PIAA changes in Competition Formula likely too late to help Wyomissing
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Revisions to the PIAA’s “Competition Formula” were finalized Wednesday, making it more difficult for schools to be pushed up a classification due to their success and easier for them to drop back down.
Those changes may be too late to help Wyomissing’s football team, which was bumped from Class 3A to 4A for the current two-year cycle and could remain there for another two-year cycle.
The PIAA, reacting to an outcry from Pennsylvania public schools over top student-athletes transferring to private schools and academies, in 2018 instituted the Competition Formula to bump up successful programs and attempt to level the playing field.
In recent months the state’s high school athletics governing body has attempted to walk back some of those restrictions; Wednesday it finalized its latest amendments.
The biggest change is increasing the number of success points – accumulated by advancing in the playoffs – needed to trigger a change in classification. The standard was changed from six points over a two-year cycle to seven – a significant change.
Also, the PIAA raised the minimum number of transfers needed to force a team up a classification. In football that number goes from three to five over a two-year cycle; in basketball it goes from one to two.
“We loosened it up a little bit,” PIAA executive director Dr. Robert Lombardi said earlier this month. “The board didn’t want to be as restrictive.”
If a school’s team accumulates seven or more success points in a two-year cycle, it will be moved up if it matches or exceeds a certain number of transfers (five for football, two for basketball).
If a school’s team has been moved up and accumulates four, five, or six success points in the next cycle it will remain in the higher classification regardless of the number of transfers it has.
If a school’s team accumulates one, two, or three success points in the next cycle and has transfer students equal to or in excess of that sport’s number, the team will remain up in that classification.
Schools now have a less restrictive path to return to their natural classification once they are moved up.
If a school’s team had moved up in class and achieves one, two, or three success points in a cycle and has transfers less than the sport’s number, the team may move down.
Also, if a school’s team had moved up in class and achieves zero success points in a cycle the team may move down regardless of its number of transfers.
Those latter stipulations could eventually help Wyomissing, which was bumped up to Class 4A for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Wyomissing reached the Class 3A semifinals in both 2022 and 2023, earning three success points in each season, for a total of six. When the PIAA ruled that it had done so with three or more transfers, it was moved up.
With the success points threshold raised to seven a team will have to reach the championship game at least once in a two-year cycle and make it to the semifinals in the other to be moved to a higher classification.
In Wyomissing’s case, it earned two success points by reaching the state quarterfinals in 2024. If it returns to the state quarterfinals in 2025 – i.e. the District 3 championship game – it will earn two more success points and remain in Class 4A for the 2026 and 2027 seasons.
With a strong roster returning that’s a possible scenario.
If Wyomissing earns one or fewer success points in 2025 – meaning a loss in the district semifinals, or earlier — and has transfer students that are less than the number by sport it could return to Class 3A for the next two-year cycle.
Once a school’s team moves up in classification due to the Competition Formula, that becomes the baseline for the subsequent classification cycle.
The PIAA Board also reinstated health and safety concerns as viable ground for appealing a promotion to a higher class, regardless of success points. That’s the argument that Aliquippa – which by enrollment is a Class 2A school – used when it balked about going to 5A.
The PIAA has also relaxed its definition of transfers; those that occur “due to a change of family living circumstances necessitated by exceptional circumstances” will now be waived.
The PIAA settled on five football transfers by taking the number of players a team has on the field (11) and dividing by two. It rounded down from 5 ½ to five.
For basketball, the number will be reduced from three to two: Five divided by two (2 ½) rounded down to two.
