Odds and ends of observations.
- The redesign of the IHSAA’s website completely bollixed up links to anything older than a couple years. Fortunately, with the Internet Wayback Machine, it is possible to recover old district lists.
- Number of teams/schools by class (private): 8, 64 (5); A, 62 (4); 1A, 56 (6); 2A, 56 (3½) (West Burlington and Notre Dame are sharing); 3A, 56 (4); 4A, 46 (Dowling). Class 4A now has districts like everyone else.
- In 2000, the first year of the six-class era, 82 teams played in Class A. For each two-year period since, here are the numbers for that class: 2002-03, 67; 2004-05, 77; 2006-07, 68; 2008-09, 58; 2010-11, 52; 2012-13, 63; 2014-15, 62. Numbers may have differed slightly in odd-numbered years because of programs sharing/dropping out.
- In Class A, districts 3 (north-central) and 4 (northeast-central, NT’s district) have seven teams and the rest have eight.
- In all, by my count, 35 teams went down a class and 23 went up a class. Clarinda Academy had a double-drop from 2A to A.
- West Marshall got hosed. After a drop from 2A to 1A, it’s the northwesternmost school of a southeast-Iowa-ish district that includes defending champion Iowa City Regina. On the other hand, West Marshall could be just the team to end Regina’s 56-game win streak.
- South Tama fell to 2A and will now be in the same district as Aplington-Parkersburg, Union, and East Marshall. (That’s kind of weird to me.)
- Class A now has private schools Council Bluffs St. Albert and Le Mars Gehlen (which now includes Granville Spalding) in addition to Algona Garrigan and Mason City Newman. The latter two are in the same district.
- A quasi-reconstituted North Union, which is Armstrong-Ringsted plus Sentral with North Kossuth sharing (it’s complicated), and Easton Valley, which is Preston plus East Central (it’s legally complicated), will also be in Class A.
- English Valleys dropped to 8-man football, in the same wide-ranging district as both Don Bosco and Des Moines’ Grandview Park Baptist. Meskwaki Settlement School is there too.