Florida high school football may look very different in 2024. What is the FHSAA proposing?
The Florida High School Athletic Association plans to vote next week on a sweeping reclassification proposal that would implement district tournaments at the end of the football season, install an open division and abolish the Metro-Suburban split for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
The association's board of directors is scheduled to vote on the plan in a virtual meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, following the state football championships from Thursday through Saturday.
In a 14-page proposal released Wednesday, the FHSAA lays out changes to the classification plans for the coming two-year cycle, including the end of the Metro-Suburban separation formerly regarded as the most significant introduction of the 2022-24 cycle.
The 13-member board could vote to approve the proposal, to reject it or to offer further amendments. In any case, the FHSAA at some stage, whether at this time or later, must commit to a reclassification plan in some form before the expiration of the current cycle in spring.
Key points from the FHSAA proposal are below.
END OF METRO-SUBURBAN SPLIT
The current Metro-Suburban classification system — four Metro classes with teams from the eight most-populated counties, four Suburban classes from most other counties, and one Rural class — would end at the close of this football season. The eight counties currently under Metro designation are Duval, Seminole, Orange, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.
In its place, the FHSAA would install a uniform eight-class system for all major team sports (football, girls volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and soccer), consisting of seven standard classes numbered from 1A through 7A as well as a Rural class.
That represents an increase in the class number for soccer, which currently has a six-class system from 2A through 7A.
DISTRICT TOURNAMENTS FOR FOOTBALL
Probably the most dramatic change would install a four-team tournament for each football district in Weeks 10 and 11.
At the end of Week 9, the FHSAA plans to use the MaxPreps ranking — the current FHSAA ranking formula is no longer specified — to assign seeds to the top four in each district. The No. 4 team in the district tournament would travel to the No. 1 team, while No. 3 would travel to No. 2.
In Week 11, the winners would face off for the district championship, while the district semifinal losers would play off for third place.
Schools not qualifying for a district championship would be permitted to schedule and play other non-qualifiers during Week 10 and Week 11.
NO MORE MANDATORY DISTRICT GAMES
Although districts would remain under the FHSAA plan, mandatory district games would not.
Other than a general scheduling limit of an eight-game maximum through Week 9, schools would no longer face FHSAA requirements to schedule teams within their districts.
Such a change would increase scheduling flexibility but could also present challenges for teams that traditionally struggle to find willing opponents because of their strength.
FHSAA PLANS 8-TEAM OPEN DIVISION
In football, as well as in other sports, the plan would institute an eight-team Open Division following the close of the district tournaments.
The eight highest-ranked teams in the MaxPreps rankings, regardless of their classification, would enter the Open Division following the regular season.
In addition to football, other team sports would also contest an Open Division: Girls volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, beach volleyball, flag football, lacrosse and water polo.
Had the FHSAA used an Open Division in 2023, its final tournament would have included Cocoa, Chaminade-Madonna, Miami Norland, St. Thomas Aquinas, Clearwater Central Catholic, Lake Mary, Gainesville Buchholz and Plantation American Heritage based on the association's ranking system.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
While the proposal addresses several key elements of the new reclassification plan, multiple questions still await clarification.
With the number of classes changing in multiple sports — including football, which moves from nine to eight — the FHSAA does not specify whether the number of districts per class might also change. Under the 2023 system, the 2M, 3M, 4M, 2S, 3S and 4S classes each contain 16 districts, while 1M and 1S each have eight districts and the 1R class divides into four regions.
Also unclear is the status of district tournaments if a district includes fewer than four teams. It's uncertain whether the top seed in a three-team district would receive an automatic bye, which would provide automatic passage to the final but would deny the athletic department the opportunity for revenue from a Week 10 contest.
The association also does not specify how teams advance from district tournaments to the regional competition. Although district tournament champions would receive automatic postseason berths, the FHSAA plan does not specify whether district tournament runners-up would also qualify, or whether — as in the current system — the association would allocate at-large berths using a ranking formula.
If the FHSAA opts for the latter, it must also decide whether the rankings would remain frozen after Week 9 or whether they would also take into account district tournament scores. Rankings that include Weeks 10 and 11 could yield significantly different results.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: FHSAA classification proposal: Changes for Florida high school sports?
