In 2013, South Dakota split out the top class into two and gave itself four 11-man classes and three 9-man classes, meaning seven championships were offered at the end of the year. There's a lot of reasons for this but two stand out. One is because schools in the Eastern South Dakota conference have complained about the ability to compete with the Sioux Falls schools, which have dominated over the last 10 years. Secondly, the smaller schools in the state have worked to stretch out the nine-man classes and have watered down the road to the DakotaDome. By and large, the 2013 playoffs weren't real competitive and overall game felt diluted.
So for the last five months, a few friends and I have considered this plan. (It's been done for months but I'm getting around to publishing it now.) We're working off five classes, a change that wouldn't change much and we would have three 11-man classes and two 9-man classes. To me, it comes back to South Dakota's population. There's more than 800,000 people in the state and 7 classes of high school football. There's 7 classes in my home state of Minnesota and they have 5.4 million people. If it's too many classes for Minnesota (and it is), it's too many for South Dakota as well.
In an ideal world, this would be the plan and it would also clean up some of the problems with regular season scheduling and would take out bye weeks during the season. Here's the three goals for high school football alignments in South Dakota:
1. Competitive classes that are as balanced as possible, while accounting for geography when possible.
2. An attempt to play 11-man football for as many schools as possible
3. Keep South Dakota's playoff format, with regions and reseeding
A few notes regarding criteria: I used the Average Daily Membership for each school, as listed on the SDHSAA website. The SDHSAA formula used for classification takes into account base schools and satellite schools, while I just added the ADMs together for simplicity's sake. So the numbers will be a bit different and subsequently would change a few things here. Also, I tried to account for every co-op here but it's possible I missed one or two. Let me know if you see anything in that regard.
Class 11AA: (18 teams )
Playoff format: Top 16 make playoffs, regardless of pod. Coaches seed the playoffs. Region winners host in the first round.
Regular season: Eight game schedule, no byes. Five games within the pod and then three non-conference games.
East: Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, O’Gorman, Brandon Valley, Aberdeen Central
West: RC Central, RC Stevens, Douglas, Sturgis, Spearfish, Pierre
Central: Watertown, Yankton, Brookings, Mitchell, Huron, Harrisburg
Aberdeen Central goes into the East pod because it is No. 6 in overall average daily membership, behind the three public schools in Sioux Falls and two Rapid City public schools. But a fifth or sixth place team in the pod could still make the playoffs, if it wins out-of-conference games. Pierre is in the West pod because it is the western-most school that could be in that pod and we want to keep equal-sized regions. They would be very competitive with those schools, as well. The Central pod keeps ESD and like-size schools together. Rivalries that have been created in all three pods would be kept and potentially created.
The next three classes would all adhere to the following rules:
- 8 game schedule, no byes.
- 7 games inside region and 8th is non-conf. Game should be played within class if possible.
- Top 16 make the playoffs. 3 from each region, 4 wild cards. Put together ranking formula. Reseed in the quarterfinals.
Class 11A: (32)
Region 1 (8)
Dell Rapids, Groton, Madison, Milbank Area, Redfield/Doland, Sisseton, Tri-Valley, West Central
Region 2 (8)
Canton, Dakota Valley, Elk Point-Jefferson, Lennox, Sioux Falls Christian, Tea Area, Vermillion, Wagner
Region 3 (8)
Bennett County, Chamberlain, Cheyenne-Eagle Butte, Crow Creek, Mobridge-Pollock, St. Francis Indian, Todd County, Winner
Region 4 (8)
Belle Fourche, Custer, Hot Springs, Lead-Deadwood, Little Wound, St. Thomas More, Pine Ridge, Red Cloud
A very appetizing class has been formed with a reworked Class 11A. The eastern part of the Class 11A is traditionally strong and that's reflected here, while the western regions carry a lot of parity. It's a good way to combine the strength of 11A and old 11B in the class. Mobridge-Pollock, Winner, St. Francis Indian and Bennett County are the last four schools in Class 11A on size.
