19 hours ago, LoneRanger said:

Travel is an aspect in football but for different reasons. 1st how it’s funded. 

Some Districts give sports a travel budget and once that is exceeded it is up the the school/team/club to make up the difference.  Many other places the cost of travel is charged directly to the school and then to the team. 

 

In football an above average sized team plays 15 games and you assume a maximum of 8 of those to be on the road: 

2 Busses plus an Equipment Bus or Trailer would be 24 “road trips”.  Throw in a handful of Freshman and JV games per season and likely looking at a total of 30 or so road trips. 

 

In baseball and basketball most of the time the teams travel together with a few JV or Freshman trips thrown in.  They most likely average only taking one bus per trip but perhaps two. We will say one for arguments sake here. 

If a team makes it to the Region tourney that’s approx 20 “road trips” and throw in a few tourneys in season and Freshman JV games and we are more than likely very close to 30 or so total road trips again.  

 

All in all, the travel aspect of the major sports is probably overblown in acting as if there is a big difference. 

The difference comes in mileage to the various trips and again that will vary GREATLY by school.  

Sure your District games in Baseball and Basketball are reasonably close. But the extra trips will likely make up the difference in mileage as well. 

Travel Budgets are a concern for all sports. Not just Football. 

I won't argue that there is a difference, not a complete difference, but a difference.  But, your calculation of 15 games is a little misleading.  We probably need to look at 10 games, with five of them being away games, so that is 5 trips with multiple buses and equipment trailer.  Versus the number of basketball and baseball games. 

I say 10 games because, in the playoffs, the home team pays for the visiting team's travel.  And, often in the first few rounds, the home team looses money due to that fact, but that's another discussion. 

5 hours ago, Ram said:

I won't argue that there is a difference, not a complete difference, but a difference.  But, your calculation of 15 games is a little misleading.  We probably need to look at 10 games, with five of them being away games, so that is 5 trips with multiple buses and equipment trailer.  Versus the number of basketball and baseball games. 

I say 10 games because, in the playoffs, the home team pays for the visiting team's travel.  And, often in the first few rounds, the home team looses money due to that fact, but that's another discussion. 

I agree. I should have noted in there that that was a maximum and only a handful of teams reach that. Also note that I only took the Baseball and Basketball teams to the Region. 
Basically I was trying to show that the travel among all the “major” sports ends up being pretty similar and for the majority of Football Teams even with taking multiple busses on trips it still equals out or is a little less.  
 

Just like paying for Officials, Game Management, Security and the other Game Type costs, Travel as well is simply a part of the equation. It is what it is. 

On 1/19/2023 at 5:25 PM, ChiefSmoke said:

Maybe eliminate districts, and do playoffs by region, using the RPI.  Would be no reason to have massive schedule changes going forward. 

With the crazy geography that is the state of Kentucky, might be a good option going forward. Killer long trips in the west. Mountains in the east. A radical change but might be a solid solution. 

 

I actually love this idea, just let teams schedule geographically close teams in their class. 

 

49 minutes ago, Tigerpride94 said:

 

So what would this mean for a school like Cov Cath, Highlands? 

1 hour ago, Tigerpride94 said:

 

What that **might** look like using the numbers used by the KHSAA for this upcoming realignment:

CLASS 1A

District 1: Ballard Memorial, Caverna, Fulton County, Russellville

District 2: Bethlehem, Campbellsville, Kentucky Country Day, Louisville Holy Cross

District 3: Bishop Brossart, Covington Holy Cross, Eminence, Trimble County

District 4: Bellevue, Dayton, Ludlow, Newport Central Catholic

District 5: Berea, Frankfort, Paris, Sayre

District 6: Fairview, Nicholas County, Paintsville, Raceland

District 7: Harlan, Lynn Camp, Pineville, Williamsburg

District 8: Hazard, Jenkins, Phelps, Pikeville

 

CLASS 2A

District 1: Caldwell County, Crittenden County, Fort Campbell, Mayfield, Murray

District 2: Hancock County, McLean County, Owensboro Catholic, Todd County Central

District 3: Clinton County, Glasgow, Green County, Metcalfe County, Monroe County

District 4: Danville, Jackson County, Lexington Christian, Somerset, Washington County

District 5: Fort Knox, Gallatin County, Owen County, Shawnee, WEB DuBois

District 6: Beechwood, Bracken County, Newport, St. Henry, Walton-Verona, West Carter

District 7: East Ridge, Knott County Central, Leslie County, Middlesboro, Shelby Valley

District 8: Belfry, Betsy Layne, Martin County, Pike County Central, Prestonsburg

 

CLASS 3A

District 1: Butler County, Hopkins County Central, Trigg County, Union County, Webster County

District 2: Bardstown, Edmonson County, Hart County, Larue County, Thomas Nelson

District 3: Carroll County, Central, Christian Academy-Louisville, DeSales, Henry County

