March 28, 2024

Football districts: Newton to 3A, Colfax-Mingo to 1A as rest stay pat

After two seasons of Class 4A football, Newton High’s Cardinals are back in 3A for the next two seasons at least.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association released on Thursday the new football classifications and district assignments for 2018 and 2019. On Wednesday, the IHSAA announced it was staying with a 16 playoff qualifiers for each class, but revamped the numbers of schools in each class.

In the new district format, the top 42 schools in enrollment in Iowa are in 4A football. The next 54 fall into 3A followed by the next 54 in 2A and the next 54 in 1A. There are 62 teams in Class A and 65 in 8-Man football.

The state will allow out-of-state opponents during the first four weeks of the season. It has a new system of criteria to determine playoff teams other than district champions.

“The state did resolve the disparity between the larger teams in Class 4A and the smaller schools in the class by going from 48 to 42 schools. We knew if that happened we’d be among the six 4A schools to drop into 3A,” Newton head football coach Ed Ergenbright said. “They got that right this time.”

Newton wasn’t the only area school to be affected by the new numbers. Colfax-Mingo, which played Class A district football the past two years, has moved up to 1A.

Baxter, which dissolved its athletic sharing programs with Collins-Maxwell at the end of the 2016 season, played 8-Man football in 2017, but was not allowed to play to qualify for the playoffs. Collins-Maxwell was the same. Baxter and Collins-Maxwell were placed in the same 8-Man district for the next two seasons.

Newton joins Grinnell, Knoxville, Oskaloosa, Pella and South Tama County in 3A District 7. Prairie City-Monroe is in 2A District 8 with Centerville, Chariton, Clarke, Des Moines Christian and Saydel. Colfax-Mingo is in Class 1A District 7 with Interstate 35, Pella Christian, Pleasantville, Woodward Academy and Woodward-Granger.

Lynnville-Sully is in Class A District 8 with Central Decatur, Grand View Christian, Martensdale-St. Marys, North Mahaska and Wayne. In 8-Man District 5, Baxter is with AGWSR, Collins-Maxwell, Colo-NESCO, Gladbrook-Reinbeck, Melcher-Dallas, Meskwaki Settlement and Twin Cedars.

Ergenbright said Newton is now one of the largest teams in Class 3A, in terms of enrollment, under the new alignment.

“We’re back playing some familiar opponents we’ve played in the past. Our district is similar to the first district when we were in when we dropped to 3A the first time,” Ergenbright said. “There are schools which are in our conference. Our conference is very competitive in athletics.”

Newton, Grinnell, Oskaloosa and Pella are members of the Little Hawkeye Conference. Pella was in the 3A district Newton was in four years ago and finished as the Class 3A state runner-up in 2017 after three straight 3A state championships. Oskaloosa was a 3A playoff qualifier in 2017.

Knoxville is out of the South Central Conference and South Tama is a member of the WaMaC. Ergenbright said all five teams will be very good competition for Newton.

“We’ll fill the schedule with four other schools, trying to get the best competition we can. Under the new RPI system it really doesn’t matter what class an opponent is but how good they are,” Ergenbright said. “We list eight or nine schools you’d like to play as non-district and the state fills out the schedules.”

The priority list for non-district games will open up on Jan. 29, and schools will have until Feb. 7 to complete the form listing seven preferred non-district opponents.

Ergenbright said two years ago when Newton went up to 4A and was coming off a 1-8 season, every team wanted to play it but not so much this time around. The Cardinals went 6-3 and 7-2 in their two years in Class 4A football competition.

“This is a new interesting challenge. We’ll approach it as we have always done — taking care of ourselves, doing what we do best and go out and play football,” Ergenbright said.

Class 4A will have seven districts with six teams per district; 3A, 2A and 1A will have nine districts with six teams per district; Class A will have eight districts with six teams per district and two districts with seven teams; and 8-Man will have seven districts with eight teams per district and an eighth district with nine teams.

In 2017, PCM qualified for the Class 2A playoffs, losing in the first round. The Mustangs and Centerville went into the playoffs from the same district. PCM, Centerville, Chariton and Clarke are grouped together again with Des Moines Christian and Saydel.

Colfax-Mingo went 4-6 playing in Class A football in 2017. Two of their new Class 1A district teams were 1A playoff qualifiers — Pleasantville and Pella Christian. Pella Christian lost in the state 1A semifinals.

“It doesn’t change much for us. It is what it is. The numbers are what they are, and we don’t have any control over that,” Colfax-Mingo head football coach Jeff Lietz said.

“Right now, we don’t have Class 1A numbers on the field. We need to figure out how to get about 10 more guys out. Our style of play may be better suited for 1A. There are more styles like us in 1A.”

Lynnville-Sully finished ranked No. 8 in Class A last season, winning its district and advancing to a quarterfinal game in the playoffs. None of the other teams in its new district made the Class A playoffs in 2017.

Baxter went 8-1 playing 8-Man football in 2017. It’s district has Gladbrook-Reinbeck, which dropped from Class A. Gladbrook-Reinbeck won back-to-back Class A state titles in 2015 and 2016, and made the 2017 playoffs.

For 2018 and 2019, only district champs automatically qualify for the playoffs and all nine games will be used to determine at-large playoff qualifiers. The state has dropped the 17-point tiebreaker system to go to the new RPI formula.

The Ratings Percentage Index formula will use three criteria to determine postseason qualification: overall win-loss percentage (which accounts for 37.5 percent of the index), team’s opponents’ win-loss percentage (37.5 percent) and team’s opponents’ opponent’ win-loss percentage (25 percent).

Keeping the postseason limited to 16 teams per class was a point of contention between the IHSAA and the Iowa Football Coaches Association. The IFCA and playoff advisory committee recommended the playoffs expand back to 32 teams for Class 3A, 2A, 1A, A and 8-Player, and expand to 24 teams for Class 4A. All classes had 32 playoff teams from 2008-15.

“Player safety is the number one priority,” IHSAA executive director Alan Beste said in a release, “and we are also committed to playing early round postseason games on Friday nights. Keeping 16 qualifiers per class allows for maximum recovery time between games and maintains high school’s Friday night tradition.”

Ergenbright said the coaches association spent a lot of time put together its recommendation. He said it was frustrating the state didn’t really look at other solutions to the playoff situation.

“Expanding the playoff field would give more kids the experience of the playoffs. There are a lot of good teams which will not get to do that under this format,” Ergenbright said. “Our team is a case in point for last season. We went 7-2 but didn’t win our district. We had a playoff caliber team in 2017 but our kids didn’t get to have that experience.”

Ergenbright said in postseason play only the state champion gets to end its season with a victory. If a team loses in the playoffs, it is tough with a sad locker room.

“We won a great game at Indianola last year to finish with a win. I saw such a happy locker room. Our kids got to end the season and the seniors their career with a win,” Ergenbright said. “For me, it’s about the experience the kids have.”

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com