Boone Iowa — District assignments for the next two years in Iowa football are out and there are a few noticeable changes. Sheldon remains in Class 2A for the next two years in District 1. Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley comes back into 2A for the next two years. Spirit Lake will be moving up to Class 3A. Also Okoboji moves down to Class 1A for the next two years. With those changes Estherville Lincoln Central will come into the district along with Pocahontas Area/L-M. The rest of 2A District 1 includes Central Lyon/George-Little Rock, Cherokee, MOC-Floyd Valley and Sioux Center.
All districts in 2A contain 8 teams now and there are 7 districts in all but 2 classes of Iowa football. 8 man and 4A will have 8 districts each. 8 man will have 8 teams in each district. 4A will have 6 teams in each district.
The playoff format will change as well. Beginning this year only the top two teams in each district qualify for the playoffs.
Todd Tharp with the Iowa High School Athletic Association says that configuration of the districts won’t change playoff qualifiers. “We will still qualify 16, we’ll take the district champion and the district runner-up, and then will have kind of two at-large berths, which might protect the situation where maybe we have a three-way tie for district champion, and in the past maybe that team would get left out,” Tharp explains.
With the districts decided now schools will be figuring out the rest of the schedule Tharp said. “They have about nine days here to chose who they want to play non-district wise. On February 1st we will go back and create the schedules for all 344 schools — home and away schedules for the next two years.” Schools must play in the same class the next two years to be eligible for the playoffs. If they make a change in class after the first year, then they are not eligible for the playoffs until the next redistricting.
The first round of the playoffs will be Friday October 28th with the quarterfinal round the following Friday November 4th. State semis will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday November 10th through the 12th at the UNI Dome. State Championships will be decided Thursday and Friday November 17th and 18th this year.
For a complete list of district assignments click on the links below.
