OMAHA- Lincoln High not playing the second half of a game and Omaha Benson forfeiting its final two games this season could be a foretaste of what’s to come for high school football in 2025.
According to a Class A athletic director, some fellow A.D.s say their schools may not play their schedules in the current format.
That could start a slippery slope from which those programs never recover.
“I had the conversation in the hallway with my principal, does every school need to have football?” Omaha Northwest Athletic Director Andy Webb said. “My answer was a resounding ‘Yes,’ but is it sustainable with what we got going?
Webb spoke last week during the NSAA’s District 2 legislative meeting of primarily athletic directors, which probably is the only way to obtain candid comments from OPS athletic officials about what most of the nine teams are facing.
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John Krogstrand, the OPS districtwide athletic director, said after the meeting he could not answer follow-up questions without clearance from higher-ups.
Krogstrand, Webb and Omaha Bryan’s Ryan Murtaugh, who has experienced the other side of Omaha football success playing on championship teams at Creighton Prep, were vocal during the meeting about a floor proposal that would create an “AB Division” separate from the state playoffs for the lesser teams in Classes A and B.
“We know there’s a holistic, larger discussion about student enrollment and how we classify teams in the state of Nebraska. It’s not just a Nebraska question. It’s a 50-state question,” Krogstrand said. “There are fundamental pieces that we have to deal with. And there are going to have to be some larger discussions of where we’re at right now to continue to allow kids in all 309 schools in Nebraska be able to play football.”
Said Webb: “Omaha Northwest goes down to (Class) B and we play Bennington, Skutt, Elkhorn North, whatever. The results do not change one bit. It’s 70 to nothing.
“This (AB proposal) has nothing to do about hanging banners. It has everything to do about giving kids the opportunity to play football. To have the conversations and get something going is, in my opinion, vital to us being able to field a football team for nine games somehow.”
Murtaugh questioned which end of the spectrum needs fixing first.
“We can all agree that there’s a problem, and it feels like we’re trying to fix the bottom, when the reason the bottom is the problem is because we have such a shift in talent at the top,” he said during the meeting. “We need to look at options. How do we disincentivize kids from hopping ship and congregating in schools?”
He suggested a metric that if a team has a certain percentage of kids move in, “maybe you’ve just taken yourself out of the postseason, and maybe that would help turn the tide.”
“My fear would be that when we’re trying to fix the bottom, we might perpetuate the problem, because they’re going to continue to leave whether they’re playing an AB (schedule) or what have you,” Murtaugh said. “Because if we can agree on anything, we do have a problem. And I wish there was a clear solution.
“I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re going to pass a proposal with scheduling and that’s going to solve our problem. It’s going to be multiple things.”
The assembly approved the AB proposal and the other two proposals on the agenda, one from Omaha Central that would tinker with districts and the other from Fremont revising scheduling and playoff qualification that would weigh past success, so that all six legislative districts can consider the three plans. None would take effect before the 2026 and 2027 seasons.
The Fremont plan has the most merit for schools staying in Class A that would play like competition more often than currently.
In the meantime? Football at some schools is in limbo, and that impacts every school in Class A.
“I think at some point we’re going to have to blow up some of our schedules,” Omaha Westside A.D. Tom Kerkman said. “Even though there’s a two-year commitment, some schools have said they aren’t going to play their schedules, and so the schedule we have now may not be our schedule next year.”
How would the NSAA handle Class A teams forfeiting the season? Presumably the same as it has when small schools can’t field teams.
From the NSAA’s manual: “Should vacancies occur within a school’s regular season schedule, the NSAA cannot be responsible for assuring that a replacement game is scheduled. In case of such vacancies, the NSAA will work with member schools prior to any replacement scheduling. If a member school indicates interest in filling the vacancy and an opponent is found, the school will be required to play the game.”
It should never have reached this stage.
It wasn’t only the Lincoln High and Benson situations. Omaha Buena Vista had a game before midseason when it was down to five healthy offensive linemen at halftime and one was a freshman. Other teams hobbled to the finish.
The current setup for Class A has unavoidable games between the best and worst teams in a district late in the season, when rosters thin from injuries and attrition.
What has happened has people talking. Openly. Finally.
Scheduling. Transfer rules. Undue influence rules (Kansas bans contact with seventh and eighth graders).
Everything must be on the table for high school competition to stay relevant. Especially in Class A.
