In January, the AHSAA's Central Board of Control voted 13–2 to replace the classification system Alabama high school sports had used since 2014. Class 7A is gone, and public and private schools have separate postseason classes. Girls flag football is among the first sports to play under the new structure because its season began in August.
Here's what changed, how flag football's divisions map onto it, and what our ratings data suggests about how it will play out.
What the AHSAA Changed
The old system had seven classes, 1A through 7A, with public and private schools mixed together. Private schools carried a 1.35 enrollment multiplier, and later a "competitive balance factor," both meant to push successful private programs up into tougher classes. The arguing over whether that was fair never really stopped.
The new system, in effect for the 2026–27 and 2027–28 school years, resolves the argument by separation:
- Public schools now fill six classes, 1A through 6A, assigned by enrollment. The 7A tier, home of the state's biggest schools since 2014, is simply gone; those schools are now the top of 6A.
- Private schools get their own two classes, called Single A and Double A, assigned by straight enrollment. The 1.35 multiplier and the competitive balance factor are both repealed, since the mechanism they served no longer exists.
- The split applies to championship play. Public and private schools can still schedule each other all regular season long.
How Flag Football Maps Onto It
Flag football doesn't field enough teams in every class to run six separate public championships, so the AHSAA groups the classes into three public divisions and adds one private division. Here's the full 2026 structure, from the official alignments:
| Flag Division | Who's In It | Teams | Regions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6A | Class 6A public schools | 31 | 4 |
| 5A | Class 5A public schools | 46 | 8 |
| 1A–4A | Classes 1A through 4A combined | 58 | 8 |
| Private | Single A and Double A private schools | 15 | 4 |
The 1A–4A division is the largest, with 58 teams across four enrollment classes; 29 of those teams are 4A schools. The private division has 15 teams, so Single A and Double A compete together in flag even though they remain separate classes in other sports. The 6A division has 31 teams after absorbing the former 7A schools.
If you followed flag football last season, note that the old "6A/7A" championship framing is dead. Our 2025 playoff simulation covered a 7A bracket that no longer exists.
What the Ratings Say About the New Divisions
Classification sorts schools by enrollment. It does not sort teams by strength, and our preseason ratings show the difference clearly.
On average, the enrollment ladder holds: the typical 6A team rates about 4 points better than an average Alabama team, the typical 5A team sits right at average, and the typical 1A–4A team runs a couple of points below. Bigger schools draw from more students and field better teams on average.
The spread inside each division is wider than the average gap between divisions. The best team in 1A–4A enters the season rated around +20, above every 5A team and within range of the stronger 6A teams. The private division spans more than 40 rating points from top to bottom. Enrollment describes the middle of a division better than it describes the strongest teams.
Cross-division games connect the groups. In the 2025 file, 55% of rated games crossed division lines. A small-school program beating a 6A opponent therefore does not contradict the classification system. The statewide rankings model uses those games to put every team on one scale while the divisions remain playoff groupings.
What It Means on the Ground
For the former 7A programs, the practical change is bracket size. They now share one 31-team division with the rest of 6A, four regions, straight shot to a title game. For private schools, the change is bigger: they're no longer chasing public-school brackets under a multiplier that inflated their classification, and their path to a championship runs entirely through other private programs. Whether that produces better or worse competitive matches in the private bracket is an empirical question, and with only 15 teams in the division, we'll have a season's worth of evidence quickly.
One honest caveat: this is year one. Region assignments, division groupings, and even which schools field teams will shift as the sport grows and as the AHSAA reviews the system for the next two-year cycle. The structure described here is the 2026–28 alignment, not a permanent map.
The Short Version
Alabama replaced its seven-class, mixed public-private system with six public classes and two private ones, effective this school year. Flag football plays it as four divisions: 6A (31 teams), 5A (46), 1A–4A (58), and Private (15). Enrollment predicts the middle of each division better than it predicts the top, so expect small-school teams near the top of the statewide rankings all season. The division filter there shows each playoff race on its own.
Data and methods
The classification description follows the AHSAA's 2026 alignment and the flag-football division list used by the site. The team and region counts are the counts in that alignment, while the rating comparisons come from the preseason statewide model snapshot. The cross-division percentage comes from the site's 2025 rated-game file. See the rankings methodology for model assumptions and the editorial policy for corrections.