PHOENIX — Starting next season, eight teams will be pulled from the best of the big-school conferences to play in the first Open Division high school football playoffs, with the winner being crowned state champion.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Board unanimously passed the motion during its Tuesday meeting.

At the end of the 2019 regular season, the AIA will select eight teams for the Open Division.

The tournament champion would be considered the state champion to help cultivate a culture in which schools strive to be part of the Open playoffs, AIA Executive Director David Hines said.

“This would end the premise that we don’t want to know who wins the state championship before we play Week 1,” Hines said.

The remaining big-school classifications — Class 6A, 5A and 4A — will continue to hold their own playoffs, only without the eight teams selected. Teams would still play in their respective 6A, 5A and 4A conferences during the regular season, with the best eight moving on to the Open.

The eight teams will be pulled out of the best from 6A, 5A and 4A through a computer rankings system. About 10-15 teams would be posted as part of the Open Division by the AIA each week starting Week 5.

Criteria for the computer rankings has not been determined. The board decided to table a motion to adapt an Arizona computer system that would put a 14-point cap as a point differential on games and factor in out-of-state games with strength of schedule for the February board meeting.

“There is going to be an interesting, competitive game every week,” Hines said.

There would be a bye week following the regular season for Open teams. Then, after the semifinals, there would be another bye week. The AIA wants to have the Open, 6A, 5A and 4A championships played in the same week.

The board will talk again Wednesday about remodeling football reclassification starting in the 2020-21 school year after voting 4-4 on the “40-60” model to reclassify. The remodel recommendation would then go to the AIA Legislative Council for a vote later this year.

Board president Herman House, TUSD’s Director of Interscholastics, broke the tie with a no vote. House would like to see “the standard deviation” model used to reclassify, because he believes there would be less movement.

“There is already a lot of movement,” House told the board. “Put appeals in there, it’s going to be a mess.”

In the 40-60 model, everybody is moved based on standard deviation using a three-year MaxPreps computer rating system. Then, the recommendation for 5A and 6A is to take those 80 teams and rate them 1 through 80, with the top 40 percent being place in 6A and the other 60 percent put in 5A.

“It doesn’t mean it’s out,” Hines said. “We meet tomorrow (Wednesday). We just give feedback to the (reclassification) committee and they can get it ready.”


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