On Tuesday, the South Dakota High School Activities Association held a board of directors meeting in which five proposals were on the agenda that would impact high school football in the Mt. Rushmore state. The most popular and highly discussed football proposal was moving from seven classes to five classes.
A lot was discussed, but ultimately a motion was passed 7-1 to send a directive back to the football advisory committee urging them to develop a new five-class football proposal. It's clear that most of the testimony supported five classes of football in South Dakota, but the 'how' is what caused disagreement.
The proposal discussed on Tuesday in Pierre (via teleconference) was to establish three 11-man classes and two 9-man classes. 11AA would include the top nine teams based on Average Daily Membership, including Bishop O’Gorman, who traditionally has petitioned up, and Sioux Falls Jefferson, the newest high school in the Sioux Empire. Class 11A would then include the next 16 largest schools, based on ADM, and then 11B would take the remaining member schools whose average daily mail membership is 56 or higher.
Nine-man football in South Dakota would be split evenly, so that each class would have the same number of teams.
Prior to the Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday, the activities directors of South Dakota voted on the proposal. Overall, they were slightly against it with a 77-58 vote.
The hope moving forward, per a report from the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, is for the Football Advisory Committee to meet and construct a new proposal in early May. From there, the athletic directors have also asked to vote again. For any proposal to be implemented, it would have to pass two readings from the SDHSAA Board of Directors. If everything goes according to schedule, the first reading could potentially take place in June with the next, if it passes the first, taking place at the August meeting.
A proposal to implement a mercy rule in 11AAA and 11AA passed its first reading on Tuesday with a unanimous 8-0 vote. It'll go next to the June meeting, where if it passes again, would go into effect. As it currently stands, 11AAA and 11AA are the only two classes of high school football in South Dakota who currently do not have a mercy rule in place.
