REALIGNMENT BLOG: 12/25/22

With the season just recently concluded, it's realignment time once again! Last week, the football reclassification committee of the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) came out with the initial conference placements for the 2023 season.

The process is the same one that began 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 before 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 2022 season, 35 percent from 2021, and 15 percent from 2020.

In each conference anywhere from one to five 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, Carl Hayden, Walden Grove, and Mica Mountain (4A), and Cienega (5A) 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 2023 and there is a possibility that it could be expanded as well. Watch for more on this after the start of the new year.

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 five schools were moved up and 13 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. 17. Then, regions will be worked on with the intent to have initial ones completed on Jan. 24.

The only non-6A team that made the open, ALA-Queen Creek, will be moving up to the 6A Conference. The Patriots were the only team from the 5A that was selected to join the top conference in the state. The champion in the 4A Conference, ALA-Gilbert North, will be playing in 5A for the first time. The Eagles are the only team moving up to the 5A Conference.

The current 6A numbers show the total number of teams dropping by two from 35 to 33. The 5A total also drops by two from 47 to 45. There are no new schools opening in 2023 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: ALA-Queen Creek

Moving DOWN from 6A to 5A: Cibola, Dobson, and Westview

Moving UP from 4A to 5A: ALA-Gilbert North

Moving DOWN from 5A to 4A: Cholla, Copper Canyon, La Joya, Mesquite, and Rincon/University

Moving UP from 3A to 4A: Eastmark

Moving DOWN from 4A to 3A: Kofa, Sahuarita

Moving UP from 2A to 3A: Gilbert Christian, Morenci

Moving DOWN from 3A to 2A: Arizona Lutheran, Parker, Shadow Mountain

Support our sponsor:

AALL Insurance