KHSAA approves new football alignment, may consider ‘success factor’ in future
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- KHSAA finalized alignment for the 2027 and 2028 football seasons on Wednesday.
- 1.35 multiplier to male enrollment at private schools with football previously approved.
- KHSAA said it is open to exploring a performance-based success metric in the future.
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s board of control on Wednesday finalized alignment for the 2027 and 2028 football seasons.
The board passed most of the adjustments reflected in a proposal released by the KHSAA in April. That proposal included the first use of a 1.35-multiplier to the male enrollment of all football-playing private schools, which was approved at an earlier meeting.
Head coaches from two of the 16 schools whose enrollment was affected by the multiplier, Sayre’s Chad Pennington — whose team remains in Class A under the new system — and Kentucky Country Day’s Matthew Jones, wrote to the KHSAA in response to the April decision.
They advocated for an enrollment floor for the state’s smallest 32 schools — which in past alignments would constitute all of Class A (36 beginning in 2027) — to whom the multiplier would not be applied. They also advocated for a performance-based metric, based on past success, to be considered as part of realignment.
“This would move programs between classes based on demonstrated on-field performance (objective data) rather than enrollment potential (speculative data),” Pennington wrote in a letter dated March 26. “This creates a self-correcting system where successful programs move up, and struggling programs are permitted to recalibrate within their natural enrollment class.”
The board considered these proposals, among several others related to alignment during a lengthy work session on Tuesday.
It denied the KCD-Sayre request as part of a vote to adopt the Class A 2027-28 alignment as proposed in April. That draft moved KCD (and fellow private school Bethlehem) into Class 2A. The expansion of Class A to 36 schools leaves Sayre just on the cusp of entering the higher division.
“I think what they requested was more an exception for the very smallest, and I’m not sure that’s in line with the thinking around the state right now,” KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said. “I respect the heck out of Coach Jones and obviously Chad has done a great job with Sayre. … For every classification (exercise) I’ve been involved with for nearly 40 years, everybody wants to be the biggest school in the next class down. It’s absolutely natural, no matter how you divide them.
“We have to recognize that our membership feels there are some disparities between our schools based on school type that we should try to address. The good thing about (the multiplier) is we didn’t say ‘every school of this type has to move up.’ It’s just adding a factor to your enrollment and then seeing if that moves you up.”
KCD won the Class A championship in 2025, and Sayre won it in 2024; each were first-time champions. Prior to that, Lexington Christian Academy, which gets bumped from Class 2A to 3A in 2027 due to the new multiplier, was the last private school to win a Class A football title, in 2009.
Regarding a potential performance-based criteria in realignment decision-making, KCD and Sayre cited the tournament success factor used by the Indiana High School Athletic Association as a reference. Since 2012, Indiana schools are moved up a class, on a sport-by-sport basis, following the course of two playing seasons if they finish with six total points based on their final standing at the end of that period.
For example: if a football team won a regional championship (two points) and a state semifinal (three points), it would not move up after the two-year cycle. If that same team won two consecutive state semifinals, it would move up.
In Indiana, that football team could be an outlier at its school, playing in the highest division while its basketball teams sit a few classes down. Theoretically, a success factor encourages continued participation for teams that win a lot as well as those that struggle.
The KHSAA is open to exploring a success metric as part of future realignment decisions if desired by member schools, Tackett said, but it must be careful.
“The advantage to success factors is it’s measurable,” Tackett said. “The disadvantage is it’s from the past. That’s why there’s no consensus (in how to do it). We’ve got 10, 12 states that have success factors and no two of them are alike. … Is success just a championship trophy? There are schools who make the second round of the playoffs that think they’ve had a successful year and there’s some that, if they lose the championship game, don’t think it was a successful year. So what is success?”
The board also voted to expand re-seeding of the football postseason based on RPI standing to the second round beginning in 2027. Currently, the RPI isn’t implemented until the third and fourth rounds of the playoffs.
KHSAA board approves slight adjustments
In Class 2A, the board voted to adjust alignments in District 7 and 8 based on petitions and feedback from five schools. Knott County Central and Leslie County now will be placed into District 7 with Breathitt County and Magoffin County, while Martin County and Prestonsburg will be in District 8 with Belfry, Pike County Central and Shelby Valley. The fifth school whose feedback was considered, Morgan County, will remain in District 6 as proposed in the April draft.
Letcher County Central requested to be placed in District 7 (with East Carter, Floyd Central, Lawrence County and Russell) based on an accumulation of total travel time in the April proposal (District 8). The board approved that request. Perry County Central made the same request but was denied. (In its request, Perry County Central acknowledged that either it or Letcher County Central were logical choices for an adjustment.)
The board voted to approve Breckinridge County’s request to be placed in Class 4A’s District 4 rather than District 3. Breckinridge County Principal Jonathan Bennett petitioned on the rationale that the new District 4, which includes three of his school’s current district mates, would be more easily navigable for some of his coaches who also drive buses. The adjustment made no material difference to travel mileage.
Bullitt East and Pleasure Ridge Park proposed alternative alignments in Class 6A, and Grayson County did the same in Class 5A, but those were denied, and those realignments were adopted as drafted in April.
