A big change is coming to Indiana's high school football tournament, starting in the 2013-2014 school year. The Indiana High School Athletic Association Executive Committee today approved a sixth class that'll work like this... current 5-A schools, those with the largest enrollments in the state, will be split in two – the largest 32 will make up the new 6-A tier, and the other 32 will be considered 5-A. Remaining schools will be evenly distributed between Classes 4-A thru single-A.

Schools with some of the largest enrollments locally include Portage, Lake Central, Merrillville, and Crown Point... but the new classifications won't be announced until next winter followed by the sectional assignments.

The Committee also voted in favor of a two-year “tournament success factor” in each team sport --baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball volleyball-- representing an accumulation of points by which any school would move up one class based on tournament series performance during that time and compete in the higher enrollment class for the next two seasons.

Tournament success during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years will be used to determine classifications in 2013-14.

The full news release is available here:
http://www.ihsaa.org/Media/MediaReleases/201112/62212/tabid/1267/Default.aspx


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