, and expan­sion to five divi­sions occurred in 1980.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Apr 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.