[UPSCat4080]

In all reality New Harlan only pulls from about 100 males at Eallins and Rosspoint. Many people look at "5 schools being pulled from" and get a false sense of how many kids there are. Even in the later West Harlan and early New Harlan days it was always been mostly Wallins and Rosspoint/Old Loyall kids and it has always been about the same number of males total combined from the schools.

[WILDCAT NATION]

4. East
Belfry
Martin co
Simons
East carter
Morgan co
Pike central
3. North
Bath
Bondurant
Lex cath
Foley
Henry
Barrett
2. Central
Wayne
Casey.
Taylor
Glasgow
Tk stone
Spencer county
1. West
West hardin
Union county
Radcliffe (north middle)
Muhlenberg
Bluegrass
Paducah

What is this? 8th D2?

[Cardfan1]

Yes not official obviously.

[RamPride]

Any word on who is in or out? I know at Raceland we have always supported the KYMSFA and completed the entry work and fees before the season and on deadlines. It just seems like people are waiting to see if they will be able to go far before they complete the packets. It almost seems like some teams or schools will wait till the last minute to see if they have a chance at making it before they complete everything. Everyone should complete their packets and pay their fee even if they have a down year. The deadline has passed and in effect. Those team who are out are out, those who are on board are on board not matter if they can win it or not.
Deadline was reached and schools need to be held accountable.
If you take the money after the deadline it may appear than MONEY is the reason to continue to give allowances to these teams. Just making a comment and take it for what it is worth.

[plantmanky]

Any word on who is in or out? I know at Raceland we have always supported the KYMSFA and completed the entry work and fees before the season and on deadlines. It just seems like people are waiting to see if they will be able to go far before they complete the packets. It almost seems like some teams or schools will wait till the last minute to see if they have a chance at making it before they complete everything. Everyone should complete their packets and pay their fee even if they have a down year. The deadline has passed and in effect. Those team who are out are out, those who are on board are on board not matter if they can win it or not.
Deadline was reached and schools need to be held accountable.
If you take the money after the deadline it may appear than MONEY is the reason to continue to give allowances to these teams. Just making a comment and take it for what it is worth.

RamPride I get your point. Only thing I can respond with is what responses we have received from said teams that " cant get their ducks in a row"

5 teams - still no response from them

3 teams - response was we are not participating, we will not be members

17 team - needed an invoice in order to process dues payment which delayed the process some. I have talked to 9 administrators (principals or AD's) that told me they lost the invoice and I had to resend.

1 team - Bookkeeper is out on medical leave and no one is available to cut a check. (For those that dont work inside a school district, this is a bigger issue than it sounds, its not so easy for some districts to just have someone else sign a check)

I know the new redbook rules have made it more difficult for some schools as they try to follow the rules. Many of the schools that needed invoices were in contact with us about it before the Sept 15th deadline.

[RamPride]

Clarification helps.

[tvtimeout]

Just now checked the exact numbers....based off of last years 6 and 7 grades for males who would be 7&8th graders this year New Harlan selected from a total of 165 male students (via Ky. Dept. of Education site). That is not even close to the same as the majority of D1 and D2 teams. Does anyone have the division qualifications to be in each division for example how many students qualify you as D1 D2 or D3?

So out of the five schools that New Harlan has that comes together to make New Harlan; there are only 33 males from each school? Assuming that is true; which I have no doubt that it is then that means each grade in each school only has 17 boys in it. That is really hard to believe that some of these schools have not consolidated due to such low numbers.

You do ask a legitamite question what are the cutoffs for each division. Plant...help us out tell us what the cutoffs are! Thanks in advance!

[BlackBear3]

In an earlier post someone had them at 165 according to the KDE site. No one will answer this question because they want teams to participate. They should be a Division II team, but won't play because they can't win it.

[WILDCAT NATION]

When will brackets be filled out and posted?

[BlueCrew34]

In an earlier post someone had them at 165 according to the KDE site. No one will answer this question because they want teams to participate. They should be a Division II team, but won't play because they can't win it.

I believe if you look at the bracket from last year they were D2

[Footballcrazyman]

Last year they were d2 because they had players from one of the grade schools which make new harlan . This year they have no players from that school and if I'm not wrong I think another one of the schools also have no players from it also. The numbers from the schools are way down this year because of the coal mine layoffs a lot of people have left harlan county.

[UPSCat4080]

In an earlier post someone had them at 165 according to the KDE site. No one will answer this question because they want teams to participate. They should be a Division II team, but won't play because they can't win it.

