I was caught off guard a bit when the Arkansas Activities Association released its proposed football conference alignments for the 2016-18 cycle last week.
Specifically looking at Siloam Springs' situation, there were arguments going both directions for which way the AAA would align its Class 6A schools.
There was North-South and East-West, and pretty cut and dried both ways.
The North-South alignment seemed like it would be the logical option. For starters, there was already a 6A-South Conference from the 2014-16 cycle -- with Benton, El Dorado, Lake Hamilton, Pine Bluff, Sheridan, Texarkana and Little Rock schools Hall and Parkview. Now, Parkview was moving down to Class 5A for the cycle, so there would be a spot to fill, but Jacksonville was moving up to 6A and could have slid right into Parkview's spot.
With the already formed 6A-South Conference, you had a tremendous rivalry already established in recent years with Benton and Pine Bluff, who wound up playing for the state title.
After the 6A-South was established, the other 6A teams remaining -- Greenwood, Jonesboro, Marion, Mountain Home, Russellville, Searcy, Siloam Springs and West Memphis would have been in the 6A-North.
It just made sense to do it that way.
But when has the AAA ever done anything that made sense?
Instead, here is what the AAA came up with. You have the 6A-East, which will be Jacksonville, Jonesboro, Little Rock Hall, Marion, Mountain Home, Pine Bluff, Searcy and West Memphis; and the 6A-West, which will be Benton, El Dorado, Greenwood, Lake Hamilton, Russellville, Sheridan, Siloam Springs and Texarkana.
To be fair, there was no simple solution here for 6A schools. There is going to be a ton of travel involved for everyone, and there would have been a lot of travel in the North-South scenario.
Can you imagine Siloam Springs to West Memphis? How about Siloam Springs to Texarkana? Or Mountain Home to Pine Bluff?
Siloam Springs will get to keep current 7A/6A-Central Conference rivals Greenwood and Russellville, and those two trips will be the shortest of the bunch.
Remember this conference is for football only. All the other Panthers sports will compete in a blended 6A/5A Conference, which is scheduled to be released later this summer. The idea is that they'll compete in this blended conference during the regular season, then play in a 6A conference tournament to determine state tournament seeding. That will be interesting.
As for what this 6A/5A blended conference will look like, here's one man's guess -- 6A/5A-West: Alma (which is moving back to 5A), Clarksville, Farmington, Greenwood, Harrison, Russellville and Siloam Springs, and one of the following schools: Lake Hamilton, Greenbrier, Morrilton or perhaps even Mountain Home.
We'll soon find out.
-- Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the Herald-Leader. He can be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Sports on 06/17/2015