1 minute ago, gchs_uk9 said:

Not sure why you got snippy here. Nobody said population is the only thing, but a state with three times as many people, as is Ohio compared to Kentucky, is likely to be better at a sport if only because there are more possible participants (especially if that state is essentially the historic home of the sport).

You mention New York, but conveniently left out the other nine largest states in the United States:

1. California
2. Texas
3. Florida
4. New York
5. Pennsylvania
6. Illinois
7. Ohio
8. Georgia
9. North Carolina
10. Michigan

Every single one of them (except New York) are big time high school football states that produce great teams and great players.

Cali, Texas, Florida and Georgia have big time high school football.  The others, not so much.  And those states have great top schools, then the drop-off is very STEEP.  

I chose New York to point out that population doesn't equal football prowess.  KY could increase their football prowess by making systemic changes, but they probably will not.

40 minutes ago, New Colonel said:

Cali, Texas, Florida and Georgia have big time high school football.  The others, not so much.  And those states have great top schools, then the drop-off is very STEEP.  

I chose New York to point out that population doesn't equal football prowess.  KY could increase their football prowess by making systemic changes, but they probably will not.

FWIW, this is how Calpreps ranks the states for high school football. To be fair, this is a comparison of their top 50 teams in each state, so there is probably some wiggle room. They have Kentucky 24th, which seems about right. The nine largest states besides New York, including Ohio, all rank ahead of Kentucky. That all goes back to my initial, an honestly only, point in that population (and demographics if we dive one level deeper) play a huge role in quality. Could some systemic changes make the product in Kentucky better? Yeah, probably so. But I doubt it could get much better in comparison to other states, which was your main argument.

17 hours ago, rjs4470 said:

Here's the thing. Classes aren't just about the number of schools a state has playing. Classing came about because of the vast difference in sizes/school enrollments. Pretty much everyone agrees that bigger schools have an advantage in a sport like football. Shrinking classes only puts smaller schools in the same class with bigger schools and makes the advantage bigger. I don't care how many schools a state has, schools with 1500 boys are going to generally (not always) going to have an advantage over a school with 900, 600, or less boys, and if you shrink classes you'll have more smaller schools playing with bigger schools. Delaware recently went to 3 classes, and the largest class only has 10 or 11 schools because those larger schools were killing the medium sized schools they were playing with when they were classed together. 

This! A hundred times over.

Current male enrollment spread for each class-

1A - 84 to 189 (diff 105)

2A - 191 to 302 (diff 111)

3A - 305 to 410 (diff 105)

4A - 414 to 524 (diff 110)

5A - 527 to 737 (diff 210)

6A - 754 to 1192 (diff 448)

These enrollment spreads are very similar to surrounding states.

17 hours ago, rjs4470 said:

I hate the idea of promotion/relegation. For so many schools and outside of the few blue bloods in each class, football is cyclical. Promotion and relegation only take place after the fact. A team that goes through a few years of growing pains then has a big year or two with a couple really good classes, get promoted, and then spend the next few years getting pounded at the next level. Or a team has a few years of struggling, gets relegated, and then grows up and pounds the smaller schools below them. It's like punishing teams for being good at their level, and rewarding teams for struggling. And the moving up and down will mess with alignment and schedules even more than the bi-annual reclassing. Let the pro soccer leagues overseas own the relegation/promotion idea.

As opposed to punishing programs for the sin of just happening to be a larger school, regardless of whether that has anything to do with the actual teams they're capable of putting on the field from their populace.  In my experience, the "big" schools that are bad, pretty often are just flat staying bad.  I don't know that size has anything to do with it there.  And at least this concept affords them a way out.  This is something more akin to meritocracy, where the cream rises, and everything shakes out, as opposed to the linear thinking that just because a school is large, they must be great or immediately better.  Beechwood (2A) beat Dixie Heights (5A) 48-7 and Simon Kenton (6A) 45-6.  How can it be?!?

I suppose you could always cap it, that a school could not fall more than 2-3 classes below where their size would normally dictate they be, and mitigate some of those concerns.  But all I see from the current system is that the same 4-5 teams beat the crap out of their classes year after year after year, and the growing pains and success you describe really only amounts to an occasional trip to the region finals or maybe even state semis where they get brained and then it resets.  Promotion/relegation is far more likely to put teams into situations where they have a chance to win an actual title and capitalize on that hard work than the current system.

27 minutes ago, DragonFire said:

As opposed to punishing programs for the sin of just happening to be a larger school, regardless of whether that has anything to do with the actual teams they're capable of putting on the field from their populace.  In my experience, the "big" schools that are bad, pretty often are just flat staying bad.  I don't know that size has anything to do with it there.  And at least this concept affords them a way out.  This is something more akin to meritocracy, where the cream rises, and everything shakes out, as opposed to the linear thinking that just because a school is large, they must be great or immediately better.  Beechwood (2A) beat Dixie Heights (5A) 48-7 and Simon Kenton (6A) 45-6.  How can it be?!?

I suppose you could always cap it, that a school could not fall more than 2-3 classes below where their size would normally dictate they be, and mitigate some of those concerns.  But all I see from the current system is that the same 4-5 teams beat the crap out of their classes year after year after year, and the growing pains and success you describe really only amounts to an occasional trip to the region finals or maybe even state semis where they get brained and then it resets.  Promotion/relegation is far more likely to put teams into situations where they have a chance to win an actual title and capitalize on that hard work than the current system.

Relegation isn't really going to help traditionally bad teams, and it's not going to change the top 4 or 5 teams in each class beating up on all the others. Bad teams are a fact of life in high school sports. Constantly moving teams around a class or two up or down simply won't change that.

