1. SJP drives it, no doubt. I thought for the last stretch of the 4 class system and into this era that it’s actually the old 3A where the public/private dynamics were most glaring - you essentially had a final four of ECP/Bishop McDevitt/Imhotep/Bethlehem or Central Catholic. But throwing on the fact that SJP has put together the most dominant 10 year run in the history of Pennsylvania football and it raises a level of salience in the discourse, particularly because they’re doing so in the crown jewel sport and classification in the PIAA. Since 2013 they’ve matched the number of state titles (mythical and playoff) won by Mike Pettine in 33 years at CB West. They’ve essentially done the late ‘70s Penn Hills run three times in a row. There is an element of, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
2. I’ve argued in past hears that a smaller school classification school could beat the schools in the class ahead of it (I was adamant that 2010 ACC was the best team in the state). Does that mean that we should just go single class? On the flip side, I don’t think anybody who is sane is arguing Maddox Shaw was less of a state champ this year or somehow undeserving of a title because he won a different classification than Bo Bassett, who is the best kid in the country at the same weight (though if you want to discuss single class, see the next bullet point).
3. I think separate basketball playoffs would be more popular than separate football playoffs. I know that a separate wrestling team championship would be wildly popular (for a lot of reasons wrestling is way more out of control than football). I’m not as enmeshed in other team sports. I don’t think individual sports should even be separated by classification. There should be a track championship - it doesn’t matter if you’re at North Penn or Jenkintown, you can all run the same race competitively. That’s not the same as a football team. The best 145 pounder in the state can come from anywhere. That’s different than a team title, but I don’t think the PIAA will ever move in that direction.
I’ve been working on a wrestling history project that has made this kind of stand out recently, but there’s also been a tremendous bifurcation in how athletes are selecting into elite programs. Looking at, say, Blair Academy. 20 years ago, Blair was the best team in the country by a decent margin. They mostly had boarding students from New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and some one offs (Mark Perry from Oklahoma). They won almost all of the time, but the best high school teams consistently had close, winnable matches with them. The elite public schools in hotbeds (Lehigh Valley schools, the big Minneapolis powers) could have a punchers chance in an up year when they got breaks and toss ups. The big time regular Catholic school programs (St. Ed’s, Walsh Jesuit) could bang with them every year.
Fast forward to current day. Blair and Wyoming Seminary don’t even wrestle duals anymore except against each other. Their lineups feature between 8-12 nationally ranked kids, who come board at those schools from all over the country. I count 8 states in Sem’s lineup and 7 in Blair’s. The vortex at those schools is so great, it’s just become a totally different game. And that’s trickled down. Pennsylvania has dominated by four private programs, two of which seemingly just came into existence in the last four years - one of which actually does have kids from North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia, not just stupid accusations like SJP gets. St. Edward dominance in Ohio has been comical since the ‘80s (36 state titles in 44 years) so there’s nothing new there. New Jersey went from the most balanced state in terms of talent distribution to a monopoly from Bergen Catholic and Delbarton. Malvern Prep went from non-existent to one of the ten best teams in America every year, that also can barely sniff Sem and Blair without boarding kids. They at least compete in National Preps, where they’re wrestling schools that have the same kind of drawing power (though they like to flex on all of the District 1 and 3 programs they get their kids from). It’s all the club-ification of the high school product, which kind of defeats the point of the high school product in the first place. It’s not just football, and it’s not just Pennsylvania.
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