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Teams Dropping down to 8 man

Jayhawkin

Freshman
Feb 28, 2007
344
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Audubon voted last night to drop down to 8 man. They've had a pretty good run in Class A the last few years and would presumably be an early contender in whatever district they'll join.
 
How can Audubon drop down? They are not below the 115 BEDS number to be in 8-Man. Are their projections below the 115?
 
I know it's western Iowa where everyone has dropped but how has Audubon fallen that much, I believe at one time they were maybe as big as a 3A school. The population of the town is like 2300, I just don't get the small enrollment. They're facilities will be the best of any 8 man team, that's for sure.
 
Belmond-Klemme also is a strong possibility. AGWSR and Bedford had meetings to discuss this week. Audubon coach said their BEDS for 14-15 was 97.

LTlions1, has your school board approved it?

Know anything about WACO and Iowa Valley.

NK and Rockford are 131/129 BEDS but heard they are gonna petition stay down.

MC/Rem Union are going up, Harmony joins Van Buren and go up, GC/AC combine, GV Christian won't be 8man, will CO-U play all varsity next year?

Fill everyone in if you have information on these schools? Will Gladbrook-Reinbeck dissoling affect any of those surrounding schools that could go 8man but probably can't if they get GR kids to move in like NTama. They have been bad and heard they will stay bad so that along with under 115 BEDS makes it tempting to drop. Plus more teams around them going 8man as well. Iowa Valley maybe, HLV, Meskwaki, etc.
 
Audubon beds is 124 14-15, looks like 98 this cycle, next cycle up to 111.

Rockford looking 137 next cycle, 116 next.

NK looks like 113 beds this cycle, 111

Iowa Valley 108 this cycle, 119 next.

Winfield Mt Union 116 this cycle, under for projected future.

Lone Tree 107 this cycle, then back over.

East Union looks like 111, followed by a 107.

I think I'm reading the right column, using grades 8-9-10 of last year.

https://www.educateiowa.gov/documen...14-2015-iowa-public-school-district-prek-12-0
 
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Belmond-Klemme looks like 162 for this cycle.

AWGSR 126, followed by 105.
 
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[QUOTE="Fill everyone in if you have information on these schools? Will Gladbrook-Reinbeck dissoling affect any of those surrounding schools that could go 8man but probably can't if they get GR kids to move in like NTama. They have been bad and heard they will stay bad so that along with under 115 BEDS makes it tempting to drop. Plus more teams around them going 8man as well. Iowa Valley maybe, HLV, Meskwaki, etc.[/QUOTE]

GR wont be dissolving.
 
Vote not gonna pass hawkeyetillidie? I heard 700 people signed the petition? Sounds kind of hostile between the 2 towns, what is gonna happen?
 
Not LTlions1, but yes School Board approved last week.

What do you know about WACO and anyone else down there? Who else do you think will drop down to 8man? How many drop down in your corner will decide which teams get pulled out of our district or if you guys go west and stay below I-80 or if you go North and West with some dist 4 teams and some dist 5 teams.

Gonna be interesting to say the least.
 
If I was a WACO parent/school board member I'd want to push it off longer, they were 3-6 this year, the next closest 8 player team if Winfield doesn't go down is Lone Tree at 40, next 45 to English Valley, 55 to Tri-County, 75 Twin Cedars, 80 Moravia, 85 to HLV. 70 Cedar Valley. Too far for many JH or JV games. By comparison ours is 60, 40, 20 & 15 and play the close ones twice a season.

Travel would be even worst for Winfield.
 
Not that this necessarily means they're dropping or considering it, but I do know a couples of Iowa Valley's coaching staff was at HLV's first playoff game against Mormon Trail. Hard to tell if they just wanted to watch some football or if they were just trying to learn a little bit about 8-man football.
 
Play JV and JH together. It can be done. A few extra miles to get your kids at a more competitive level is the correct decision. Beds # and # of athletes that they will have over the next several years are the 2 most important factors to the decision. Travel would be one of the next few I guess.
 
Play JV and JH together. It can be done. A few extra miles to get your kids at a more competitive level is the correct decision. Beds # and # of athletes that they will have over the next several years are the 2 most important factors to the decision. Travel would be one of the next few I guess.

I believe HLV has done this/still does do this as well.
 
