To be honest I hate this draft so much.. the first one was near flawless in terms of not long travel for everyone, plenty of good gate potential, and the conference setups with the exception of Walkertown being in the Surry/Stokes league. I was actually for a NW return, the local games woulda been fun and we just had 1 game to focus on for playoff seeding, and non conference wise we can schedule new teams we haven't played. It just needed Walkertown out and it woulda been perfect. They fixed that mistake but created several more in place. I get they had a hard choice with the lower level Stokes schools being too small for their own good (North Stokes actually can compete in that league vs CC and South Davidson, but they are gonna have a hard go for every other sport. Yikes, but I like it for them and South.)

But there's no reason why they had to more or less recreate the conferences we had in the area, no one really liked them to begin with as they were top heavy and the fixes they made doesn't help, in fact it makes it worse in both the Foothills and NW. I know Forbush and the Wilkes schools wanted the MVAC they used to have and I get it 100%. Putting Ashe with a bunch of Burke county schools is flat out idiotic in terms of travel times when they coulda stayed in the neck of the woods and play say West Wilkes who isn't far away. Just dumb. The Northwest gets a little better with East Surry back in it but the lower teams are cannon fodder when they coulda done better in the MVAC. I hope to the high heavens they fix it to something better in the third draft but I don't want another 2013 setup again either. That's what scares me. Having to play in Forsyth co is no fun and the lack of a gate they bring every 2 years is quite hard on a program. The state's process is way too old school and it's not gonna work when schools input isn't considered, with the changes of classifications it's not any better. Them waiting until very late to do these drafts has caused nothing but headaches for everyone.

I'm really upset at this because we had a really awesome non conference schedule set up for the first time in a good 6 years and now it's probably gonna get ruined because we gotta use 2 spots on rivalry games that would do quite better at the gate if they'd be played in October. We were gonna play teams we haven't played before and I was excited, just hope it doesn't ruin it too bad.

NCFB73 said:

When will this platform update to 8a?

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It is a good question. My school is getting "Upclassed." If I keep on the 3A, I'll be on the wrong board.

Regarding Conference F: The 4A's would have to play all the other 4A's to really deserve to be the best of them. But then, they would either have to play all 7 of the 5A's, with no OOC games, or play 5 of the 7 maybe, and 2 OOC games. Then the next year you would play the two 5A's you didn't play this year, plus 3 more. Overall, I agree with y'all, it's too many. A mess. I give Conference F an F.

FormerSFC11 said:

Can someone explain how Conference F can work at all

1 Brevard
2 East Henderson
3 Pisgah
4 Tuscola
5 Enka
6 Erwin
7 Franklin
8 North Buncombe
9 North Henderson
10 Smokey Mountain
11 West Henderson

11 teams so I guess no non conference what so ever unless they go to 11 games then they all get 1 that just doesn't make a lot of sense

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I'm starting to think that they put this version out there to shut everyone up from complaining about the last version.
You could split the 4A schools out of this, put 3A Hendersonville and Polk in with them for one seven team 5A conference and one six team 3A/4A.
That would only leave you five schools in the 2A/3A Western Highlands, but you could move Patton and Draughn into that. Then move E. Burke, W. Caldwell, Hibriten and Ashe into other conferences.
There's lots of ways to reshuffle the deck, but someone is going to get long drives and some of the smaller schools will end up in conferences split across three classifications. Plenty of schools in the west are already looking at 2+hour drives with these conferences.

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Congratulations Aiden Carson!!! It’s been great watching this young man develop. I love when kids think long term and pick really great academic schools!

Why go to 8 divisions just to have more split conferences? That makes absolutely no sense. We should have just moved to 5-6 divisions max. The big boys in 5A or 6A and then split the rest evenly with an emphasis on minimal split conferences. The last piece would have had the parochial schools and some charters playing up at least one division.

FormerSFC11 said:

Can someone explain how Conference F can work at all

1 Brevard
2 East Henderson
3 Pisgah
4 Tuscola
5 Enka
6 Erwin
7 Franklin
8 North Buncombe
9 North Henderson
10 Smokey Mountain
11 West Henderson

11 teams so I guess no non conference what so ever unless they go to 11 games then they all get 1 that just doesn't make a lot of sense

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Makes no damn sense at all ...

FormerSFC11 said:

Can someone explain how Conference F can work at all

1 Brevard
2 East Henderson
3 Pisgah
4 Tuscola
5 Enka
6 Erwin
7 Franklin
8 North Buncombe
9 North Henderson
10 Smokey Mountain
11 West Henderson

11 teams so I guess no non conference what so ever unless they go to 11 games then they all get 1 that just doesn't make a lot of sense

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Yes, I don’t understand the logic at all for this one. Seems to make a lot more sense to keep the 5a/6a Buncombe Schools and then basically turn this year’s Mtn7 conference into the Mtn8 and add Brevard to it. Seems logical but who knows.…

tarheels0015 said:

The few yrs they have had really good teams .. they seemed to always get Forrest hills or Monroe in the playoffs.. teams with much more speed & size .. I think if Logan can recruit in a couple of speedy athletes would help ... hard to recruit when kids can jump to West Forsyth, West stokes, Davie or starmount etc ... I hope he does well though

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Yes, sadly, kids these days like to jump ship and don't have the fortitude to help build a winning program. When Forbush does have a talented football player, more than likely they run off to a program with a history of winning.

84k said:

A.L. Brown (7A)
Cox Mill (7A)
Hickory Ridge (7A)
West Cabarrus (7A)
Berry Academy (6A)
Central Cabarrus (6A)
Harding University (6A)
Olympic (6A)

This conference is terrible.
Imagine trying to get to Olympic in the charlotte traffic from Kannapolis.