District 4: Bourbon County, Lexington Catholic, Lloyd Memorial, Pendleton County

District 5: Casey County, Garrard County, Marion County, Mercer County

District 6: Bell County, Clay County, Knox Central, McCreary Central, Rockcastle County

District 7: Breathitt County, Estill County, Floyd Central, Magoffin County, Morgan County, Powell County

District 8: Bath County, East Carter, Fleming County, Lawrence County, Lewis County, Russell

 

CLASS 4A

District 1: Allen County-Scottsville, Calloway County, Franklin-Simpson, Logan County, Paducah Tilghman, Warren East

District 2: Breckinridge County, Elizabethtown, John Hardin, Nelson County

District 3: Doss, Jeffersontown, Valley, Waggener, Western

District 4: Franklin County, North Oldham, Shelby County, Spencer County, Western Hills

District 5: Adair County, Boyle County, Lincoln County, Russell County, Taylor County

District 6: Corbin, Letcher County Central, Perry County Central, Wayne County, Whitley County

District 7: Covington Catholic, Grant County, Harrison County, Holmes, Mason County

District 8: Ashland, Boyd County, Greenup County, Johnson Central, Rowan County

 

CLASS 5A

District 1: Graves County, Madisonville-North Hopkins, Marshall County, Muhlenberg County, Owensboro

District 2: Barren County, Bowling Green, Greenwood, Ohio County, Warren Central

District 3: Bullitt Central, Fairdale, Grayson County, North Bullitt

District 4: Atherton, Butler, Iroquois, Moore, Seneca

District 5: Anderson County, Collins, South Oldham, Woodford County

District 6: Boone County, Conner, Cooper, Dixie Heights, Highlands, Scott

District 7: East Jessamine, Madison Southern, Montgomery County, Scott County, West Jessamine

District 8: Harlan County, North Laurel, Pulaski County, South Laurel, Southwestern

 

CLASS 6A

District 1: Apollo, Christian County, Daviess County, Henderson County, McCracken County

District 2: Central Hardin, Meade County, North Hardin, South Warren

District 3: DuPont Manual, Pleasure Ridge Park, St. Xavier

District 4: Bullitt East, Fern Creek, Male, Southern

District 5: Ballard, Eastern, Oldham County, Trinity

District 6: Campbell County, Great Crossing, Ryle, Simon Kenton

District 7: Henry Clay, Lafayette, Paul Dunbar, Tates Creek

District 8: Bryan Station, Frederick Douglass, George Rogers Clark, Madison Central

3 hours ago, KYFootballFanz said:

So what would this mean for a school like Cov Cath, Highlands? 

Neither Cov Cath nor Highlands is currently playing up in the current football alignment, so there would be no change for either school if the KHSAA does away with schools playing up in class.

8 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said:

 

What's the argument for ending this practice? If a school wants to play up and challenge themselves, then why should they be unable to do that?

10 minutes ago, burreaux said:

What's the argument for ending this practice? If a school wants to play up and challenge themselves, then why should they be unable to do that?

My guess would be to end any complaints that three dominos down the "class switching tree" a school was unfairly affected and it is the KHSAA's fault. 

31 minutes ago, burreaux said:

What's the argument for ending this practice? If a school wants to play up and challenge themselves, then why should they be unable to do that?

I'd argue very few schools are playing up to challenge themselves. The vast majority of playing up (or falling down) is a type of gaming the system to avoid having to play certain teams in district play.

I'm all for the "no playing up" rule, although I would add one addendum: if a school has no other class members within a one hour drive, they should be allowed to play up. A district should at least theoretically be somewhat local.

4 hours ago, burreaux said:

What's the argument for ending this practice? If a school wants to play up and challenge themselves, then why should they be unable to do that?

Some schools do play up to Challenge themselves, but most schools play up to get into a weaker district. In my opinion.

11 hours ago, Westernside said:

Some schools do play up to Challenge themselves, but most schools play up to get into a weaker district. In my opinion.

Unless your a team whose won multiple titles I can not buy your playing up to challenge yourself. Now I could buy some guys playing up for travel purposes. If you have schools within an hour drive in the same classification no need to move up IMO.

2 hours ago, gridiron guy said:

Unless your a team whose won multiple titles I can not buy your playing up to challenge yourself. Now I could buy some guys playing up for travel purposes. If you have schools within an hour drive in the same classification no need to move up IMO.

An example of that would be Boyle just went on a 3 peat and was playing up the whole time. Should’ve been 3A the last alignment. Top of page 3 from the link. 
 

https://khsaa.org/football/realignment/2019-2022/football alignment 2019 enrollments original.pdf

Well, that takes a lot of the drama out of realignment going forward and makes things a lot easier.

2 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

Well, that takes a lot of the drama out of realignment going forward and makes things a lot easier.

This.