quote:
You say that until you're a rural public school that winds up in the same district as an Evangel in its heyday. Your season is irrelevant before it starts and the best you can hope for is a moral victory by staying within five touchdowns. Or you have your best tean in 20 years and get blown out by John Curtis in the second round of the playoffs.

This is ridiculous .....This statement perfectly sums up the problem, and explains what everyone means when they say the LHSAA is punishing the masses for the crimes of a few. When you talk about teams getting blown away by Evangel and Curtis, do you honestly believe that the public schools are different than the private schools in this scenario? Do you not think these schools were blowing away every other private schools as well? Just because there are a couple of schools like that, how does that create a situation where every private school is at fault?

I watched high school football every week back when Curtis was in 2A, and they demolished everyone, public or private. This problem got fixed not because of the split, but because Curtis wanted good competition so they voluntarily moved themselves up to 5A.

In my opinion, that is the answer. Not every school is going to voluntarily do that, but why can’t the LHSAA do that? Rather than worrying about a multiplier based on public or private, create a rule where you move up in class based on your success, so that at that at the end of the day everyone is playing against schools who are similar in skill to them, rather than just based on size or select.

Obviously, this would not be a perfect system because skill level changes as people graduate, but it would certainly be something.

And this should be done in every sport, not just football. Look at volleyball. Country Day is in Division V, the smallest division. They have won state 10 out of the last 11 years, and they blow away everyone. Their team is equivalent skill wise to Mount Carmel and Dominican, and they should be playing in division I with them.

But it is absolutely ridiculous to say that the fact that there are a couple of private schools who recruit to such an extent that they blow away everyone is a sufficient reason to completely separate the entire system.