PIAA could force Aliquippa football to Class 4A under competitive-balance rule

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | 3:30 PM

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Add Aliquippa to the list of football teams that might be forced into a higher classification next season.

The Quips already are voluntarily playing up two classifications but they could be moved to Class 4A under a PIAA competitive-balance rule that targets postseason success and transfers.

That possibility came as a shock to the Quips.

“It’s very surprising,” Aliquippa athletic director Brandon LeDonne said. “There’s something new every day, that’s for sure. … It’s very hard to find it logical. It’s almost comical. I hate to laugh about it because it’s really serious.”

If a football team accumulated at least six postseason “success points” and received three or more transfers in the past two years combined, it will be forced to compete against larger schools in 2020 and ’21.

The initial confusion was how many success points the Quips had accumulated: five or six? That hinged on whether the PIAA considered the WPIAL Class 3A championship to be a state first-round game or a state quarterfinal.

According to the 2019 PIAA brackets, it appears as a first-round game, meaning Aliquippa would have five success points, one less than the threshold for promotion. But the PIAA adjusted the way it counted Aliquippa’s points because the WPIAL chose to play its Class 3A final in Week 12 rather than Week 13.

The PIAA formula awards one success point for reaching Week 12 (PIAA first round), two for Week 13 (quarterfinals), three for Week 14 (semifinals) or four for Week 15 (finals). Since the WPIAL voluntarily played its championship a week earlier than required, the PIAA went ahead and tagged Aliquippa with two success points.

Combined with their four points from last year, the Quips have six points.

However, that doesn’t mean Aliquippa is moving up. There’s a second part to the competitive-balance formula that must be met as well. Only teams with six success points and three or more transfers are forced into a higher classification.

LeDonne was still looking into how many transfers the Aliquippa football team added in the past two years but thought the Quips might be safely under the number. If not, LeDonne said Aliquippa would appeal to the PIAA for relief, which is allowed under the new rule.

“If we don’t have an appeal case, I don’t know who would,” LeDonne said.

Ten football teams accumulated six or more success points, the threshold for promotion. The PIAA will verify transfer numbers within the next few weeks, PIAA associate executive director Melissa Mertz said.

This new rule is a linchpin in PIAA efforts to ease competitive-balance concerns and quiet calls for separate public and private school playoffs. The PIAA created the competitive-balance formula two years ago and began counting points and transfers with plans to move teams up next season.

It’s used for football and basketball.

The football teams at risk are Farrell (8 points), Southern Columbia (8), St. Joseph’s Prep (8), Archbishop Wood (7), Lackawanna Trail (7), Wilmington (7), Aliquippa (6), Cathedral Prep (6), Imhotep Charter (6) and Central Dauphin (6).

Teams must meet both criteria — points and transfers — to be moved. Too many points or too many transfers alone won’t cause a team to move up.

Central Dauphin and St. Joseph’s Prep already compete in the largest classification.

WPIAL Class A runner-up Sto-Rox also was given an additional point. But the Vikings have only two points and aren’t in any danger.

The PIAA administration discussed during the rule-writing process how this competitive-balance formula would affect teams like Aliquippa that already play in a higher classification. Aliquippa is Class A in enrollment but voluntarily plays in Class 3A.

That team would be forced up another class, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said.

“If they have the success and transfers, they’ll go up from their competition class of last year,” Lombardi said. “That was the original intent.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

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