With Schuylkill-Colonial Cooperative dead, Schuylkill teams scramble

 

The conclusion of the District 11 football playoffs has left Schuylkill County with one team standing — Williams Valley.

The Vikings (12-1) will compete in the PIAA Class AA playoffs for the third straight year when they travel to Lehighton to take on District 12 champion Lansdale Catholic (11-2) at 7 p.m. Friday. More on the Vikings throughout the week.

For the other 15 teams in our area, however, it’s time to look ahead to next year.

And next year is going to bring a whirlwind of change to Schuylkill League football.

From league realignment to new opponents to enrollment changes to a new co-op agreement to classification changes for the District 11 playoffs, there are a lot of new things to digest before we get to the 2026 season.

Let’s break them down one by one to get you in the know and give you the opportunity to dominate the Thanksgiving dinner table conversation when it turns to local high school football:

League Realignment

The Schuylkill-Colonial Football Cooperative as we know it is dead.

The move by Lehighton and Jim Thorpe from the Schuylkill League to the Colonial League officially kicks in for football in 2026, and the two leagues decided to dissolve the cooperative and go their separate ways.

That leaves 14 football teams in the Schuylkill League. Last spring, the league decided to break those 14 teams into two divisions, based on enrollment. They are as follows, listed in alphabetical order:

Division I — Blue Mountain, North Schuylkill, Panther Valley, Pine Grove, Pottsville, Tamaqua

Division II — Mahanoy Area, Marian, Minersville, Nativity, Schuylkill Haven, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Williams Valley

The six teams in Division I are Class 3A or higher for football in the next two-year cycle, while Division II is comprised of the teams in Class A and Class AA.

Note: Pine Grove is technically Class AA by enrollment in the next two-year cycle but will be Class 4A due to its cooperative agreement with Tulpehocken. More on that later.

Scheduling Issues

The Schuylkill League’s two-division structure is similar to the one utilized for two years prior to the cooperative, after the Anthracite Football League dissolved.

Schedule-wise, the six Division I schools will play five league games and five non-league games, while the eight Division II schools will play seven league games and three non-conference games.

All the league contests were scheduled in the back half of the schedule, meaning the Division I teams’ five non-league games were slated for Weeks 1-5 and the Division II teams’ three non-league games were set for Weeks 1-3.

For the local athletic directors and head coaches, this created some headaches. Headaches that, for the most part, they had to deal with in the past and ones the cooperative had resolved.

Without the cooperative, these scheduling issues return.

In today’s high school football world, scheduling five non-league games is extremely tough, especially within a specific time frame (Weeks 1-5, for example). The areas that surround Schuylkill County — Heartland Conference, Wyoming Valley Conference, East Penn Conference, Lebanon-Lancaster League — all have relatively closed schedules with few open dates. That leaves few options trying to fill open slots on a 10-game schedule.

Some schools got creative.

Pottsville did the best job filling its schedule, moving its rivalry game with Blue Mountain from Week 10 to Week 4 and slotting Hazleton Area into the Week 10 spot.

Former Pottsville AD Eric Rismiller hustled to get the Tide’s schedule filled and did an exceptional job, as Pottsville will face old-school Eastern Conference rivals Shamokin Area, Mount Carmel, Berwick and Hazleton Area in 2026-27. Pleasant Valley fills out Pottsville’s slate in Week 5.

Others, meanwhile, are still a work in progress.

Blue Mountain (Week 10), North Schuylkill (Week 5) and Minersville (Week 3) still have open dates as of this writing — see the attached schedules for 2026 and 2027 below.

Others locked in games against new and/or long-distance opponents that aren’t geographic fits and will require extended travel. Some examples:

** North Schuylkill’s non-league slate includes Jersey Shore (Week 1), Notre Dame-Green Pond (Week 2), Williams Valley (Week 3) and Mount Carmel (Week 4).

** Panther Valley filled its schedule with Nanticoke and Tunkhannock.

** Pine Grove added non-league games with New Hope-Solebury and Holy Redeemer.

** Tamaqua has games scheduled with Executive Education and Selinsgrove.

** Nativity’s schedule includes Montrose, Holy Redeemer and Halifax.

** Schuylkill Haven will open 2026 at the Silver Bowl against Mount Carmel.

** Williams Valley’s non-league slate features Upper Dauphin, Southern Columbia and North Schuylkill.

Remember, schedules are built for two years at a time (home and home).

