Pittsburg to withdraw from SEK football

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Pittsburg High School's football game at Parsons Friday night, which the fourth-ranked Purple Dragons won easily, 41-7, to clinch its seventh Southeast Kansas League championship in the past nine seasons, was the last for the school in league football for the immediate future. Pittsburg will withdraw from SEK competition beginning next season.

"The SEK has been really good to us," Pittsburg head coach Tom Nickelson told the Joplin Globe's Jim Henry. "We wish we didn't have to do it, but we have to."

Pittsburg will remain a member of the SEK -- as it has been since the league's founding in 1927 -- in every other sport. But there are two factors contributing the school deciding not to continue in the league as a football member.

The first is that as the league's only Class 5A school, Pittsburg will be playing a different schedule than the Class 4A schools beginning next season. While the schedule, district system and playoff scheme in Classes 4A and below remain the same, they all change for classes 6A and 5A.

Currently, each school plays a nine-game regular-season schedule. The last three games (in Classes 6A through 3A) are district games, which are essentially four-team round-robin tournaments to determine which two qualify for the playoffs. The playoffs then get underway with half of each classes' teams in each bracket (16 of the 32 schools in 6A, 5A and both divisions of 4A; 32 of the 64 in Class 3A).

This schedule format remains the same for at least the next two years in Class 4A on down. But 6A and 5A voted to eliminate the district system and allow every team in each class (32) to make the playoffs. The first-round playoff game in those classes replaces the ninth game of the regular season.

If Pittsburg was to remain a member of the SEK in football, the Purple Dragons would have to play each of the other six schools in the first six weeks of the regular season because of the district commitments of the other schools. Then Pittsburg would be able to schedule only two other games against the sort of competition it needs to see in order to compete in the Class 5A playoffs.

Teams in Class 6A and 5A will also be seeded in their brackets and not playing enough 5A teams -- or say Missouri or Oklahoma teams that are equivalent to a Kansas 5A school -- might drop Pittsburg to a lower seed than it would otherwise deserve.

The other issue is that Pittsburg is getting too big for the SEK in football. It's the largest school in the league by far with 886 enrolled in grades 9-12. It's the ninth smallest school in Class 5A but well above the cutoff between 5A and 4A. Maize South is the smallest 5A school with 787 students. To compare, Fort Scott is the second-largest school in the SEK with 335 fewer students than Pittsburg.

The sizes of the other schools relative to Pittsburg even affects the school's junior varsity and freshmen programs. Fort Scott is the only league school that was able to play both a freshmen and a JV game against Pittsburg this season.

The difference between Pittsburg and the other SEK schools doesn't impact competition as much as it does in a sport like football, which is why the school isn't leaving the league entirely.

Pittsburg's dominance in football has been nearly overwhelming since it was moved back from Class 4A into Class 5A before the 2008 season. Going into Friday night, Pittsburg was 38-3 in Southeast Kansas League games since then with only Chanute (2009), Columbus (2009) and Fort Scott (2012) able to post victories (Columbus left the SEK following the 2012-13 school year). The second-best school in that span is Chanute at 34-16, then Fort Scott at 29-20. Coffeyville is barely above .500 at 26-24 within the SEK.

Independence hasn't defeated Pittsburg since 1995, Coffeyville since 1993 and Parsons since 1987. Labette County has never beaten Pittsburg.

Also going into Friday night, Pittsburg had won its last 18 league games, the longest winning streak within the league since Independence won 43 straight SEK games from 1956-63. The Dragons have won 30 of their last 31 league games with the loss to Fort Scott in 2012 being the only blemish.

Fort Scott will remain on Pittsburg's schedule as will Chanute. The Dragons also already have Bonner Springs, which has popped into some Class 5A polls this season, and Missouri schools Webb City, Carl Junction and Harrisonville on their schedules.

The SEK football schedule is now down to five games for each team with four non-league slots open. Since Pittsburg is no longer competing in the league, Fort Scott and Chanute's games in 2016 and 2017 against the Dragons won't be counted in league play.