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It looks like this is locked in, no changes at all from the last draft.

However, Eastern Randolph and Providence Grove are practically next door neighbors, and, PG has to cross the other side of I-73 to visit conference opponents (Trinity, Wheatmore, and those Davidson County 3A teams) ... Part of PG came from parts of ER and Randleman if I recall ...

Because Freedom at Watauga was rescheduled for Wednesday, I was able to get over to Enola Road tonight to watch Patton. I got there just as the girl's game was ending, but I was expecting a good varsity boys' game between the Panthers and Hendersonville. But the Bearcats came out and pressed from the start and Patton had trouble with it. The first quarter went okay for Patton, and they only trailed by 4 or 5 but Hendo pushed the lead to as much as 18 in the second period. I think Patton got it down under ten in the second half, but it was never really close. Part of the problem for the Panthers is that their best player was 0 fer in the first half and if he would have hit a couple of the threes he tried they might have stayed in it. I still expect them to have a strong finish to the season and they might sneak into the playoffs. This is their first year with a new head coach and he's still finding his way, so they're not really doing too badly.

Not to mention that 13 team conference where Robbinsville is. They could have made a football-only conference with it and split it in half everywhere else

RD28327 said:

Still surprises and confuses me why Providence Grove and Eastern Randolph are NOT in the same conference for 2025. Maybe some Randolph County folks can educate and enlighten me about what the heck is happening up that way ...

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Just a stab in the dark, but with the teams in Eastern Randolph's conference which include North Moore, Northwood, Carrboro, Jordan Matthews, Southwestern Randolph, and a non football playing school, Uwharrie Charter, Eastern Randolph shouldn't lose a conference football game the next four years, with only Northwood an outside chance for an upset.
P.S. Providence Grove will be 3-A, the same as Eastern Randolph, so your inquiry is indeed a strain upon the cranium why they're not in the same conference.. Providence Grove's conference, more than likely not to be a powerhouse in football , will include East Davidson, Thomasville, West Davidson, Wheatmore, and Trinity. An average Thomasville squad, although experiencing some issues recently , could walk through this conference with the ease of depositing a dime in the local juke joint juke box.
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Schools will be able to appear for in-person appeals at the next realignment committee meeting on Feb. 3-4.

It's pretty clear that they just don't pay attention or care what they do with conferences I mean look at 4a and 5a they have one 11 team conference so all schools would just play conference games unless they go to 11 games again which still only leaves each team with 1 out of conference game how's that ever expected to work

fitguync30 said:

Seems like a tough place to win. Forbush football most always plays second fiddle to Starmount in Yadkin Co. And I don't recall them ever making a deep playoff run.

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The few yrs they have had really good teams .. they seemed to always get Forrest hills or Monroe in the playoffs.. teams with much more speed & size .. I think if Logan can recruit in a couple of speedy athletes would help ... hard to recruit when kids can jump to West Forsyth, West stokes, Davie or starmount etc ... I hope he does well though

Can someone explain how Conference F can work at all

1 Brevard
2 East Henderson
3 Pisgah
4 Tuscola
5 Enka
6 Erwin
7 Franklin
8 North Buncombe
9 North Henderson
10 Smokey Mountain
11 West Henderson

11 teams so I guess no non conference what so ever unless they go to 11 games then they all get 1 that just doesn't make a lot of sense

smashmouth5 said:

Crest/KM moved to 6 tomorrow. Will pick up at the start of the 2nd qtr of the girls game.

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Now no school for CC so I figure the game will be rescheduled again.

A 10 team conference is stupid.

bigtime_87 said:

They are struggling right now may not be as hard to find games as it was awhile back. I am sure some of the county teams will play them. AD's better be scrambling to make schedules since some changed. I know of two schools that had to make calls today to fix games, drop games or change weeks due to adds to leagues. It does appear that the NCHSAA did put more charters with charters this time that do not play football. Also, that Tville league will be tough in secondary sports for the Bulldogs (baseball, softball, tennis, soccer, etc.). It is close and good gates. The SD league will be some crappy gates for sure as those teams do not travel well.

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Thomasville played Mount Airy non-conference from around 2009 to 2014. That may be a good non-conference match-up for them both. MA came out with a 4 to 2-win advantage back then. 4 was only a TD difference.

The 2nd draft sucks!! Should have stuck with the 1st one!!

CHEERDUCK said:

Your information on Hickory is inaccurate.

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That's fine but I was going by what I was told sorry for the misinformation just going by what someone told me!!

GSO-Triple5 said:

I wonder if the Realignment Committee has these two conferences side by side on their spreadsheets or whatever they were using to figure out these conferences.. The following schools were not only aligned the first draft, but these same schools were aligned in the second draft. It seems someone on the committee would have noticed that if you move Northeast and Southern to Conference D and move Glenn and Mt. Tabor to Conference C, this would eliminate two split conferences, but evidently the committee is all smitten with this scramble jamble , slang 'em up against the wall method . Makes no sense.

5-A/6-A Conference C
----Asheboro 6-A
----Eastern Guilford 6-A
----Northern Guilford 6-A
----Southeast Guilford 6-A
----Northeast Guilford 5-A
----Southern Guilford 5-A

5-A/6-A Conference D
----K Vegas Glenn 6-A
----Mt. Tabor 6-A
----Winston - Salem Atkins 5-A
----North Davidson 5-A
----North Forsyth 5-A
----Oak Grove 5-A

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That’s insane.