Class 11B (32)
Region 1 (8)
Beresford, DeSmet/Iroquois, Deubrook Area, Deuel, Flandreau, Garretson, Hamlin, Sioux Valley
Region 2 (8)
Bon Homme, Bridgewater-Emery/Ethan, Freeman, Kimball/White Lake, McCook Central/Montrose, Menno/Marion, Mt. Vernon/Plankinton, Parkston
Region 3 (8)
Aberdeen Roncalli, Britton-Hecla, Clark-Willow Lake, Florence/Henry, Ipswich/Edmunds Central, Leola-Frederick, Tiospa Zina, Webster Area
Region 4 (8)
Gregory, Hill City, Lemmon/McIntosh, McLaughlin/Wakpala, Miller, Platte-Geddes/Dakota Christian, Stanley County, Woonsocket/Wess. Springs/Sanborn Central
The challenge here is deciding whether or not this class can be 11-man or 9-man. But this class should have 32 teams because equal size between classes is our No. 1 priority. Without any inside information, I'm guessing that most schools want to play 11 man and could play at that level. Whether it's 9 or 11-man, this would be a very competitive and fun class to watch. Region 4 is the most difficult region created from a geography standpoint because it stretches over very long distances. However, I don't see any way to avoid this. The hope would be to have no more than two long distance trips in a regular season but that could be difficult.
Class 9A (32)
Region 1 (8)
Eureka/Bowdle, Gettysburg, Herreid/Selby Area, Highmore-Harrold, Northwestern, Sully Buttes, Timber Lake, Warner
Region 2 (8)
Alcester-Hudson, Arlington, Baltic, Chester Area, Elkton-Lake Benton, Great Plains Lutheran, Howard, Waubay/Summit
Region 3 (8)
Andes Central, Corsica/Stickney, Hanson, Irene-Wakonda, Parker, Tripp-Delmont/Armour, Viborg-Hurley, Wolsey-Wessington
Region 4 (8)
Burke/South Central, Colome, Lyman, Marty Indian, Phillip, Newell, New Underwood, Rapid City Christian
Another really competitive class. Region 4 is the tough travel region once more but Region 3 is quite large as well. Not a lot of blueblood programs here, which is partially product of the shift we did up to 11B and if we're trying to open up opportunities for championships, this is a great alignment for that. Or this could be the middle 9-man class but we are in preference to 11-man football with the class above.
For the final class, Class 9B, it's the smallest class with four fewer schools, so there's a slightly different criteria for their seasons.
- Eight games, no byes.
- Six games inside your pod and two non-conf games. State can assist with non-conf scheduling.
- Top 16 make the playoffs. 4 from each region.
- Reseed in the quarterfinals.
Class 9B (28)
Region 1 (7)
Faulkton, Grant-Deuel, Hitchcock-Tulare, Langford Area, Tri-State (Rosholt), Waverly-South Shore, Wilmot
Region 2 (7)
Castlewood, Centerville, Colman-Egan, Dell Rapids St. Mary, Estelline, Lake Preston, Oldham-Ramona/Rutland
Region 3 (7)
Avon, Canistota, Gayville-Volin, Jones County, Lower Brule, Scotland, Sunshine Bible Academy
Region 4 (7)
Bison, Edgemont, Faith, Kadoka Area, Harding County, Lemmon/McIntosh, Wall
Class 9B would be the same size as the current 9B with 28 teams. I don't have the same 28 teams because my forumla was straight ADM and I know that's not the exact formula, so there is some variation. But you'd have a lot of the same powers at the top here as well, like Avon, Canistota and Waverly-South Shore. I didn't want to draw the line for regions between Jones County and Kadoka because those schools are reasonably close but that was my best option. The main playoff difference is the four guaranteed qualifiers from each region. This is a good class for that because these schools are at least sort of close within their own regions.
I can't answer to how a school like Hamlin, the 61st largest school in the state out of more than 170, was in 9B last year. That's why I have them in 11B. There's going to be variation between this and any sort of official plan. But it gives a pretty good idea of what could potentially be answer to South Dakota's football troubles.
