The Williams High School football team performs distanced stretching exercises during the start of team workouts in October.
Times-NewsDavid Kehrli / Times-News, Times-News
Make room for fresh rivalries and familiarize yourself with new transportation routes and opposing team facilities, it's realignment time for North Carolina High School Athletic Association member schools.
The state athletic association set its adjusted classifications last week for the 2021-25 realignment cycle.
Of the 11 NCHSAA member schools in the Times-News region, nine will remain in the same classification as the current cycle, while Southern Alamance and Eastern Randolph are on the move to reclassify based on their final realignment scores as determined by a new realignment formula.
Southern Alamance, currently a Class 3-A school, will move up to Class 4-A starting in the 2021-22 school year.
“We weren’t surprised by it at all,” Southern Alamance athletics director Stephanie Smith said. “With going back to the 25-25-25-25 (model), I think that kind of set it up where we knew there was a great chance we’d be 4-A.”
Under the new realignment, the state moved back to grouping 25 percent of its schools in each classification. The current realignment cycle used a 20-30-30-20 model.
The NCHSAA used three main factors in a formula to determine which classification each of its 426 member schools would be placed in: 50 percent Average Daily Membership numbers, 25 percent Identified Student Percentage numbers and 25 percent the average of the previous three years of NCHSAA State Cup points.
Each of the past two football seasons, Southern Alamance has been placed in the AA portion of the state playoff bracket for Class 3-A as a school with numbers on the larger side for 3-A schools. The Patriots have an ADM of 1,461.
Eastern Randolph, currently a Class 2-A school, will drop down to Class 1-A. The Wildcats have an ADM of 671.
“As we paused the realignment process a year or two ago, it gave us an opportunity to look at everything,” NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker said. “We've always used one factor, and that one factor has been the ADM numbers or the enrollment. It has created issues with folk, so why not now look and see are there some other factors that we can use and if we introduce some other factors, then perhaps it will eliminate then the the overriding need to subdivide.”
The athletic association will no longer subdivide its state football playoffs, so rather than eight state champions being crowned, there will only be four, starting in the 2021-22 school year. Still, 64 teams will qualify for the playoffs, but because it won’t be dividing into A and AA brackets, an extra round will be added.
“It just simply all came together in a manner that we're able to say that we no longer will subdivide football, puts it back on an equal footing with all of our sports where we offer one state championship,” Tucker said. “Through this realignment process, we'll have the opportunity with all of those factors to move back to the more traditional 25% model, introduce those factors and then have our full classifications.”
ISP measures how many students at a school automatically qualify for government assistance. State Cup points are awarded to schools each year based on level of team success across its athletics programs. The ISP and State Cup numbers used were based on a three-year average from 2017-2020.
The highest ISP number in the three-year period was dropped for each school to account for outliers, notably hurricanes in the eastern portion of the state.
“There is this idea that it’s just about the free and reduced lunches,” Tucker said. “It has nothing to do with how many people filled out a free and reduced lunch application. It’s an overall number that looks at multiple factors. … It’s about resources. It’s about availability to access certain opportunities.”
Cookin’ up conferences
The anticipation of reclassification has coaches at area schools putting their heads together to think of what their respective conferences might look like starting in 2021-22 under the new realignment.
“We've had a lot of coaches kind of sitting and making up,” Smith said. “We got a group that have been doing the map, trying to guess where we might be.”
The NCHSAA is scheduled to release an initial list of conferences for the new realignment Thursday.
For the 2021-25 realignment, the dividing line for East and West regions runs down the border between Alamance and Guilford counties. Schools in Alamance County toward the coast are considered to be in the East Region while those in Guilford County toward the mountains are the West.
Currently, several Alamance County schools are conference mates with schools from Guilford county. Due to the new dividing line, those schools will no longer be in the same conference as East schools will be grouped together in leagues and vice versa, should they still remain in the same classification.
Southern Alamance, Eastern Guilford and Williams High School are currently in the Mid-Piedmont Conference with Asheboro, Southern Guilford, Southeast Guilford and Southwestern Randolph.
