About 25 head football coaches from Class AA public schools met Tuesday at Lamar County High School in Barnesville to draft a proposal to have separate state playoffs for public and private schools by 2016.
The coaches are hoping to do what representatives of Class A did in 2012, when they made plans to form their own public league separate from the Georgia High School Association. To appease them, the GHSA established separate public and private state playoffs for the first time that year, but only in Class A.
There are only 13 private schools outside of Class A, and they compete in AAAA, AAA and AA. Eight are in AA. All but three public schools in AA are outside of metro Atlanta.
In football, six of those 13 private schools made the semifinals or better, and nine made the quarterfinals. Only Holy Innocents' and Riverside Military did not make the football playoffs.
In all sports, those 13 schools won 33 of a possible 54 state championships in AAAA, AAA and AA in 2014.
‘’When you’ve got a private school that even talks about it in their program that they’ve got kids from 16 counties; how is that the same as Bacon County? There’s no way,’’ said Bacon County football coach Ken Cofer, who attended the Barnesville meeting. “It’s just not a level playing field for teams like us. The private schools are winning about everything.’’
The GHSA will meet Jan. 20 at its Thomaston offices to hear reclassification suggestions for the 2016-17 academic year and beyond. No votes or committee action will take place then.
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