The Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association (OSSAA) announced last week at their regular monthly meeting several football classes change that will affect local schools starting in the 2024 district realignment and playoffs. As of now, Guthrie is unaffected as Class 5A was not altered by the board.
The first big change is splitting the Class 2A, A, and B divisions into two divisions as they currently do in Class 6A. The divisions will be split right down the middle according to enrollment for the 2024 season. Currently Class 2A has 64 teams, Class A has 63 teams and Class B has 48 teams.
The extra teams mean an extra week of playoffs for the teams in those divisions and finish a week later. The new format will max every team’s season out at 14 games, will qualify 16 more teams for play-offs in Class 2A and A and 12 more teams in Class B (Eight-Man). There will now be 11 championship games all on the games weekend with the changes.
Class 6A will also be changing its playoff format by making six teams in each class now eligible for the play-offs starting this fall. The change gives bye weeks to the top two teams in each division with three playing six and four playing five in week one of the play-offs.
The other big change for Classes 2A, A, and B will be for the third round of games to be at neutral sites instead of one team’s home field. There have been some long road trips over the years by teams because of the pairings that put teams in expense and competitive disadvantages. Last year, Elk City had to go to Grove (310 miles) for a play-off game, Cashion has had trips to Talihina (230 miles) and Hooker has come to Cashion the last two years (250 miles) for play-off games.
While the splitting into two divisions will mean one less play-off game, there could still be some east versus west play-off games that need to be on neutral fields for travel purposes. It will be interesting in 2024.