The reason it changed this year is because 1 of the schools does not have a single player who went out for the team and another school has 1 kid going out. The football team does not discourage players from coming from certain schools just to set themselves up for a middle school playoff system....the kids just do not have an interest in football. Yes there are 165 total males who come from the 5 schools, but the reality is that they do not actually draw kids from all 5. The reality is that New Harlan draws kids from Rosspoint and Wallins and that accounts for around 60 boys to choose from which is definitely considerable for D3. People can argue all that they want, but facts are facts and the association felt the same way or they would not have moved them.

[tvtimeout]

The reason it changed this year is because 1 of the schools does not have a single player who went out for the team and another school has 1 kid going out. The football team does not discourage players from coming from certain schools just to set themselves up for a middle school playoff system....the kids just do not have an interest in football. Yes there are 165 total males who come from the 5 schools, but the reality is that they do not actually draw kids from all 5. The reality is that New Harlan draws kids from Rosspoint and Wallins and that accounts for around 60 boys to choose from which is definitely considerable for D3. People can argue all that they want, but facts are facts and the association felt the same way or they would not have moved them.

I disagree with your logic here. I will give you the reason why; please explain to me where I am wrong. If a 5A school can only get 30 boys to come out and play football, should that school then be considered 1A? I say no, they have more kids to choose from, if they can not fill the team with the appropriate numbers than so be it. They would still play in 5A, based upon enrollment. It does not matter how many boys they get out.

Let us use the reverse if a single A gets 80 kids to come out and play... should they move to 5A? No, because usually single A only has 200kids in the entire school to choose from. Again, numbers are based on enrollment...nothing more. I guarentee that Plant would agree with this and once he and the board look at enrolloment numbers. It will be logical to say this is the cut off for D1, D2, and D3.

[Footballcrazyman]

What people fail to know is that new harlan is not the only feeder program for harlan county.i wish they would just combine all the middle schools together and make one team then it would be a true harlan county middle school team. Most of the time new harlan can play with and sometimes win against d1 teams if they combine all 3middle schools together in harlan county I think they would be one of the top middle school teams in the state. The only loses this year is to Whitley county and Knox central both solid teams but if all three harlan county teams came together they would have probably beat both those teams not taking anything away from them just telling the facts. They would be a tough out in d1.

[tvtimeout]

What people fail to know is that new harlan is not the only feeder program for harlan county.i wish they would just combine all the middle schools together and make one team then it would be a true harlan county middle school team. Most of the time new harlan can play with and sometimes win against d1 teams if they combine all 3middle schools together in harlan county I think they would be one of the top middle school teams in the state. The only loses this year is to Whitley county and Knox central both solid teams but if all three harlan county teams came together they would have probably beat both those teams not taking anything away from them just telling the facts. They would be a tough out in d1.

I agree with everything stated above! New Harlan is a great team! It will be interesting to see what the cutoffs are for each division. I think they will end up being a D2 just due to the size of the five schools and enrollment of boys reguardless of how many they got from each school. Also considering the fact that D2 has the fewest schools in the posted list earlier. However, that is all speculation at this point. I know that the KHMSAA does the best that it can and look forward to seeing the cutoffs for each division.

[Eagle84]

They are many problems with how teams are classified. Another example is with DA teams who field a 7th and 8th grade team with no players playing for both. Should the 7th grades be counted?
I due not understand why the association does it the way they do. It make for manipulation and favoritism.

Looks to me it would be very simple to keep this manipulation or favoritism from happing. First, only allow 7th grades to play on 1 team. ( The association talks about safety and number of games but allows 7th grades to play up to 4 games in a week.)
Second split up the team only in to 2 classes and use the high school system to place them. If you are in Class A though AAA youth play Division 2 and if you are in AAAA through AAAAAA you play Division 1.

If you want to keep the three division do not assign at Division until you get all the teams admitted complete and then equal split the teams in each Division base on population and location.

We should never have another situation where teams have 4 to 5 hours rides to play district games.

[Footballcrazyman]

That would work well if all the middle schools would combine and make one team before high school. I know a lot of teams in and around harlan county have multiple teams in a county and a lot of them play in the state playoffs so there numbers would not make up a 4 or 5a team. In high school when all the teams come together they are a 4 or 5a team but in middle school they would be lucky if they are a 2a.

[KMSFA2]

@Eagle84 - I can understand why you would suggest the classification be similar to what the KHSAA does. However, middle schools are very different state wide. You may have personal knowledge of the schools in your area and your idea might apply nicely there. We don't have the ability to apply the KHSAA rules to middle school for several reasons.

