Applying similar large-school divisional cutoff logic to sports other than football may be helpful | Opinion

Sep. 20—With 24 boys in grades 10-12 according to Ohio High School Athletic Association enrollment figures and a competitive-balance total of 31, Vanlue is the smallest school in the state playing 11-man football.

Out in Hancock County in Northwest Ohio, the Wildcats are an easy team for which to root from afar.

I've mentioned in this space over the years, including a piece in 2016, my affinity for Vanlue.

By the way, amid an 18-game losing skid and a 1-30 stretch since 2019, it appears the Wildcats have a couple decent chances to snap that streak, and best of luck in that endeavor. It was reported earlier this season in the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association's statewide notebook they were forced to play stretches 10 vs. 11 due to injuries.

Here's to hoping improved fortune comes Vanlue's way.

There are safeguards in place to protect a school as small as Vanlue.

It competes against schools of a fairly similar size — of course while never being equal with that few student-athletes — for Week 11 qualification in a playoff region, while not being required beyond conference play to schedule opponents with too much divisional size disparity between them.

Part of the reason the numbers are better scaled was because the OHSAA, following long-held criticism on the matter, expanded to seven divisions. It took the 72 largest football-playing schools in Ohio, made that Division I then distributed the rest of the Buckeye State evenly across the other six divisions.

The issue still exists — taking competitive balance additions out of it due to the unusually high numbers applied to Cincinnati St. Xavier and St. Edward, the disparity between the largest D-I football school by enrollment, Mason, and smallest, Grove City Central Crossing, is 687.

But the issue isn't as prevalent as it once was.

So the OHSAA and its member schools took a common-sense approach to remedy a long-standing issue, the idea being there was too much enrollment margin between the top of a large-school division and the bottom.

We talk often about how football is different in Ohio. But it doesn't mean the same standards can't be applied to sports other than football if it leads to a more level competitive landscape.

The recent release of spring sports divisional cutoffs by the OHSAA elicited a thought: It seems as if the sports that are still profoundly affected the most by divisional disparity amid competitive balance are those with four divisions.

In Ohio, that's baseball, boys and girls basketball, softball and girls volleyball.

That's not to say three-division sports such as cross country, wrestling and track and field aren't affected whatsoever. But the balance is marginally better there.

In four divisions? It's clear.

Noting again the competitive balance additions for St. X and St. Ignatius are high in D-I for baseball, St. X is the largest D-I school in Ohio with an adjusted enrollment of 1,445. The smallest, Garrett Morgan, has an adjusted enrollment of 353. That's a disparity between the top and bottom of 1,092. In all, 14 schools moved up to D-I this year in baseball, including a pair of News-Herald coverage area teams in Chardon, which won the D-II state title in 2022, and University. Even if you factor out St. X and St. Ignatius, the third largest is Mason (1,300), so there's still a disparity of 947.

Same for softball: The largest D-I softball school in Ohio is Mason at 1,258 adjusted. Tied for the smallest are Walnut Ridge and Midview at 331. That's a disparity of 927.

And volleyball: Mason and Norwalk, Dover and Dayton Belmont are separated by 935 in D-I.

And boys basketball: St. Ignatius and Trotwood-Madison are separated by 1,087 in D-I.

And girls basketball: Mason and Midview and Cincinnati Northwest are separated by 926.

So the average across the four-division sports of disparity between top and bottom is 993.

That just doesn't sit right.

Granted, it improves toward the middle, because schools as big as Mason and those private-school powers are outliers.

But it begs the question: How much disparity is too much for a sport's division in expecting two schools at different ends of the size spectrum to compete?

It was deemed to be out of hand in football, so a solution was devised to make the dynamic better.

Why can't that same concept be applied for sports that aren't football?

Let's take baseball as a broader example: There are 119 schools in each of the four divisions in Ohio for a total of 476 baseball-playing schools across the state.

What if the 75 largest baseball-playing schools in Ohio were split out and made D-I, similar to the football model, and the other 401 schools were split into approximately four other divisions? Obviously, the cutoffs would be dictated by ties.

The disparity is 1,092 in D-I, 152 in D-II, 73 in D-III and 105 in D-IV.

With a five-division format, it would go to 867 in a new D-I, 286 in D-II, 103 in D-III, 75 in D-IV and 98 in a new D-V.

You're distributing the disparity more to the other divisions, but not unreasonably so, while not adversely affecting smaller divisions. Furthermore, schools that probably shouldn't be competing for the same divisional state championship — again, based on size — no longer are to the extent to which they're expected now.

The so-called "bridge schools" — i.e., the ones that bounce between D-I and D-II based on enrollment and competitive-balance addition from cycle to cycle regardless — will still toe that line. The big schools will still be the big schools.

If that issue is deemed to be "unfair" in football and in need of an adjustment, though, why isn't the same standard true for other sports?

And no, "Because it's football," is not an acceptable response.

Just like Vanlue in football, every school deserves a fair chance within its communities and means to compete for a state championship.

Applying the same logic to all sports with three and four divisions for cutoffs as is applied to football could help better achieve that goal.