With the move up to Class 4-A, the Patriots will be looking at a completely new conference entirely.
“We think there's a chance that we could maybe go in with some schools like Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill,” Smith said, “and maybe a few of the 4-A Durham schools.”
Williams is the only school from the current Mid-Piedmont Conference that will be in the 3-A East come 2021-22.
Eastern Guilford will be in the 3-A West, as will Southern Guilford and Asheboro, so those three schools could potentially remain together in a new league. Southeast Guilford has jumped up into Class 4-A (West) and Southwestern Randolph has dropped down to Class 2-A (West).
From the current Mid-State 3-A Conference, Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance and Roxboro Person will be in the 3-A East, so they could potentially remain in a new conference together.
“I think the dilemma is going to be how are they going to break us up?” Western Alamance athletics director and golf coach Michael Pennington said. “Are they going to put us in regions and you’re going to have Caswell, Person, Alamance, Orange and maybe Durham all together? If that’s the case, then Durham School of the Arts looks like they’re coming up from 2-A to 3-A, well they don’t have football, so there’s a dilemma there.”
Since Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance and Williams will all be in the 3-A East, there’s a legitimate possibility they end up all together in the same conference again like they previously were from 2009-17. The current realignment moved Williams and Eastern Guilford out of the Mid-State 3-A Conference and into the Mid-Piedmont Conference.
“We could be (in the same conference as Eastern Alamance and Western Alamance),” Williams athletics director Todd Davis said. “We were before. Before we went to the Mid-Piedmont we were in the Mid-State. We’ve been in a conference with them before, so it’s likely.”
Rockingham County and Northeast Guilford will be 3-A West schools while Eden Morehead and McMichael are Class 2-A schools in the split Mid-State 3-A Conference. Northern Guilford is moving to Class 4-A (West).
In the current Mid-State 2-A Conference, Bartlett Yancey, Cummings High School and Graham will be 2-A East schools, so perhaps they remain together. Meanwhile, Reidsville will become a 2-A West school, so that longtime rival looks out of the conference picture. Carrboro is reclassifying to Class 3-A (East).
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There was previously a belief that Bartlett Yancey, Cummings and Graham could be joined by Eden Morehead and McMichael in a new conference. That won’t be the case with Eden Morehead and McMichael being grouped as West Region schools.
“That leaves us Cummings and Bartlett Yancey,” Graham athletics director and boys' basketball coach Kyle Ward said, “and then I don’t know what’s going to happen from that point on.”
Six of the Central Tar Heel Conference's nine schools, including Clover Garden and River Mill, will remain as Class 1-A East schools. Cornerstone Charter will move to the 1-A West while Raleigh Charter and Research Triangle are set to move up to Class 2-A (East).
Perhaps the most intriguing possibility is that of a split conference with area schools from two different classifications competing in the same conference, in part to help with travel costs.
Could there be a Class 4-A / 3-A split conference with Southern Alamance, Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance and Williams all a part of it?
“We’re also kind of crossing our fingers that maybe they'll choose to do some type of split,” Smith said. “That would let us stay with Eastern and Western and Williams. So that's our hope; we would love for something like that to work out if it could. One, the relationships we have with those schools and the rivalries and then also just the transportation would be a whole lot nicer if you could stay with those groups.”
Or maybe even a Class 3-A / 2-A split conference with Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance and Williams joined by Bartlett Yancey, Cummings and Graham?
It’s all speculation, at least until Thursday, but it’s still fun to think of the possibilities.
“Coach (Danny) McCawley is sitting here right now,” Eastern Alamance athletics director and football coach John Kirby said. “He comes from the school of Steve Johnson that figures this stuff up all the time. What he has calculated is possibly us, Western Alamance and Williams, along with Orange, Cedar Ridge, Carrboro, possibly Southern Durham, Roxboro Person or Northwood.”
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: On the move: New classifications, conferences in the mix for area schools with NCHSAA realignment