Here’s a look at the schedules for all 14 area teams for both 2026 and 2027:

Enrollment Ups and Downs

I was surprised, considering the growth in the southern end of Schuylkill County, that Pottsville remains the Schuylkill League’s biggest school based on enrollment for the next two-year PIAA cycle.

For football, enrollments are calculated every two years in September-October by the total number of boys in grades 9-11. Whatever the number of boys is on Oct. 1, that’s the school’s number. Those enrollment numbers are then used to form the PIAA’s enrollment parameters for each classification for the next two seasons.

Those enrollment parameters for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 football seasons are: Class A — 1-141; Class AA — 142-199; Class 3A — 200-281; Class 4A — 282-412; Class 5A — 413-578; Class 6A — 579-above

In the next two-year cycle, Pottsville leads the Schuylkill League with 407 boys, followed by Blue Mountain (376), North Schuylkill (313) and Panther Valley (278).

A complete list of enrollments for the next two-year cycle, and each school’s change from the current cycle, is included here:

 

Schuylkill League Football Enrollment Figures
School	2024-25	Class		2026-27	Class	Change
Pottsville	389	4A		407	4A	plus 18
Blue Mountain	363	4A		376	4A	plus 13
North Schuylkill	280	3A		313	4A	plus 33
Panther Valley	280	3A		278	3A	minus 2
Tamaqua	281	3A		218	3A	minus 63
Pine Grove	238	3A		196	2A*	minus 42
Shenandoah Valley	148	2A		167	2A	plus 19
Mahanoy Area	166	2A		156	2A	minus 10
Schuylkill Haven	145	2A		151	2A	plus 6
Minersville	164	2A		143	2A	minus 21
Tri-Valley	113	A		141	A	plus 28
Williams Valley	159	2A		101	A	minus 58
Marian	112	A		94	A	minus 18
Nativity	82	A		68	A	minus 14
Others:
Jim Thorpe	323	4A		262	3A	minus 61
Lehighton	301	4A		296	4A	minus 5
* Note: Pine Grove will compete in 4A due to co-op with Tulpehocken

There are some drastic changes in enrollment at several Schuylkill League schools from the current cycle to the next two-year cycle:

** North Schuylkill (+33), Tri-Valley (+28), Shenandoah Valley (+19), Pottsville (+18), Blue Mountain (+13) and Schuylkill Haven (+6) saw their enrollments increase.

** Tamaqua (-63), Williams Valley (-58), Pine Grove (-42), Minersville (-21), Marian (-18), Nativity (-14), Mahanoy Area (-10) and Panther Valley (-2) saw their enrollments decline.

Some of those enrollment changes, specifically Tamaqua (from 281 to 218) and Williams Valley (from 159 to 101), lead us into our next segment …

Classification Changes

Williams Valley’s string of three straight District 11 Class AA championships will end next season as the Vikings drop down to Class A for the next cycle.

The Vikings’ sharp decline in enrollment puts them below backyard rival Tri-Valley, which stays in Class A by one male student. Minersville is on the other end of that spectrum, staying in Class AA by two boys.

“With our youth programs, we had 16 kids on our midget football team this year. That was it. That’s sixth-seventh-eighth grade, depending on their age,” Williams Valley head coach and athletic director Ben Ancheff said of his team’s enrollment drop. “We’ve also struggled with youth soccer and some other sports. We just don’t seem to have the kids like we used to have.

“It goes in waves. Sometimes you just don’t have a lot of kids in those grades. The boys have really fallen off.”

Pine Grove would be in Class AA based on its enrollment, but its cooperative agreement with Tulpehocken bumps the Cardinals up to Class 4A.

In a co-op arrangement, the formula used by the PIAA is the host school’s enrollment plus half of the co-op school. In this case, Pine Grove is at 196 and Tulpehocken is at 212. For PIAA purposes, it’s 196 + 106 = 302.

Here’s how District 11 will look by classification for the next two-year cycle. Enrollment number is in parentheses:

Class 6A (12) — Allentown Allen (1,284), Parkland (1,254), Emmaus (1,137), Easton (1,116), Bethlehem Liberty (1,011), Northampton (792), Allentown Dieruff (703), Bethlehem Freedom (690), Nazareth (641), Whitehall (619), Stroudsburg (614), Pocono Mountain West (604)

Class 5A (4) — East Stroudsburg South (555), Pocono Mountain East (521), Pleasant Valley (487), Southern Lehigh (415)

Class 4A (10) — Pottsville (407), East Stroudsburg North (397), Blue Mountain (376), Bangor (366), North Schuylkill (313), Saucon Valley (312), Pine Grove (302, includes co-op), Lehighton (296), Allentown Central Catholic (188)*, Bethlehem Catholic (159)*

