The classifications (but not districts) for the next two years of Iowa high school football are out, and North Tama finds itself looking up.
With 107 students in grades 9-11 (the “BEDS number”), North Tama will be the smallest public school to play 11-man football. The only one smaller is Le Mars Gehlen, with 95, and the next up is Algona Garrigan, with 109. Heck of a time to start a capital campaign, Redhawks.
Gehlen, North Tama, Garrigan, and Lynnville-Sully are the only four schools with a BEDS number under 115 — the cap for 8-man football — that will play 11. There are five teams with a BEDS number above 115 allowed to play 8 — Northwood-Kensett, AGWSR(!), Wayne, Easton Valley, and a combined Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire — based on enrollment projections.
Along with AGWSR, Iowa Valley is another district-football-era North Tama opponent to make the drop to 8. It’s the fifth such team based in a county seat (Marengo), although Guthrie Center had been but now is the smallest 1A school (possibly for travel-related reasons).
The Redhawks will start next season six years removed from a state championship but only one year removed from a winless season, with a new coach, in an at-least-slightly reconstituted district, with a numerical disadvantage for bodies on the field. Snap on your chinstraps.
UPDATE 1/9: Reader Chris Andringa says that Guthrie Center is in 1A because its classification includes Adair-Casey, which was blank at the top of the IHSAA list. In that case, the class split is at 157, the BEDS number for both Pekin (A) and Clayton Ridge (1A).