Court ruling prompts high school football teams across Oklahoma to revise fall schedules
A recent court ruling has forced high school football teams across Oklahoma to rework their game schedules for the upcoming season.
A recent court ruling has forced high school football teams across Oklahoma to rework their game schedules for the upcoming season.
A recent court ruling has forced high school football teams across Oklahoma to rework their game schedules for the upcoming season.
High school football teams across Oklahoma are scrambling to devise new game schedules for the upcoming fall season following a court ruling this week.
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The ruling is a result of a lawsuit filed by several private schools. They believed it was unjust for their school to move up in classification based on field success rather than enrollment.
"I think it creates anxiety for everybody. A lot of teams had schedules out. They had homecoming schedules out, non-district schedules out," said Justin Jones, Norman North head coach and Oklahoma Football Coaches Association executive director.
Despite the high school football season being months away, coaches and athletic departments across the state now face the pressing issue of reworking their team's schedules.
"We're in a time crunch. This is unprecedented for our state," Jones said.
The court ruling halted amendments to an OSSAA rule made last year.
"We would amend Rule 14, so that now, private schools that met the success criteria could now bump up two classes. The 5A cap was lifted and basically put into 6A2 for football," Jones said about the amendments.
However, the judge ruled that this was not allowed, and the rules will revert to their previous state.
Private schools can only move up one classification above their average daily membership if their team's record meets the requirements. The ruling also reinstates the 5A cap, meaning private schools can't move up to 6A.
"We've got to have numbers from the State Department of Education, which we'll go off of to reclassify our different classifications we have for our football-playing schools," Jones said.
This could mean a 4A school could potentially move up to 5A based on its population. Alternatively, a 3A school could suddenly find itself in 2A if they lost some students.
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Dozens of football teams' schedules might need to be reworked because teams aren't in the same class anymore.
"Some schools may change 50 to 100 students. Some may change five or six students. But even on that minimal side, that could bump one school up a class and move another school down," Jones said.
The coach said he hoped that this issue could be resolved sometime next month. The next OSSAA board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.
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