Area Georgia coaches were in a wait-and-see mode following the news that the GHSA reclassification and executive committees approved a plan Monday for a six-classification system beginning with the 2012-13 school year.
“We’ll have to wait until the October [student enrollment] numbers come out before we see where they will put everybody, so until then it’s hard to have much of an opinion,” Ridgeland football coach Mark Mariakis said. “From what I saw of the plan, there are pros and cons to what they might do.”
The reaction was mostly positive, however, to a slight tweak to the plan that will allow the GHSA to alter the percentage of each class if it helps a significant number of schools with travel issues. For example, if the bottom two percent of Class AAA would benefit from going to Class AA to cut down on travel, the GHSA would increase the Class AA percentage accordingly.
The plan as it was previously submitted had a fixed percentage for each class. The new plan likely will lead to much lobbying before the final regions are decided.
“I’m not worried so much about who we play. I just don’t want to travel all over the state to find games,” said David Humphreys, the athletic director and football coach at Trion, the area’s smallest school. “One of the scenarios we saw earlier would have us needing to find four nonregion games, and with the region in a class above us going to a full-league schedule, that would put us in a bad place. Maybe this new plan will help prevent that.”