HobbsDailyReport.com
CHAPEL HILL — HighSchool OT, a leader in online high school coverage statewide, is reporting the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) board of directors has voted to decrease the number of teams that will qualify next year for the 4A and 1A state football playoffs.
The board of directors is meeting on Wednesday at the NCHSAA headquarters in Chapel Hill.
The report says the 4A and 1A football brackets will be reduced from having 64 teams to 48 beginning next fall. Brackets for those classifications will also be cut back to 48 teams in basketball, baseball, softball and soccer.
A new statewide realignment begins in August and changes there included the percentage of the state’s schools per classification; it’s 20 percent of them in 4A and 20 percent in 1A. The percentage of schools in 2A and 3A will now be 30 percent in each.
HighSchoolOT’s report said NCHSAA staff felt the reduction in number of qualifying teams was needed.
In a similar move, the board voted to continue to use Maxpreps rankings for seeding purposes for one more year and then take a look at that again in 2018. Those rankings were used only regarding tie-breaking this school year but in the fall they’ll be used for seeding rather than overall winning percentage, the report said.
Also, pre-determined brackets — which the NCHSAA used for many years in different state playoffs — will be used next school year in dual-team tennis, lacrosse and dual-team wrestling, the report said.