High school football teams solidify schedules for next 2 years

With TSSAA’s reclassification process this past fall came a set of new football regions and schedules for teams that will last for the next two seasons.

The process was different this time as the continuing trend of decreasing number of game officials caused the TSSAA to step in and make the schedule for each region once they decided which teams would be in each region.

Once that was figured out, each head coach was responsible for filling in the rest of the schedule with non-region games.

For some teams, like Liberty, filling in the non-region slate wasn’t that big a deal because their region has eight teams in it, meaning the Crusaders had room for only three non-region games. And it just so happens, all four public school teams in Jackson are encouraged to schedule all three of the other public school teams so they can properly compete for the Commissioner’s Cup.

The Commissioner’s Cup has been a three-team competition since its inception in 2018, but the return of Jackson Central-Merry to varsity football competition now adds a fourth team to the mix.

The Cougars can make a case for the toughest schedule in the county as their region in Class 2A includes playoff mainstays Westview, Huntingdon, Milan and Peabody in their region plus Riverside, who just made a run to the Class 2A championship game. Add to that all three Commissioner’s Cub games are against bigger schools (Liberty, North Side and South Side), the Cougars will have earned any recognition they get the next two seasons.

North Side’s schedule looks like a “Who’s Who” of quality West Tennessee programs in larger classifications in its region schedule and out with Crockett County, Lexington, Dyersburg, Hardin County and South Gibson on the slate along with Chester County and Obion County, who’ve both had successful seasons at times in the last few years.

South Side’s non-region schedule includes Ripley, who’s been a mainstay on the Hawks’ schedule the past few years, city rivals JCM and Liberty and longtime rival from past region days Bolivar.

With the private schools, University School of Jackson moves up a class to Division II-AA, and they’ll be lining up against a number of familiar rivals from private schools in Shelby County – St. George’s, North Point, ECS, St. Benedict and Lausanne. The region slate is all in the second half of the schedule. On the front end are games against Jackson Christian and Trinity Christian along with high profile West Tennessee matchups against Peabody, Union City and South Gibson.

For TCA and Jackson Christian, they remain in Division II-A and will play each other in the final week of the season. Before that, they’ll both play region games against Fayette Academy, Tipton-Rosemark, FACS and Harding Academy.

Jackson Christian’s non-region schedule has some interesting matchups including Northpoint and Goodpasture from Division II and Peabody and Lake County.

For TCA, the Lions also get a quality opponent from a private school in Middle Tennessee with Franklin Grace. Then the rest of the non-region schedule is Chester County, Riverside and Greenfield.