We play JV JH double headers as well most of the time, JH season is over before JV so last JV games are the close ones the 2nd time. There is a limit of how late JH & JV kids should be out on a Monday night.
 
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I know it's western Iowa where everyone has dropped but how has Audubon fallen that much, I believe at one time they were maybe as big as a 3A school. The population of the town is like 2300, I just don't get the small enrollment. They're facilities will be the best of any 8 man team, that's for sure.


Audubon approved to drop down. Talked to a few people I know from up there and it sounds like this will just be a 2 year stay in 8 player as the kids coming up have bigger classes and will push them back up to class A. Doesn't make sense to me why they are moving down if they will have to go back up in just a few years. Also in reply to whoever said they would be a contender in their district. Depending on how they realign things, they are awfully close to Glidden, Coon Rapids and Exira-EHK. I wouldn't have them favored over any of those teams next year if they were all in the same district, especially Coon Rapids and Exira-EHK as I think they bring back a good chunk of their core players from this years team.

Bedford also go approval to drop down. I think Griswold was trying but missed the BEDs number by just a few kids. Not sure if they were going to petition or not. Also heard a possible rumor out of Council Bluffs that Saint Alberts was going to drop down. Not sure how accurate that was though. Anyone know any truth or not to that?
 
While St. Alberts has declining enrollment, this current cycle was their first in Class A and they project in the top half of that class for the next cycle. I have both them and Griswold at 139, based off 2014-15 8-10 totals. Has Griswold seen a mass exodus of students to be much closer to 115 than last year's numbers suggest.
 
I think from what I understood they had a big class leave and a small class come in which got them close to the 115 number but I am not sure what close really means as that's all I had heard. No number was ever thrown around other than they were close and just missed the 115 number. I think they may have be in a situation that's similar to Audubon where if they did come down they would only be here for a couple years then move back up because of the classes coming up in the JH. Only difference between the two teams, Audubon had 30+ kids out when I went to watch them week 0 against AHST and Griswold was in the low to mid 20's with a lot of younger kids having to play up at the varsity level.
 
Also any word on Nishnabotna? Read an article this morning that the state voted to dissolve the Farragut school district. Them and Hamburg have whole grade sharing agreement but Farragut after this year will be no more due to over spending of their school budget. Anyone know the details on what's going on there if they Hamburg will still be around next year or what will happen with that school district?
 
Obviously, the sharing agreement ends with the dissolution of Farragut. The Iowa Board of Education will divvy up the district among their neighbors (Hamburg, Fremont-Mills, Shenadoah & Sidney). Hamburg would likely have a BEDS under 50 and have a recent budget history similar to Farragut. Being landlocked in the corner, they need to start talks with Sidney on sharing.
 
Back to my earlier post about Waco, I failed to remember when we first went down the closest game was 40 miles. JH I think they only played 5 games. I drove to a couple of them hauling half the team in my suburban, the coach had the other half in the school suburban, still 2-3 seats empty each. Even had a Saturday game due to the distance. The JH JV double header idea started later.

Would definitely help if Winfield went down as well so they could play them and Lone Tree twice and only have to have 2 45-80 mile trips, matching up with Cedar Valley, English Valley, Tri-county and Moravia
 
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In 2014-15 Griswold projected to 139 in 2016 and 118 in 2017. By rule, a school must be able project a number 115 or lower to play 8-man. Now if the new BEDS that comes out in December can show their current 8-10 enrollment under the threshold (very possible to lose one kid per grade in a year's time) they could petition down for the 2016-17 cycle. With quite a few lower grades in the 20s, 8-man is in their foreseeable future, so may as well drop down as soon as possible.
 
We'll I'm confused about what classes of what year to count. It made sense to me to count next years 9-10-11 for the next cycle and use it for 2 years since they would be there both years. But now I think it's the 10-11-12 of the first year that count for both even though the seniors are gone the second year.

So maybe all the numbers I've posted are off. I'll check them shortly.
 
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They use the same classification protocol for the football two-year cycle as they do for all other sports (which get reclassified each year). An average of each schools 9-11 & 8-10 enrollments might be the most fair way to classify for football.

