By By Adam Robinson
With the recent changes made by the AHSAA concerning the Super 6 and region play, both area high school football coaches like the changes.
AHSAA officials recently met in their summer meetings and voted to stay with the current format of region games versus area games.
Also, with the decision already made to change the Super 6 from Birmingham to the campuses of Alabama and Auburn, they voted to change the format from a three-day period to two days.
The new format for the Super 6 championships, which were moved from Birmingham’s Legion Field to a rotation between Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa and Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn beginning this December, will be played Dec. 3-4. Since the Super 6 inception in 1996, the championship series had been played over three days with two games each day.
The six state championship games will be played at Bryant-Denny Stadium in 2009 with the Class 3A finals set for 11 a.m., on Thursday, Dec. 3, followed by the Class 1A finals at 3 p.m., and the Class 5A finals at 7.
Friday’s schedule on Dec. 4 will feature the Class 4A finals at 11 a.m., the Class 2A finals at 3 p.m., and the Class 6A finals at 7.
The Central Board, meeting at the AHSAA office in its annual summer session, also voted 8-3 to keep the current region format for football for the next reclassification period, 2010-11 and 2011-12.
T.R. Miller coach Jamie Riggs was in favor of keeping region play as well.
“I am for it,” Riggs said of keeping region play. “Whatever decision they would have made, we would have adjusted and did what they wanted us to do. But I think the majority of the coaches in the state wanted to stay with region play because that at least gets you with seven games and the issue has always been with games. In years, you have had a lot less teams now that have nine games and in the years past some could never get a 10th game and would play eight games. So we went to that to get everyone to be able to get games and have games that were already scheduled for you and you just had to go out and find some of the remaining holes. That was the major issue.”
As for the changes to the Super 6, Jordan said he thinks the Super 6 is certainly good for the universities.
Jordan, an Auburn alumni, also mentioned the new buildings being built on Auburn’s campus.
Riggs said he thinks its OK to play it in two days instead of three.