From a very in touch/in-tuned reader today and here is what they had to say and they were just wondering and you may be wondering the same thing too as NCHSAA realignment draws near/ever so closer…..
Heard some realignment rumors. Southeast, Southwest, Ragsdale, Dudley, Smith and NG in one 3A conference. Page, Grimsley, NW, HPC, EF and Glenn in a 4A conf. Anyone know anything?
*****What do you think/say and here is what our reader today said and they may be on to something here, you never know……*****
It’s possible. But there are a lot of 3A schools around in Randolph, Rockingham, Davidson, Alamance and Forsyth. Lots of times the Guilford County schools end up splitting East vs West or North vs South with schools in surrounding counties.
Last time Ragsdale was 3A they were in with High Point Central and Randolph County schools while Southwest was in with Rockingham schools. Could be that way again next time around
Just a guess but I could see SEG, Ragsdale and SWG all joining the conference currently holding Southern, Asheboro, Ledford etc. Western Guilford could be taken out of that conference and moved with Dudley and Smith to Northern’s conference. The new conference containing the southern Guilford county schools would have 9 teams and Northern’s conference would then have 12 teams. You could then break up that conference into 2 6-team leagues with the 6 Guilford county schools (NG, WG, EG, NEG, Smith and Dudley) in one and the Rockingham/Alamance county schools in another. Would make sense to me geographically.
The state/conferences must consider the school size which often puts you in a 3A, 3AA, 4A or 4AA situation. May a few schools such as Dudley, HPC and Smith are falling below that magic population # similar to what happened to Western and Northeast but other schools such as NG, SE, and SW are in high growth areas of the county. In fact, NG should be significantly above the 4A level during the next head count. Grimsley would fit the NW, Glenn, SW conference better than going against Dudley, SE and Page.
NG is at 1353 students now. Hardly can be considered “significantly above the 4A level”
East Forsyth & Glenn are rumored headed to the CPC to join 4 to 5 of their existing 4A & 4AA schools. A new high school in Davidson County will eventually force North Davidson down to 3A and out of the CPC. Parkland is the other school that will probably leave the CPC and move to the 3A level.
Current alignment is 25% 4A, 25% 3A, 25% 2A and 25% 1A, giving each classificaiton roughly 100 schools.
I am pretty sure the next in 2017 is going to be 20% / 30% / 30% / 25%. If so, a few local 4a teams will become 3a and Northern will stay 3a.
News & Record addressed all of this back in May when the 20/30/30/20 plan was approved: http://www.greensboro.com/sports/hsxtra/blog/nchsaa-realignment-plan-likely-to-affect-guilford-county-schools/article_e84d49a0-f419-11e4-9359-031ebf32e551.html
Final ADM numbers for the realignment should be out sometime in late October — after schools fudge their numbers one last time. That’s when it will get interesting as the NCHSAA forms new conferences and schools appeal.
I don’t think many of these Guilford and Forsyth county schools will go down to 4A as some are predicting. I don’t think the state wants the 4A conferences to be 80% just Wake/Durham and Charlotte area schools. Nearly all of the schools in Raleigh, Charlotte and Durham are at or over 2000 students. If you start taking too many of the Guilford and Forsyth county schools out of that mix, then it will change the interest and atmosphere too much. Personally I would prefer to see Guilford Co schools playing more Guilford and Forsyth Co schools than a lot of the Rockingham and Randolph Co schools. Northern dominates their conference in part because they are playing teams that just don’t have the same resources or type of kids to pull from.
Word is in Forsyth County that
North Forsyth will stay 3A
Parkland will drop to 3A, the last 2 years they have been one of the smallest 4A schools in NC so they are going to drop.
Tabor may also drop to 3A due to enrollment sagging
Would love to see one of those Guilford County 3-A Power Conferences like with had with the Mid-State 3-A back in the 70’s and 80’s….
Maybe a Triad 3-A conference with two separate divisions…
East:
Southern Guilford, Northeast Guilford, Eastern Guilford, Northern Guilford, Southeast Guilford…
West:Dudley, Smith, Western Guilford, Ragsdale and Southwest Guilford…..
Two five-team Triad 3-A Divisions and you play your five conference games within the division and then pick up four-five non-conference games from the overlapping Triad 3-A division and then you still have room for two non-conference games at your disposal…..
We will work on the 4-A’s with Page, Grimsley, NWG and HP Central later and for HP Andrews, it will be a shot in the dark with the 2-A’s……..
I read the article from the news and record and it just brings up more reasons I hate the NCHSAAs way of doing things. Southwest doesn’t have 1627 kids walking through that school and Ragsdale doesn’t have 1590 kids. The NCHSAA takes into account all of the kids at GTCC whose home school is one of these schools but they never step foot in the building. It really affects schools like SW, Ragsdale and HPC who have a high concentration of kids in the early colleges or stem programs. These schools have a really low percentage of the commuter students whom actually play a sport for the school, but are required to count them in their admin numbers. It doesn’t make sense. All three should probably be 3A schools and after seeing Northern during a regular school day, I don’t see how they have stayed 3A…
Andy,
In your proposal, I would switch Southern and Dudley. Southern is essentially on the edge of High Point and pulls students from that area. It would fit geographically with Southwest and Ragsdale. The Eastern group consisting of Dudley, NEG, EG, NG and SEG would all be within a 25 minute drive of each other. That would significantly cut down on travel costs for the school and be a very competitive conference to boot.
