District football assignments released; playoff field remains 16 teams per class

 AREA (Jan. 25) -- The Iowa High School Athletic Association last Thursday released the new district football assignments for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The IHSAA Board of Control also made several other football-related announcements following its January 24 monthly meeting, most notably that the number of playoff qualifiers per class will remain at 16 for the next two seasons.
 The restructured football classifications for 2018-19 are as follows. Class 4A will consist of the state’s largest 42 teams, with seven districts of six teams. In classes 3A, 2A and 1A, there will be 54 teams each with nine districts consisting of six teams. The smallest 62 schools playing 11-man football will reside in Class A, with 10 districts of six or seven teams. 8-Player football will expand slightly to 65 teams, with eight districts of eight or nine teams.
 Harlan Community will remain in Class 3A and compete in District 9 with ADM, Creston/O-M, Glenwood, Lewis Central and Winterset. Lewis Central, a 4A playoff quarterfinalist last year, returns to 3A for the first time since 2013.
 AHSTW and IKM-Manning will both drop down to Class A and compete in separate districts. The Vikings will be grouped in District 9 with Earlham, Nodaway Valley, Riverside, Southwest Valley and St. Albert. The Wolves will travel north for their District 2 road games, competing against Alta-Aurelia, Manson Northwest Webster, Ridge View (Holstein), Sioux Central (Sioux Rapids) and Fort Dodge St. Edmond.
 Exira-EHK will compete in 8-Player, District 8 with seven other teams: Audubon, Boyer Valley, CAM, Coon Rapids-Bayard, Glidden-Ralston, West Harrison and Woodbine.
 Two other big football changes announced by the IHSAA include the allowance of scheduling out-of-state opponents for an expanded non-district schedule and a new playoff qualifying system with an RPI used to determine at-large qualifiers. The new playoff qualifying system includes the following.
 • Only the district champion or teams tying for a district championship receive automatic qualification.
 • For the first time since the debut of district football, all nine games will count toward postseason qualification.
 • The 17-point district tiebreaker will be eliminated and not factor into qualification.
 • Remaining at-large qualifiers will be determined by a Ratings Percentage Index formula.
 The RPI will use three criteria to determine postseason qualification: a team’s overall win-loss percentage and their opponent’s win-loss percentage will both account for 37.5 percent of the index while their opponent’s opponent’s win-loss percentage will account for 25 percent. Classification differences between non-district opponents will not affect RPI.