Greene County Football News

GHS to Join SG, WG, CD In Football and Other Sports Next Season
Teams Will Play In District 2
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Ron P. Metcalfe, WGRV News/Sports

Greeneville High School will join a sports conference with South Greene, West Greene, and Chuckey Doak next year, based on a decision by the school in October and action by the TSSAA at their Board of Control meeting on Thursday, November 13. Other teams in the new conference will be Grainger County, Cumberland Gap, and Claiborne.

The new conference came as a result of reclassification by the TSSAA and will apply to all sports. Through the end of the 2008 school year, and since 1993, the TSSAA has had three classes for all sports except football, which has been divided into five classes. Beginning next season, all sports will play in three classes during the regular season and post season, with one exception:  in football, those three classes will be split into six subdivisions, but only for the playoffs. 

During the regular season, sports teams will compete in Single A, Double A, or Triple A, based on their enrollment.   (Three schools chose to play up a division from their enrollment, and several private schools chose to multiply their enrollment by 1.8 to be placed in the public school division.)  Those divisions will remain for all sports in the post season except football.  In football, Single A will be divided into 1A and 2A, Double A will be divided into 3A and 4A, and Triple A will be divided into 5A and 6A.  While teams will play against all other teams in their conference during the regular season, only teams from the school's playoff division will meet in post season play.  In the new conference, for example, all schools are considered Double A for regular season games, and will play each other.   But in post season, South Greene, Chuckey Doak, West Greene, and Cumberland Gap will be classified as 3A, while Greeneville, Grainger County, and Claiborne will be classified as 4A.  In the post season, teams from the 3A division will not have to play teams from the 4A division.  For a look at the TSSAA's breakdown of regular and post season divisions, click here.

Qualifying for post-season play will be based first on how teams finish in the conference.  The top two teams from the conference are automatic qualifiers, regardless of their post-season classification.   In addition, half of the teams from each subdivision are automatically qualified.   For this new confernce, for example, there are three 4A teams and four 3A teams.   According to TSSAA rules, one of the 4A teams will automatically qualify, and two of the 3A teams will automatically qualify.  This equation is carried out in all sixteen districts across the state.  However, not all playoff spots will be filled using that formula.  For all remaining spots, all teams will be ranked based on overall record, with current TSSAA tie-breakers used to sort the rankings.  Then, however many teams are needed to fill the bracket will be chosen as Wild Card teams, starting with the highest ranking team on the list, the second highest ranked team, and so on.  A team's regular season standings will be based on their overall conference record, regardless of whether those wins came across a larger or smaller school.  As many as four teams from District 2 could automatically qualify for the playoffs, or only three may automatically qualify.

Since the TSSAA began dividing schools by enrollment, Greeneville High has chosen to play up a classification.  This preserved traditional rivalries with schools from Morristown, Newport, and other area towns.  From 1977 to 1992 when there were just three classes of teams, Greeneville played in the AAA division, depiste falling into the AA division on enrollment.  Prior to the 1992 season, the TSSAA created five classes for football and three classes for all other sports.  Greeneville qualified as a 3A school in football and as a 2A school in all other sports.  But, as they had done previously, all sports played up a level in competition.  Click here to read Greeneville City School's press release regarding the decision, and click here for a more complete history of Greeneville's conferences.

In 2008, the TSSAA announced the adoption of the "Z-plan" which called for a return to three classes for the regular season play in all sports, and six classes for post-season in football.  Greeneville chose to play down in the AA classification where their enrollment is in all sports, rather than playing up a division, which they have chosen to do since classifications began. As a result of that decision, Greeneville was classified Double-A for regular season sports, the same division as South Greene, Chuckey Doak, and West Greene. North Greene remains in the Single-A classification. Greeneville had requested to be placed in District 1, which would have placed them in a conference with Elizabethton, Erwin, Sullivan North, Sullivan East, Happy Valley, and Johnson County; however, the TSSAA  opted to include Greeneville in District 2.