North Dakota does something similar, using 7-10 male enrollment from two years prior to the start of a new two-year cycle. They use this fall's 7-10 numbers to classify for the 2017/2018 seasons. The current sophomores will be 2017's seniors and the freshmen will be seniors in 2018.
 
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If I was a WACO parent/school board member I'd want to push it off longer, they were 3-6 this year, the next closest 8 player team if Winfield doesn't go down is Lone Tree at 40, next 45 to English Valley, 55 to Tri-County, 75 Twin Cedars, 80 Moravia, 85 to HLV. 70 Cedar Valley. Too far for many JH or JV games. By comparison ours is 60, 40, 20 & 15 and play the close ones twice a season.

Travel would be even worst for Winfield.
WACO did make the move to 8 man as well it was approved by their board as well
 
Anybody have thoughts that the association should remove the fixed 115 number and treat "A" like 1a, 2a & 3a, and take the next 56 teams?
 
Anybody have thoughts that the association should remove the fixed 115 number and treat "A" like 1a, 2a & 3a, and take the next 56 teams?

I wouldn't say treat it like that as its easier for teams to move between those other classes (mainly A, 1A and 2A) than it is for teams that are near the top of the bottom 56 schools in enrollment to move back and forth between 8 player and class A due to styles of play, coaching schemes and field size for the school to change every other year. If they state were to do something about it, I say they need to do away completely with class A and either make two divisions of 8 player OR have a 9 player division between 1A and 8 player.
 
I kind of think the whole purpose of 8 player game is getting lost with teams with rosters of 30-40 playing it.

I think I understand the thinking of changing A to say 9 players, takes 2 less players, maybe more competitive balance. So not picking on anybody just taking 2 A's that came to mind. Take 2 guards out of BGM and GMG, would it really change the game at all? Just 4-8 kids not getting to play as much.

There will always be 9-0 and 0-9 and the rest in the middle. When 6-3 A teams with 30+ roster drop down it just makes it worse for both classes. Same goes for 8 player team with 30+ roster than only have 1 maybe 2 competitive regular season games a year and stays down, both classes would be more balanced if they moved up.
 
I think you made the best point there is to be made, I know it would be difficult but the state really needs to look at participation numbers more than straight enrollment numbers. A team with 40 players out 9-12 really shouldn't be playing 8 man. When 8 man was originally created it was for the schools that might only have 20 boys out in the high school.

I'm not really sure how you would do this, but I wish schools playing 8 man would look at this a little more.
 
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Was just going to bring that point up. Thoughts on teams with rosters of 30+ players should not be playing 8 man but that is just my opinion.
 
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You have to consider the fact that some teams let all players dress varsity, including jv and freshman. Bosco has 30+ players on their team but maybe 15 are varsity level players so if they only let varsity players play on the varsity team then they would have less people on the sideline. As long as a team meets the requirements I think its fair game, can't punish a school for having great participation.
 
I kind of think the whole purpose of 8 player game is getting lost with teams with rosters of 30-40 playing it.

I think I understand the thinking of changing A to say 9 players, takes 2 less players, maybe more competitive balance. So not picking on anybody just taking 2 A's that came to mind. Take 2 guards out of BGM and GMG, would it really change the game at all? Just 4-8 kids not getting to play as much.

There will always be 9-0 and 0-9 and the rest in the middle. When 6-3 A teams with 30+ roster drop down it just makes it worse for both classes. Same goes for 8 player team with 30+ roster than only have 1 maybe 2 competitive regular season games a year and stays down, both classes would be more balanced if they moved up.


I agree with your statement on the 9 player. Just was throwing darts at the board there to see what other people thought as I know they have 9 player in other states which is a lot of fun to watch. More of a hybrid between 8 player and 11 player games for smaller schools.

Two divisions of 8 player though wouldn't all necessarily be a bad thing though. Obviously the state would have to take a hard look at how they would classify allowing teams to come down but with more and more participating in the class every year its going to almost be necessary if the trend continues. Take the top half in either enrollment or participation and throw them in 8A and the bottom half in 8B.
 
What does size of the team matter? Lets say schools beds are 90 9-11 that means lets just say 45 boys. If they get 35 boys out whats that matter. A lot of these smalls schools kids go out just to be apart of the team and something big in the community. So of those 35 maybe 5-10 will never see the field in their careers I'd be willing to bet. So why punish a school for getting participation?
 
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