New conference alignment for 5A football won't be released until December - Colorado High School Activities Association

AURORA — The much-anticipated Class 5A waterfall alignment for the 2016 and 2017 football seasons will not release until at least December, CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico said on Wednesday.

Though the regular season ended on Sunday, more work remains before 5A teams can be waterfalled. The new waterfall alignment, which was adopted by the football committee in August, will snake teams into seven separate conferences based on a two-year average rating according to the CHSAA RPI formula.

Two major hurdles remain: First, teams moving up to 5A or down to 4A need to be finalized by the Classification and League Organizing Committee when it meets next Tuesday. Once that is done, the teams in the 5A classification will be set, and their RPIs will be averaged over two years and then ranked.

“Doing the alignment now would merely be speculation because of the movement of schools in and out of the classification, and how that would affect the RPI for schools,” Angelico said.

On December 10, the football committee will meet to finalize alignment for all classifications — including reviewing the RPI data and waterfall placement for 5A. At that point, the league alignment will be released.

“Until the CLOC committee meets and approves the enrollment split numbers, and the football committee then applies the RPI to those teams at their meeting, the 5A football alignment cannot be determined,” Angelico said.

At this point, there are RPI numbers floating around which some are using the predict the 5A alignment. Schools are strongly cautioned against doing so, as the CHSAA office has reviewed that specific RPI data, and it is not correct.

“Anybody outside of our office that is putting out RPI data is purely speculating,” Angelico said. “We have reviewed the data out there, and it is incorrect.”

Furthermore, Angelico said, “That data has the potential of misleading communities into believing they know what conference they’ll be in when in reality that is still being determined.”