That switch sounds like a good idea…Get Southern back in there with WG, long-time association, Ragsdale and others and I did not want to split up Dudley and Smith, but if they still meet as a conference game outside the division that would work too and you would get Dudley with NG, NEG, Eastern, SEG and those guys and geographically that makes for a good fit…
I’m sold on what we have come up with here, now how do we get the NCHSAA to sign off on this???
Just a quick thought and this may make too much sense, but what about a Metro 4-A with:
Page
Grimsley
Northwest Guilford
High Point Central
East Forsyth
Glenn….That just came to me as a best-case scenario and that is what our original poster had posed/posted and I had to look back up at his selection for verification but that is the first thought to hit my mind as well…..NCHSAA check us out here today, what do you say, and you don’t have to pay, OK?????
What do you do with RJR, Davie, Reagan and West Forsyth all who will be 4A next go around? Where do you put them
@Antispin You put those four with Mooresville and the other Lake Norman area school — can’t remember which one — that the Charlotte Observer has been saying wants to go north and avoid the Meck schools in the next realignment. That’s a six-team league with travel that isn’t much worse than some of the teams around here already have.
Nobody looked at the possibility of any of the current Guilford County 3A schools dropping to 2A. Some of the Rockingham schools could end up doing so as well.
You might need to go the route of finding a fifth team and keeping part of the CPC intact, or get that fifth team and become a part of the Metro with the Metro West, which would include your group RJR, Davie, Reagan and West Forsyth and hopefully a fifth team and the Metro East which would include our group of:
Page
Grimsley
Northwest Guilford
High Point Central
East Forsyth
Glenn….
And we could send you guys over Glenn or East to the West with your four current Metro West teams and that would give us five Metro West teams and five Metro East teams on the 4-A level and we should preferably send you Glenn, because it sounds better to keep East Forsyth in the East, but you can still get as many of our guys as you want, on your non-conference schedule…..
Just some food for thought around lunch time today….
I really do not think Dudley, Smith, Ragsdale will all drop to 3A some might but i think at least one will be 4A. I do see Tabor, Parkland dropping to 3A. But how many 3A schools will be in the area then, that might be harder conferences to determine
@Possibility The only Rockingham County school that’s headed down from 3-A to 2-A is McMichael, again unless some schools outright lie about their numbers. McMichael will end up in a 2-A conference with Reidsville, Bartlett Yancey and maybe Andrews.
@Antispin Unless Dudley, Smith and Ragsdale lie about their numbers big time or petition the NHCSAA to play up, they’re going to be 3-A because 4-A is going to be going from 25 percent of schools to 20 percent. Dudley was 3-A not that long ago, before last realignment, I believe.
You might be right I think Ragsdale is on the fence could be 4A but if they are 3A you could have these conferences
4A Guilford 4A Forsyth
HP Central West Forsyth
NW Guilford Reagan
Page RJR
Grimsley Davie
Glenn East Forsyth
SW Guilford
3A Guilford 3A Forsyth other
Dudley North Forsyth
Smith Tabor
S. Guilford Parkland
W. Guilford North Davidson
N. Guilford Ledford
NE. Guilford Asheboro
3A conference
Northern Guilford
Western Guilford
Southwest Guilford
Ragsdale
Southern Guilford
Southeast Guilford
Dudley
Smith
3A conference
Eastern Guilford
Northeast Guilford
Burlington Williams
Western Alamance
Eastern Alamance
Southern Alamance
4A
Grimsley
Page
Northwest Guilford
Glenn
East Forsyth
High Point Central
not sure about HP Andrews
not sure where the Rockingham schools will go
It’s all a lot of speculation until we know the real ADM numbers that the state will use.
@whataboutthis – That looks good, but I could see Northern moving from the 1st conference to the one with the Alamance county schools. Would make more sense to pair them with those schools geographically and to preserve historical rivalries.
Andy,
Let’s get these schools on board and crunch some numbers and have them send it to the NCHSAA. The closer the schools the less expense, and bigger gates. Schedule rivals as non conf games.
Mike
Northern will stay with the group they are with…
It will be
SE Guilford
SG
Ragsdale
SW Guilford
Western Guilford
Dudley
Smith
Yes we will get some of those ADM numbers and see what we can crunch….
This is fast becoming a very important topic and just hope the State can handle this correctly…
I’m not sure if the NCHSAA is the governing body in charge of this, or if in the end, the decisions on these matters might come from a higher education body and if that is the case I am not sure what or who that body is, but I am studying it and will know soon…
There is also talk about a Super Metro 4A Conference. Similar to the 3A conference with Northern right now
Page
Grimsley
NWG
HPC
EAST FORSYTH
WEST Forsyth
Reagan
Glenn
RJR
The question is what do you do with Davie County? Also does SWG have enough numbers to stay in the 4A? There was one thread that said Davie could be joining a conference with a few Northern Meck schools etc
None of these conferences will have kids traveling more than a county or county & 1/2 away from their school. #1 it gets expense and #2 you don’t want kids more than 45 minutes or so away from their cars, school or general transportation during the winter time. These conferences will be built with keeping kids locate. The Charlotte area has more than enough teams with high enrollment to keep those kids down there and that are enough schools in this area to maintain whatever needs to be done for 4A or 3A and keep kids within a county or 30 minutes from their home school. Change may be coming but not much.