Font ResizeIn a change to add more balance and cater to its member schools' preferences, the YAIAA set up it's football divisions for the 2010 and 2011 seasons with current PIAA classification categories.
With the 6-6-10 setup that was approved earlier this week, Division I will include only Class AAAA schools, Division II will include only Class AAA schools, and Division III would include eight schools from both Class AA and Class A along with Class AAA Eastern York and Class AAAA York County Tech.
Some schools could move up or down in classification for the upcoming two-year cycle, but football committee chairman and South Western football coach Don Seidenstricker said the 6-6-10 structure would remain intact. The schools with the six biggest enrollments will make up Division I, the schools with the next six biggest enrollments will make up Division II, and the bottom 10 will make up Division III.
"The one thing I think is it worked out classification-wise pretty smoothly based on the numbers for these two years," Seidenstricker said.
"The other thing is it's the general consensus if you would survey most coaches and athletic directors that for whatever reason, the smaller schools preferred only trying to get one or at the most two games. I think they're satisfied with one. With the larger schools, they wanted more flexibility in getting out there and playing some of the schools from the other leagues."
Dallastown is one of those bigger schools that could benefit from
"The biggest benefit for us is we will be able to play all AAAA schools, and it's going to allow us to go outside of the league to pick up more AAAA schools to help with the power rankings the district uses for seeding," Myers said. "When you look at it, there's just a handful of AAAA teams and when we have to play the AAA teams -- not that that's a bad thing, don't take it in that context, but playing AAAA schools helps us in the district seedings."
Dover struggled in 2008 while playing in a division that included Central York and William Penn teams that reached the district quarterfinals in Class AAAA, finishing with a 1-9 overall record. Coach Bill Miller said Division II makes more sense.
"In terms of straight numbers, it's where we belong," Miller said. "Last year, every school was bigger than us other than New Oxford. Spring Grove was the closest ahead of us and they had us outnumbered by 159 boys, which is the equivalent of one whole class."
Teams from Division I and Division II will play two crossover games against each other in Weeks 4 and 5, with those opponents determined by drawing out of a hat. Division II's Northeastern, which will be competing in its third season of varsity football when the new alignment takes effect, will have Class AAAA teams in those crossover games.
That gives the Bobcats a chance to pick up bonus points as they try to qualify, but could provide stiff competition, and Northeastern has scheduled accordingly.
"Knowing that we have heavyweights on our schedule, we went out and really worked to try and get three games outside of our division that are going to be games that are very winnable for us," Northeastern coach Brendan Brown said. "When you head into league play 1-4, you're pretty much dead in the water."
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