For instance, there are counties that have multiple feeders to one single largely classified high school (Scott County for example) where not all of the middle schools participate in the KMSFA. Scott County Middle does, but Royal Springs and Georgetown do not. I don't know what classification Scott County Middle even is, but for the purpose of this discussion let's say if they were a D2 by the KMSFA classification, by your reasoning (since Scott County High is a 6A high school) then we should bump Scott County Middle up? Even though those other 2/3 worth of middle school football players in their county don't participate?

We made the rules as fairly as we could lay them out. We use an official document (the KDE SAARS report annually) to determine exact classifications.

As for the "favoritism" comment, none of our volunteer board members coaches at the middle school level anymore. I think we go out of our way to stay impartial. I would also say you would be hard pressed to find a head coach that we deal with who would say we aren't as fair and consistent as we can be. Not saying they always agree with us, but I would venture to say that we operate above board because of the commitment we all have to see this association remain successful for ALL student-athletes state wide.

[Eagle84]

KMSFA2

Favoritism was clearly the wrong word to use. The KMSFA is a well-run organization. Who have done many positive things for middle school football and Kentucky Football! Better would to be use would be inequity. If you review last year’s brackets you can clearly see inequity with the Region alignment, competitive balance of each region and division placement of teams.
Looking at last year’s bracket you will see D2 Region 1 only has a 2 team bracket and Region 4 had 9 team brackets. I understand you will disagree saying something relating to logistics as the factor. However, in Region 4 alone they was possible match up (Boyd County & Corbin) where at team would have to travel over 4 hours on a bus for a game. I would hope the association would look back on that decision of Regional Alignment and see their error.
I reviewed the KDE SAARS and Scott County Middle School would all fall in D 3 under my proposal.
However, reviewing Harlan County it would not work. Harlan County has 8 elementary schools with low numbers. Re-thinking the situation I guess I would use the KDE SAARS also. However, I would divide all middle school up evenly as possible in each division with regional alignments built on competitive balance and logistics as major factors.

[tvtimeout]

@Eagle84 - I can understand why you would suggest the classification be similar to what the KHSAA does. However, middle schools are very different state wide. You may have personal knowledge of the schools in your area and your idea might apply nicely there. We don't have the ability to apply the KHSAA rules to middle school for several reasons.

For instance, there are counties that have multiple feeders to one single largely classified high school (Scott County for example) where not all of the middle schools participate in the KMSFA. Scott County Middle does, but Royal Springs and Georgetown do not. I don't know what classification Scott County Middle even is, but for the purpose of this discussion let's say if they were a D2 by the KMSFA classification, by your reasoning (since Scott County High is a 6A high school) then we should bump Scott County Middle up? Even though those other 2/3 worth of middle school football players in their county don't participate?

We made the rules as fairly as we could lay them out. We use an official document (the KDE SAARS report annually) to determine exact classifications.

As for the "favoritism" comment, none of our volunteer board members coaches at the middle school level anymore. I think we go out of our way to stay impartial. I would also say you would be hard pressed to find a head coach that we deal with who would say we aren't as fair and consistent as we can be. Not saying they always agree with us, but I would venture to say that we operate above board because of the commitment we all have to see this association remain successful for ALL student-athletes state wide.

I agree with everything that has been stated above. That is why cutoffs are needed at each division.(In fact I am pretty sure that there are cutoffs already made, I just don't know what they are.) If a school pulls from two schools who only have 90 boys in each school, but there is a school that pulls from 5 schools that has 20 boys in each school then there total is 100. Lets say that the cutoff is 150 between the two division. The school pulling from the two schools would obviously be in the higher division.

The KDE document is a great document to go by! Thanks again board for all that you do!

What are the cutoffs and does a team have the option to play up if it chooses to?

[RebFan19]

When will the 7th grade playoffs start?

[tvtimeout]

I justed wanted to bump this thread up. It has been a great discussion thus far! Anyone know the cutoffs for each division?

[cougarpride08]

Anyone know dates for Letcher Co Middle school tournament?

[plantmanky]

When will the 7th grade playoffs start?

Same time as 8th grade, 10/8/13

[Warrior71]

Who is the favorite to win it this year?

[Doctor J]

Anyone know dates for Letcher Co Middle school tournament?

No county tournament this year.

[Mcats10]

Where can we see the 2013 playoff brackets about when and where we play?

[Footballcrazyman]

I think they will be released early monday .

[plantmanky]

I think they will be released early monday .

Brackets probably won't be released for public viewing till Monday.

Teams that are playing on Tuesday October 8th have been notified and all but one game is set, I will post that list soon.

We are trying to confirm host sites, organize officials so that when brackets come out they are as accurate as possible.

Thanks for your patience

plantmanky

[cougarpride08]

No county tournament this year.

A shame. Letcher Central would have gotten points for winning county going into state.