New coach, new class for Homewood Patriots

Homewood High played in Class 5A last season. The Patriots will play in Class 6A this season. That’s a step up, but it’s not the dreaded big step up to Class 7A.

Class 7A?

This season finds Alabama high school football undergoing its biggest change in 30 years. 

The Alabama High School Athletic Association, by unanimous vote of its central board, has added a seventh class for the largest 32 schools in the state. This creates entirely new regional and class alignments and affects rivalries, travel and, most importantly, whether your school will make the playoffs.

Homewood, under new coach Ben Berguson, is coming off a 9-3 season and a Class 5A, Region 4 championship. In Class 6A, Region 5, the Patriots will tangle with Briarwood Christian and John Carroll Catholic among the Over the Mountain schools. Other schools in their region include Pelham, Minor, Jackson-Olin, Hueytown and Walker. 

It’s unclear at this juncture just how much of an effect the step up will have on the Pats. As far as school size goes, Homewood is 24th-largest among the 60 schools in 6A. But Jeffco schools Shades Valley and Clay-Chalkville have some 200 more students — and they are still in Class 6A and are among the favorites in the “new” 6A.

This is the first major classification change the AHSAA has adopted since 1984, when the governing body increased from four classes to six. The remaining six classes were divided as equally as possible with 60 schools in 6A, 61 in 5A, 60 in 4A, 60 in 3A, 58 in 2A and 58 making up Class 1A.

“The seven-classification system will allow more student-athletes to participate in championship events, and more will experience firsthand what it means to play in some of the best venues in our state,” Central Board President Lamar Brooks said. “With the addition of an extra championship game, revenues should increase, which will mean much-needed additional money for all schools through the AHSAA revenue sharing program.”

In the Over the Mountain area, the so-called “Region of Doom” returns in a slightly different form in highly competitive Class 7A, Region 3. Back-to-back Class 6A state champ Hoover — rated by some preseason sources as a national championship favorite — is grouped with sister Hoover school Spain Park along with Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Thompson, Oak Mountain, Tuscaloosa County and Hewitt-Trussville. Six of those eight made the 2013 Class 6A playoffs; three were region champions. But only four of these teams will make the 16-field 7A playoff bracket in 2014.

No other Metro Birmingham schools are in Class 7A. Removing Hoover — which has won eight 6A state titles since 2000 — cracks the door open for some other very good programs to make a run at a state crown. 

AHSAA Executive Director Steve Savarese said the seven-class system allows the organization to group schools more closely in enrollment, reduces the need for nine-team regions in football and has created fewer five-team areas in sports such as basketball, volleyball, baseball and softball.

“It also will allow more schools to make the state playoffs and will crown more state champions than at any other time in the history of our organization,” he said.

Some members of the media have taken to calling Class 7A a “super class,” but 6A may be even more competitive. Class 6A is comprised of 60 schools in eight regions, and Metro Birmingham schools landed across four of those regions. 

Ron Ingram, AHSAA director of communications, said that the regions within the classes were aligned by using a complex GPS system that has been in use since 2007.

In all classes except 7A, 32 schools will make the playoffs. The Super 6 Championships now become the Super 7. The championships alternate between Tuscaloosa and Auburn, and this year it’s Auburn’s turn. 

The Class 7A final will be played Wednesday, Dec. 3. Classes 1A, 3A and 5A will play on Thursday, and 2A, 4A and 6A will play their finals on Friday.

The playoffs for all classes will begin the same week, the first weekend of November. But after the third round, the two Class 7A finalists will take a week off while the other classes play their semifinal games.