After careful consideration, administrators at Howard School have notified the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association that its football program will play a nonregion schedule the next two seasons.
The decision, announced Wednesday, comes after Howard was moved up to Class 6A, which is for the largest public schools in the state, due to an increase in its enrollment. However, with the football team typically having fewer than 30 players on the roster, Hustlin’ Tigers coaches and school administrators felt the safest option, and the one that would most benefit the program’s future, would be opting out of its classification and a region that would force Howard to compete against teams that typically have rosters with close to 100 players.
All TSSAA schools had a Nov. 1 deadline to inform the state’s high school sports sanctioning body of their intentions to either remain in the classification and region they were assigned for the 2025-27 competition cycle, or elect to play a nonregion schedule. Classifications were set based on enrollment reported at the beginning of the current school year.
In the TSSAA’s initial announcement on Oct. 9 of classification assignments for 2025-27, Howard was moved up from 5A to 6A in football because its enrollment had jumped from 1,485 two years ago to 1,535. On Oct. 22, the TSSAA Board of Control denied Howard’s appeal not to move up.
By playing a nonregion schedule, Howard will be ineligible to qualify for the state playoffs, but it will have far greater flexibility in deciding its opponents.