9 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

Relegation isn't really going to help traditionally bad teams, and it's not going to change the top 4 or 5 teams in each class beating up on all the others. Bad teams are a fact of life in high school sports. Constantly moving teams around a class or two up or down simply won't change that.

It quite literally would do both things you claim it won't.  A bad 6A team falls to 5A or 4A where they can compete for maybe 5 or so wins.  Same with powers at lower levels moving up.  It helps balance things out.  The only exceptions would be the top of 6A, and the bottom of 1A.  And if your team is constantly bottom of 1A under a relegation model, you should drop from district play until you get it together.  If you are still perennial top dogs in 6A, then good for you for truly being the best of the best.

15 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

Relegation isn't really going to help traditionally bad teams, and it's not going to change the top 4 or 5 teams in each class beating up on all the others. Bad teams are a fact of life in high school sports. Constantly moving teams around a class or two up or down simply won't change that.

Sure it would - because those same 4 or 5 teams are not going to be around to do that each cycle, and a lot of those top 4 or 5 teams would never be back down at the lower level because they’re good enough to succeed moving up. I also dispute that it wouldn’t help bad teams improve. It certainly has a greater chance of accomplishing parity than the current system. And I’m talking like 2-4 teams each class that move every two years. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not the arduous process of “constantly moving” that you’re putting forward here. And it’s with the intent of over time - talking like 10-20 years - that everything really shakes out to a more stable and better system. 
 

It’s all speculative, of course, and again, it would never happen here anyway, so this is all fun talk.

I'm 53 and old school and frankly was happy when players wore neckrolls, a uniform had a number and no name, personal recognition might be a sticker on a helmet, the sportwriters ranked the colleges and there were bowl games January 1st and then the season was over.

Ditto for high schools. What we are doing to kids is downright criminal. Want to know why we are where we are as a country? Look no further than the monstrosity that sports has become. But I digress.

Not everyone gets a trophy. Schools don't need "boosts" for their programs, essentially life support or affirmative action to make things competetive.  Doing that only hamstrings kids later. The formula is, always has been, and always will be, find the right people to lead, install physical programs, get kids to buy in, coach football, turn losing into winning. See, I.e., Logan County, Hart County, others.

Go back to 4 classes. Expand districts. Make district play mean something again. District champs get in, the others by a ranking system. 16-team, 4-week playoffs, including the title game. Very simple.

If the KHSAA wants to do something, spend a bunch of money on recruitment, training, and investigation of actual by-golly football coaches, from head coach on down to SID's.

That's my "get off my lawn" .02. Its my opinion, ought to be yours.

 

3 hours ago, rjs4470 said:

Relegation isn't really going to help traditionally bad teams, and it's not going to change the top 4 or 5 teams in each class beating up on all the others. Bad teams are a fact of life in high school sports. Constantly moving teams around a class or two up or down simply won't change that.

I beg to differ. A very direct example is Seneca HS in Louisville. During their last 3 years in 6A (2016,17,18) their record was 1-32. The last 3 years in 5A (2022,23,24) their record was 17-16. Not world beaters but not the front door mat. I am sure  there are many other schools you could research that dropped to a smaller class and have had much better success than they had in the larger class. On the flip side, do you really think CAL, Beechwood, Belfry, etc. would nose dive if they were promoted up a class (or two). Indiana high school football has had the promotion/relegation system in place for years and it works very well. Will it be perfect for every single school?  No. Will it be better for a vast majority of schools that would qualify?  Yes. 

Since we are mandating clocks, how about the KHSAA mandates a working play clock for varsity games?  That would be an improvement. 

On 9/16/2025 at 3:13 PM, Tkinslow said:

By those numbers we wouldn’t have but maybe 2 classes.

We have one in basketball. Big, little, good, bad all in the same class.  Its weird how more boys in a building makes better football teams, but it doesn’t affect basketball. 
 

Cue, “football is different”. 

20 hours ago, brooksville said:

Since we are mandating clocks, how about the KHSAA mandates a working play clock for varsity games?  That would be an improvement. 

I thought at this point most fields had play clocks, we've had one since 07 or 08.

Oh how the tides have turned.  Product of being around BGP so long. I remember a time, not that long ago, I was in the minority for speaking of such things.  Now, others carry the torch. 

Four classes is what Kentucky should have, coming from a fan of a program that has obviously benefited from the six class system. For most, doing better in a watered down system doesn’t mean as much. 

The KHSAA needs to stop over-regulating so much. But as long as schools can vote to try to improve their own position, it will continue. 

It’s not a popular opinion, but to get better, you have to prioritize getting better. Are some schools in a situation where they will not be able to beat the good teams in their class?  Yes, there are those schools now, and there would be those schools in a two class system, a three class system, and a four class system.  Sorry, not everyone gets to win a State Championship. 

While we are fixing the world:  stop making classes based on enrollment. Boys in the halls do not make a better football program. Boys on the team does make a football team better, or, at least puts them in a better position. 

Example:  Raceland (1A) beat PRP (6A) this year with a running clock. Raceland had more players then PRP, but PRP has a lot more boys in the school. 

Now, I am aware a school could cut players to play in a lower class, so it has problems, but my point is, all 6A schools are not the same because of enrollment, and all 1A teams are not the same because of enrollment. 

3 hours ago, Ram said:

We have one in basketball. Big, little, good, bad all in the same class.  Its weird how more boys in a building makes better football teams, but it doesn’t affect basketball. 
 

Cue, “football is different”. 

Well I mean there’s a pretty obvious reason for that it takes only 5 to play basketball.