High school football realignment proposal rejected

A proposal that the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Realignment Committee gave preliminary approval to last month was rejected by a 9-3 vote by the NIAA Board of Control at a meeting Wednesday.

The Realignment Committee presented a proposal for Class 5A and 4A football that would reduce the number of state championship games from seven to five. The proposal would also create a rating system and a selection committee to determine and seed teams for the postseason.

The Realignment Committee will work on a new football proposal at a meeting Dec. 9 to be presented to the Board of Control on Jan. 14 and 15.

In September, the Board of Control denied the current realignment structure and told the Realignment Committee to come up with a proposal with fewer than seven state championship games.

In the current structure, 5A, the top classification, is split into three divisions, creating seven title games from 5A to 1A. All 46 teams in 5A and 4A qualify for the playoffs.

The new proposal would have only five title games, 5A through 1A, and would reduce the number of 5A and 4A playoff teams to 20.

At Wednesday’s meeting, that proposal received pushback from several Clark County School District principals during public comment regarding the imbalance between the top schools that would make the playoffs and the bottom teams that would miss the playoffs.

Several principals noted that inner city schools would suffer without having the opportunity to make the postseason.

Other principals were concerned about the structure of the leagues and where teams would be placed for competitive balance. The proposal presented Wednesday did not include which leagues teams would compete in during the regular season.

Liberty football coach and athletic director Rich Muraco said during public comment that the committee should look at a proposal from the Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association that has teams placed in leagues and six state championships.

“You can solve some problems by putting certain teams in divisions where they get to at least play for a division championship and feel their season was a success,” Muraco said. “My suggestion would to be look at our proposal and for the realignment committee to actually get in a room and discuss plans. … There should be some dialect where the committee works together and comes up with a plan.”

Several members of the board gave the Realignment Committee direction to come up with a proposal with six state championship games.

“I believe the high school principals from CCSD would be in favorite of an alignment that includes six (state title games), Open, 5A and 4A,” Cimarron-Memorial principal Colin McNaught, a voting member on the board, said at the meeting.

McNaught was the most outspoken of the board members against the proposal.

“I have no problem with the current setup, and I don’t think we have time to come up with a new setup,” he said. “At our meeting in September, we should have just approved everything. I don’t think we are in a place at this point where we can come up with a new plan that people are going to be happy with.”

In the proposal presented by the NIAA, the 20 total 5A and 4A teams would qualify for the playoffs based on a combined ranking of the team’s NIAA rubric points, MaxPreps rankings and Harbin Points. The top teams would compete for a 5A/Open Division state title, and the remaining teams would make the 4A playoffs.

A selection committee would have determined how many teams would make the 5A/Open Division playoffs and the seeding for all the playoff teams.

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.