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You are right. Columbia hosting Viera would of caused problems.
Lots of suggestions for making more meaningful state championships:
1A: Nothing should be done to fix it, hell, half of 1A fans were in a riot last year because 3 schools were barely above 600 students, but clearly rural. I have argued in the past that the games should be played at Citizen's Field in Gainesville, Columbia High School in Lake City, or Gene Cox in Tallahassee, but the argument of playing in a professional stadium (Citrus Bowl) wins out.
2A: Need to get more teams in 2A. I will come back to this in a minute.
3A: Move public schools from 3A to 4A.
4A: Move private schools from 4A to 3A
5A, 6A, 7A, 8A consolidated down to 3 classifications. Private schools get enrollment weighted by 1.5.
FHSAA needs to take 4 year average rather than a snapshot of one week at the school during FTE week.
Independents: The reality is that many of these independents are small private schools playing insulated conference games against similar type schools. I think the FHSAA should work with them all to create a 2B classification (sans IMG) and allow them to play to a regional championship. Require if a team wins a regional playoff that they must play 2 years in 2A.
Long term, the FHSAA should start doing sports more like the English soccer leagues and allow promotion and relegation. If during a 4 year span you are a 2 time district champs, a 1 time district runner-up, and won 3 playoff games. We add 100 for each championship, 50 for each runner-up and a 100 for each playoff win to the base population of a school. Schools with more success would move up in classifications, schools with no wins in districts would move down.
Here is the thing about current classifications. It does not kid/player any good to play in for example a 5A school with a Private School because all he is going to see is smaller 180-200lbs DLs or OLs. What good does this do him to prepare for college only to see him get beat every down in college. I've seen it too many times already. Its does not private school any good to play down like they are so yes WEIGHT needs to be a factor, big time factor.
It would not be any more dangerous than it already is to go from eight to six classes.Look at a program from the championships. They list every player on every team from 1A to 8A. The size of the lineman varies so much from one class to another that it would be dangerous to the players to reduce the number of classes.
Also, that 300-student school does everything they can to field a team and many play both ways. There's no way they could compete against schools that can rotate the defense and has no one playing both ways. In fact, the players from the smaller school could suffer severe injuries due to exhaustion. Is that what you're hoping for?
Look at a program from the championships. They list every player on every team from 1A to 8A. The size of the lineman varies so much from one class to another that it would be dangerous to the players to reduce the number of classes.
Also, that 300-student school does everything they can to field a team and many play both ways. There's no way they could compete against schools that can rotate the defense and has no one playing both ways. In fact, the players from the smaller school could suffer severe injuries due to exhaustion. Is that what you're hoping for?