By: Chris Harlan
Thursday, January 4, 2024 | 9:48 AM
Christopher Horner | Tribune-Review
Aliquippa head coach Mike Warfield takes the field with his team before the PIAA Class 4A state championship game on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, at Cumberland Valley.
In a move coach Mike Warfield called déjà vu, the PIAA has notified Aliquippa that its football team will be forced up another classification before next season.
The Quips won the Class 4A state title this fall and were runners-up in 2022, and the PIAA now plans to move them up to 5A under its competitive-balance rule, Warfield said Thursday. The school already has appealed the decision, he said.
What makes the situation frustrating for Aliquippa is that the school had an enrollment the past two years that qualified for Class A football and was forced to face opponents three classifications larger. Now, they’re going up again.
“It’s a continuous failure of the rule,” Warfield said.
The Aliquippa football team has been through this process twice before. In 2020, the PIAA used the competitive-balance rule to move the team from Class 3A to 4A. In 2022, the PIAA again targeted the Quips for promotion, but the school appealed and the team remained in 4A after the PIAA board granted their request.
Warfield said he’s hopeful for a similar result but wasn’t overly optimistic.
The PIAA competitive-balance rule targets football teams that have postseason success over a two-year period and added three or more transfers in that span. The Quips clearly had the success as state finalists the past two seasons, but Warfield said the PIAA also informed the school that it was over the threshold for transfers.
Updated PIAA enrollment numbers released in November listed Aliquippa with 156 boys. That total would qualify the Quips for Class 2A football in 2024 and 2025.
Class 5A football includes schools with 424 to 619 boys.
Aliquippa went 14-0 this past year and capped its first undefeated state championship season with a 60-14 victory over Dallas in the PIAA finals on Dec. 7 in Mechanicsburg.
This story will be updated.
Chris Harlan is a Tribune-Review Staff Writer. You can contact Chris by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
Tags: Some people
2024-01-04 15:40:09
#PIAA #plans #move #Aliquippa #football #Class #competitivebalance #rule #coach
