MORGANTOWN—The start of the 2024 West Virginia high school football season is just two weeks away, and the West Virginia Secondary Schools Athletic Commission has announced significant changes involving the new four-class system.
On Tuesday, the WVSSAC announced it received an opinion from the Review Board, a group composed of seven members appointed by the West Virginia Superintendents of Schools, to uphold the appeals of 11 schools regarding their positions in the new classification system.
Those 11 schools were John Marshall, Oak Hill, Preston, St. Albans, Spring Valley, Frankfort, Sissonville, Wayne, Petersburg, St. Marys, and Tyler Consolidated.
John Marshall, Oak Hill, Preston, St. Albans, and Spring Valley are moving from Class AAAA to Class AAA. Frankfort, Sissonville, and Wayne will move from Class AAA to Class AA, with Petersburg, St. Marys, and Tyler Consolidated shifting from Class AA to Class A.
“We received notification of the Review Board’s decision on Monday and are working through the implications at this time,” David Price, WVSSAC Executive Director, said in a statement. “We respect the governance process in place and will do our best to work through the logistics of these changes so close to the start of competition.”
Then, on Friday, three days after the initial changes were announced, the WVSSAC released further changes regarding a classification change for 11 more schools.
The schools included in Friday’s announcement are Buckhannon-Upshur, Capital, Riverside and South Charleston going from Class AAAA to Class AAA.
Chapmanville, Independence, Lincoln, Nicholas County, and PikeView are moving from Class AAA to Class AA.
Finally, Ritchie County and Summers County moved from Class AA to Class A.
This now leaves Class AAAA with 16 schools, the number of teams that will make the playoffs for each class.
Class AAA and AA will each have 31 schools. Class A will have 34 schools.
The 2024 high school football season begins Thursday, Aug. 29.
