REALIGNMENT BLOG: 12/17/21

With the season just recently concluded, it's realignment time once again! On Friday, the football reclassification committee of the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) came out with the initial conference placements for the 2022 season.

The process is the same as it was in 2020 with past success being used to determine whether a team is moved up or down. Prior to 2020, enrollment was the sole determinant. Realignment will take place annually, but it was not done prior to the 2021 season due to many teams playing anywhere from zero to four games during the first COVID-19 year.

Another similarity is that football is still being treated differently from all other sports. Those sports are still using enrollment as the sole factor.

The model that was used looked at a team's success on the field over the past three seasons. Assuming the same process was used in this realignment, the MaxPreps power ratings were used and it was broken down as 50 percent from the 2021 season, 35 percent from 2020, and 15 percent from 2019.

In each conference anywhere from two to four teams were moved up or down. The maximum that a school could shift from its current position was just one conference.

Still to be determined (hopefully before deciding regions) will be if there will be a change to awarding teams that win regions access to automatic berths into the postseason. This is decided at the conference level (2A and 3A had it, while the larger ones did not). Last year, Catalina Foothills and Sierra Linda (4A), and Corona del Sol and Tolleson (6A) all won region titles, but didn't finish among the top 16 in their conference's final power points and were denied a postseason spot.

By all indications, the Open Division will continue in 2022. There will likely be a vote by the 4A Conference to determine if they will remain in play for that tournament, or hold their own bracket as the 3A and 2A conferences do.

Once the conferences are finalized, regions will be worked on. Since 2011, regions have consisted solely of teams within the same conference.

In all the conferences throughout the state, a total of 12 schools were moved up and 15 schools were moved down. Teams have until Jan. 5 to appeal their placement. The football conferences will be finalized at the AIA Executive Board meeting on Jan. 18. Then, regions will be worked on with the intent to have initial ones completed on Jan. 25.

Open Division teams from this year, ALA-Queen Creek (4A), Cactus (4A), and Saguaro (5A) are all moving up one conference. Also, the runner-up in the 5A Conference, Salpointe, will be heading to 6A for the first time. The Lancers played at the highest level at the time (5A) from 1989-2010. The champion in the 4A Conference, Casa Grande, will be playing in 5A for the first time since 2010. Also moving up to 5A is Mesquite. The Wildcats won the 4A Conference bracket in 2019 and 2020. Mesquite was a 5A school from its start in 1999 through 2017. In its four years at the 4A level, MHS was 35-13.

The current 6A numbers show the total number of teams dropping by one from 38 to 37. The 5A total nudges up one from 44 to 45. There are no new schools opening in 2022 that will fall under the 5A or 6A.

So, here's a look at what the 6A and 5A conferences would look like (pending appeals):

Moving UP from 5A to 6A: Saguaro and Salpointe

Moving DOWN from 6A to 5A: Copper Canyon, Skyline, and Tucson

Moving UP from 4A to 5A: ALA-Queen Creek, Cactus, Casa Grande, and Mesquite

Moving DOWN from 5A to 4A: Alhambra, Independence, Kofa, and Maryvale

Moving UP from 3A to 4A: ALA-Gilbert North, Snowflake, and Yuma Catholic

Moving DOWN from 4A to 3A: Rio Rico, Shadow Mountain, Tempe, and Yuma

Moving UP from 2A to 3A: Arizona Lutheran, Benson, and Parker

Moving DOWN from 3A to 2A: Chinle, Coronado, Cortez, and Tuba City