Football classes set ...

Football coaches got the word late last week on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association's realignment for the 2011-14 seasons, and the western Kentucky alignment will see several changes.

Ballard Memorial and Crittenden County will move from Class A to Class 2A. Heath, Trigg County and Fort Campbell are moving up from Class 2A to Class 3A, with Union County dropping down to Class 2A.

Graves County and Apollo will drop from Class 6A to Class 5A, with Madisonville and Owensboro moving down from Class 5A to Class 4A.

The KHSAA decided to go with 32 teams in both Class A and Class 6A, with the other four classes around 40 schools apiece. Supporters of the move say that is being done because those are the two classes with the biggest enrollment disparity between the largest and smallest schools.

Here is an educated guess as to what the Region 1 picture will look like in all six classes for the 2011 season:

Class A
District 1 — Fulton City, Fulton County, Mayfield, Russellville
District 2 — Caverna, Bardstown Bethlehem, Louisville Holy Cross, Kentucky Country Day

Class 2A
District 1 — Ballard Memorial, Reidland, Murray, Caldwell County, Crittenden County, Union County
District 2 — Owensboro Catholic, McLean County, Todd Central, Butler County, Hancock County

Class 3A
District 1 — Paducah Tilghman, Heath, Trigg County, Fort Campbell, Webster County
District 2 — Monroe County, Hart County, Edmonson County, Adair County, South Warren

Class 4A
District 1 — Lone Oak, Calloway County, Madisonville, Hopkins Central, Owensboro
District 2 — Franklin-Simpson, Warren East, Allen County, Breckinridge County, Taylor County

Class 5A
District 1 — Graves County, Hopkinsville, Christian County, Apollo, Ohio County
District 2 — Bowling Green, Warren Central, Greenwood, Barren County, Grayson County, Logan County

Class 6A
District 1 — Marshall County, Muhlenberg County, Henderson County, Daviess County
District 2 — Meade County, Nelson County, Central Hardin, Pleasure Ridge Park

In Class 5A, Ohio County and Grayson County could be sent to Region 2, since there are only eight 5A teams in the Louisville area.

Things could change drastically in 2012, when McCracken County is scheduled to consolidate its three schools (Heath, Lone Oak and Reidland) and Nelson County is slated to split into two schools. McCracken County will compete in 6A. The two Nelson schools are expected to be in the 3A range, with perhaps the larger school in 4A.

That would require several schools to retool their schedules in the middle of a two-year contract cycle, which could end up being a dicey proposition.

Also, schools can request to play up in class, but those requests have to be made this month. The KHSAA will set the district alignments at its Board of Control meeting in mid-October.

Several of the state's top programs could be switching classes. Fort Thomas Highlands, which has won all three of the Class 5A state titles since the six-class format's inception, is slated to drop to Class 4A, as could 5A powers Covington Catholic and Johnson Central. Bell County, the Class 4A state champion in 2008, will drop to Class 3A.

Lexington Christian, which beat Mayfield for the Class A state championship last year, will move up to Class 2A. Somerset, which lost to Tilghman in the 3A final in December, was playing up in 3A and could be reassigned to 2A.

And, of course, there is Fort Campbell, which has won the last three Class 2A state titles and will move up a class.