Dear High School League

[Belvedere]

Is it completely unheard of to make a special exception for Abbeville so that they might play football in 2A but the rest of their sports in 1A? I actually like that Abbeville kept its other sports in mind when they lobbied to get back into 1A, but they're a 2A football POWER and it's unfair (both to Abbeville and to the rest of 1A) that they have to play down. Abbeville is an exceptional football program, and these are the programs where exceptions should be made. It isn't like they're begging to sleepwalk through 1A; they're begging for good football and a challenge. Let them have it.

Great point, Shiva.

It's definitely not unheard of in our state. This is actually how SCISA structures its entire classification and region structure across the board so as to properly account for both 8-man FB and Non-FB schools (1 alignment for FB Only, 1 alignment for Non-FB; every 2 years).

More importantly, it has actually been done at least once before in SCHSL - though in reverse, with West-Oak.

IIRC, about 10-12 years ago, West-Oak appealed their Class AAA placement for FB Only along the lines of limited numbers, no JV, and poor history even at the AA level. HSL approved the appeal, dropped FB to Region 1-AA, and kept them in Region 1-AAA for all other sports. I think it was only in place for a single 2-year realignment cycle.

[mikey]

Sorta like Gaffney and Nw should be in Div1 5a

[*Topcat*]

Is it completely unheard of to make a special exception for Abbeville so that they might play football in 2A but the rest of their sports in 1A? I actually like that Abbeville kept its other sports in mind when they lobbied to get back into 1A, but they're a 2A football POWER and it's unfair (both to Abbeville and to the rest of 1A) that they have to play down. Abbeville is an exceptional football program, and these are the programs where exceptions should be made. It isn't like they're begging to sleepwalk through 1A; they're begging for good football and a challenge. Let them have it.

Here, here, I like it. Think about a school that has won 6 State titles in the AA classification since 2015. And now we're reduced to playing the smallest, weakest teams in all of Class A in our region. It is no fun at all, no challenge whatsoever. We play Blackville-Hilda this week, they are 9-2, check the scoreboard Friday night, I don't expect it to be very close. Quite honestly, I would like to see an actual game, where starters play more than a Quarter and a half. I'm curious to see if there is a team in Class A that can challenge us, not sure there is. There were some real exciting potential games for us in AA playoffs, but, some one decided we should bypass that.