After a 2020 season that will present its own challenges and has already been moved to the spring, don’t expect things to get back to our expected norm in the years to come.

The Board of Directors voted for a complete overhaul of the state football playoffs. Beginning next year there will no longer be any subclassifications, meaning that there will no longer be any Big 1a and Little 1a, instead there will only be the 1a classification.

Previously, there have been 8 state champions crowned in North Carolina. Two in each classification. Now the NCHSAA will only be crowning 4 state champions, as the classifications will no longer be cut in half. This mean 128 less teams in the NCHSAA state playoffs.

The board also voted to reduce the number of regular season games from 11 to 10, including an endowment game.

The realignment rough draft has been released already and there are not a lot of changes in the 1a-2a regions. Swain and Murphy are teams that have teetered 1a-2a for a while, but they are both in 1a. East Surry has been 1a for the last few years, but they are now in 2a.

This whole getting rid of the sub classifications thing gives me mixed emotions. I feel bad for schools like Robbinsville, who were on the smaller side of Little 1a and are now going to be playing against schools way bigger than them. I believe that the 1a schools are from 200-600 students, and Robbinsville has around 300.

I would feel bad for schools like Murphy, Andrews and Hiwassee Dam too, if they were not going to be consolidated and moved to 2a in the next few years anyway.

I will say this, now when a school in North Carolina wins the state championship, there will be no doubt that they are the best school n their whole division.