Late night rambles (I type very fast)
Here is what will happen for the 2017 MPSSAA classification readjustment. This has all been in proposal and study phase but at the last meetings in January this is what the "higher ups" have relayed to me including several county and individual athletic directors. I explained this once before on here but decided to edit it out because no one was sure if this scenario was going to get voted in. But I'm told it's all but a formality and that it is going to happen based purely on Title IX issues.
When the MPSSAA reclassifies for 2017, they will take the 12 or so teams that only have 10 sports or less for both girls and boys combined and clump them together. All of those schools are at the 1A level and none of them have a football program. So the MPSSAA will take those 12 or so teams out of the deck and divide all the teams that are left by 4 and classify them into 4 classes evenly distributed. Then they will plug back in those 12 schools into Class 1A. Which means that Class 1A will have 12 more teams than any other classification.
If they did this for 2016 (which they will not) using the current enrollment numbers on file...these are the teams that get shifted back into Class 1A.
Overlea, Friendly, Owings Mills, Western STES, Patterson, Dunbar, Catoctin, Sparrows Point, Loch Raven, Carver A&T
Mountain Ridge would then be the smallest Class 2A school barely missing moving back into Class 1A by only a few students. But as we know, enrollments change. So until they take the enrollment count again in November, there is no way to predict which teams will get shifted back. This domino effect will also shift teams back from 3A to 2A and from 4A to 3A. This would shift these schools back into Class 2A:
North Harford, Landsdowne, Wilde Lake, Potomac, Poolesville, Damascus, Oakdale
The ironic part is that this is all being done to accommodate girls sports. Has nothing to do with football. There are not enough 1A girls soccer teams, softball teams, etc. This is why we saw Mountain Ridge get pushed back into Class 1A this past season in girls soccer. With Title IX issues at stake here, I am told the vote on this will get passed through quicker than a hot knife through soft butter. But again, they will not implement this process until the 2017 fall season with the latest enrollment count.
Personally, I find this process to be foolish. They need to do like Pennsylvania and take each sport and classify it individually. That would mean a school like Mountain Ridge for example, might be Class 1A in football and girls soccer, but be Class 2A in boys soccer and softball. It depends on how many schools have those sports when they divide evenly by 4. Maryland is just one backwards state. But I digress.
As for 2016, what the MPSSAA does with those 5 or 6 schools that look to be leaving Class 1A I have no idea. One aspect is certain, the MPSSAA will have to readjust the Class 1A regions again as the North region currently only has 4 teams. I see no way they can keep the Baltimore City 1A schools all together in the South region for 2016. Should be interesting. But you can bank on the 2017 thing I just mentioned. If enrollments hold true, Dunbar is back in 1A as are some hefty teams like Douglass-PG and Patterson. I really don't see how the MPSSAA can shift anyone back from 2A into 1A for 2016 without an enrollment recount.