Class 3A (10) — Panther Valley (278), Wilson Area (271), Northwestern Lehigh (269), Jim Thorpe (262), Notre Dame-Green Pond (255), Palmerton (240), Salisbury (230), Tamaqua (218), Pen Argyl (203), Executive Education (200)

Class AA (7) — Catasauqua (199), Northern Lehigh (193), Palisades (192), Shenandoah Valley (167), Mahanoy Area (156), Schuylkill Haven (151), Minersville (143)

Class A (4) — Tri-Valley (141), Williams Valley (101), Marian (94), Nativity (68)

*** Numbers taken from enrollment figures listed on PIAA website for each sport. The lists do not reflect any potential corrections, voluntary upgrades, or application of the competition formula. ***

Schools have until Dec. 1 to officially decide if they want to play up a classification. Bethlehem Catholic and Allentown Central Catholic, for example, must elect to play in Class 4A to stay members in the EPC.

One interesting decision is Pottsville, which is six boys from the Class 5A cutoff. Do the Crimson Tide elect to play up in Class 5A, where only Southern Lehigh is a perennial powerhouse? … Or does Pottsville stay in Class 4A, which right now has 10 teams for the next cycle? Interesting.

One more note: District 11 Class A will most likely again be in a subregional with District 2 since that district has three teams — Holy Cross (132), Old Forge (117) and Lackawanna Trail (88). Lakeland, Susquehanna, Dunmore, Riverside and Holy Redeemer are all Class AA.

Analysis

The Schuylkill League is at a crossroads.

The departure of Lehighton and Jim Thorpe — and Mount Carmel and Shamokin a decade before them — has left the league lopsided in terms of big schools and small schools. This isn’t just the case in football; it’s in every sport.

Despite what old-school fans think, none of those four aforementioned schools are coming back. Hamburg isn’t coming north; Northwestern Lehigh isn’t leaving the Colonial League. So forget about adding big schools. Isn’t happening.

While the Schuylkill-Colonial Football Cooperative had its faults, it did ease the burden on local athletic directors to fill their football schedule every season.

But it turned into a Catch-22 for the area’s big schools, which complained about having to face Northwestern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh, the lack of revenue from home games due to lack of fans and costs from making long trips to Bangor and Wilson Area … but now are having a hard time finding schools to fill their schedule.

Remember when Blue Mountain had to travel to Philadelphia to play Springside Chestnut Hill Academy a few years ago? The Eagles may face a similar situation in Week 10 the next two years.

Something needs to give.

The next two-year cycle is set. We can’t change that. We can fix the future, though.

Here’s what needs to happen moving beyond the next cycle:

The Schuylkill League needs to put a special clause in its bylaws that will allow any school with an enrollment Class 3A or higher the option to play in another league — FOR FOOTBALL ONLY.

In football, you now have the situation where Blue Mountain, North Schuylkill and Pottsville are in the same division as Panther Valley and Pine Grove. On the field, a great discrepancy in terms of talent, program history, style of play, depth, success, etc. As far as enrollment, however, that’s where they belong. Tamaqua is kind of in the middle there.

That on-field discrepancy isn’t the same in sports like basketball, baseball and softball. The league’s new division alignments work there. In football, they do not.

So if North Schuylkill wants to join the Heartland Conference for football, let it. If Blue Mountain and Tamaqua want to compete in the Colonial League and Pottsville in the Lebanon-Lancaster-Berks League for football, let them.

However, make it so that they can stay in the Schuylkill League in other sports. That’s a win-win for all four schools.

Keep the small schools where they are. Honestly, a 10-team small-school Schuylkill League for football (listed by enrollment) — Panther Valley, Pine Grove, Shenandoah Valley, Mahanoy Area, Schuylkill Haven, Minersville, Tri-Valley, Williams Valley, Marian and Nativity — works for me.

A slate of nine league games and one non-league game is much easier to schedule. And if Panther Valley and Marian want to keep old rivalry games with Tamaqua intact, and Schuylkill Haven still wants to play Blue Mountain, arrange it so they can by moving a league game to a different week.

There are problems with this analysis — what if only North Schuylkill leaves?

If those problems occur, there are solutions, like adding Tamaqua to the small-school league or having Blue Mountain and Pottsville play independent schedules. All of that would be a case-by-case basis, but they’re doable. Just one man’s opinion.

Regardless, there is no clear-cut solution.

Face it, 2026 will be a season of change. We might as well embrace it.

Why? So will 2028.