The Bobcat Nation

Interesting that they seem to be decoupling football from the other sports.

I don't understand how Belgrade isn't reclassified immediately to AA for all sports but football under the new rules. They have had way more than 779 students in that high school for a long time. On the other hand, increasing the threshold to 900 for AA football might keep the Panthers in Class A for a while longer. I think they have about 850 kids right now and were going to have to jump in 2019 under the old rules.

*UPDATE* Using the 10% rule I see Belgrade stays under the threshold by about 6 students-if I'm calculating correctly.

Bemiller49 wrote:http://www.montanasports.com/2016/11/21 ... ification/

This FTE count out here never ceases to amaze me. Then when you consider the asinine distances involved for all the schools because of this head count it bothers me and makes me wonder if the patients are running the asylum. Why can't this state simply come up with two classifications putting the 48 or 64 largest schools in one classification and the rest in another? Are the 14 "Big"schools afraid there will be a repeat of the Big 32? You remember back when Wolf Point, Libby and Laurel won it all in basketball?

Geezzz, I know some states such as Georgia with a little school of less than 350 kids like Lincoln County would play a nonconference preseason game year after year against schools two classifications higher based on their enrollments of over 1500 kids and just knock the dog snot out of them in football.

I'm still scratching my head over why Central loses 1 team (Browning) and SW adds 1 team (Frenchtown) and Butte Central isn't placed in the Central Conference, leaving Central with only 4 teams.

Maybe I don't have an important piece of information, but that seems odd.

Shopkeeper wrote:I'm still scratching my head over why Central loses 1 team (Browning) and SW adds 1 team (Frenchtown) and Butte Central isn't placed in the Central Conference, leaving Central with only 4 teams.

Maybe I don't have an important piece of information, but that seems odd.

I believe they wanted Laurel to move to the Central to give the NW 6, SW 6, East 5, and Central 5. I'm told Laurel was dead against that. It sounds as though there could be changes in store come January anyway. Guess we'll see.

LTown Cat wrote:

Shopkeeper wrote:I'm still scratching my head over why Central loses 1 team (Browning) and SW adds 1 team (Frenchtown) and Butte Central isn't placed in the Central Conference, leaving Central with only 4 teams.

Maybe I don't have an important piece of information, but that seems odd.

I believe they wanted Laurel to move to the Central to give the NW 6, SW 6, East 5, and Central 5. I'm told Laurel was dead against that. It sounds as though there could be changes in store come January anyway. Guess we'll see.

Yeah my thought when I first saw everything was that either Laurel or Butte Central would go to the Central. Makes absolutely no sense to have 6, 4, 6, & 6.

As I stated in another thread Shelby was informed that they qualify for Class C next year. Since this came down so late they decided to stay Class B for next year to allow more time to discuss what to do in the future.