re: How do other states handle Public vs Private in HS football?

Kentucky might have the most lopsided private/public balance in the entire country.

Imagine if you had two all-male schools with New Orleans Jesuit's demographics, resources, political connections, and history, and then the rest of the state is a bunch of nothing with the exception of one really great Louisville-area magnet school.

You can count on one hand the number of schools who have won the state title outside of those three (and the magnet has only won three times) who have won the largest football classification in the state going back to 1985.

Outside of football/basketball/baseball, it's a lot worse. There are years where one of those two will win more state titles (in the largest classifications) than they'll lose.

Not sure much can be done about it - the Catholic school system in the Louisville metro area is huge (something like 50 Catholic grade schools and 10 Catholic high schools in the metro area) and starts early, so those two aren't swiping too many players from the public system, though that happens occasionally, too. I think there was talk of Louisville St. X and Trinity moving to the GCL with the big all-boys Catholic schools in Ohio, but that seems to have subsided. They both play a lot out of state - Ensworth, MBA, and so forth in Nashville, Cincy St. X, Elder, and Archbishop Moeller in Cincy, Cathedral and Ben Davis in Indy, etc, etc.