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2008/2009 football districts announcement
By Joboo | January 24, 2008
Tomorrow MSHSAA will release the new football district assignments for the 2008/2009 seasons. Their website has already announced that all of the class 5 districts will have 5 or even 6 assigned schools. Forcing some teams to begin district play in week 6 of the next 2 seasons. Combining that with the added round of the state playoffs, 2008 should be the most interesting season since the current playoff structure was introduced.
Coaches & teams will most certainly be affected by one week less of practice time & the number of required practices being cut from 14 to 9. Some coaches have expressed concerns for player safety. Not only due to lesser physical conditioning, but also due to the likely higher temperatures that will be encountered the first week. The MSHSAA wanted to maintain the Show-Me Bowl tradition of playing the weekend following Thanksgiving, & the possible difference in conditions for the first week seems to have been deemed an acceptable risk. Given advances in athletic health information & treatment, that should be true, hopefully without exception.
While it remains to be seen how the quality of play in week one will be changed & if player safety is compromised at all, there is no doubting the impact on athletic directors. They will be more challenged than ever to put together their schedules. A general tendency to look for a ‘beatable’ opponent for week one will be more prominent among ADs worried about their team’s reduction in practice time. But the biggest challenge may come from scheduling conference games.
What bears the most watching, especially from the class 5 group, is if conference affiliations can survive increasing district sizes. Much discussion has already taken place about expanding districts to 8 teams. A move that would virtually ensure that traditional conferences that include teams from different classes, like the Big 8 & the COC, would have to forgo at least some conference match ups to fulfill district requirements. For example, one of the most heated & long standing rivalries in the Ozarks is the annual Aurora/Mt. Vernon game. As recently as two years ago, they were in different classes. Imagine having to bypass such a great tradition in order to get all district games in. The structuring of the class 5 districts may give us some clue of MSHSAA’s intentions toward maintaining conference play.
The announcement is currently scheduled for 7 AM tomorrow. I will post all the districts that include area teams as soon as I can. Or you can read the announcement on the MSHSAA website.
Topics: Football |