Tue - 18 Oct
Written by Jim Ecker
The odds are pretty good that Xavier High School will play its final regular-season football game as a Class 4A school Friday night before dropping to Class 3A next year.
If so, Xavier has a lollapalooza on its hands with the powerful Linn-Mar Lions invading Saints Field.
The Saints have already lost to No. 1 Cedar Falls, and they lost to Iowa City High when the Little Hawks were undefeated and ranked No. 2. Now here comes Linn-Mar, ranked No. 3 in the state.
"Yeah, 1-2-3," Xavier Coach Duane Schulte mused Tuesday before practice. "They're all great teams."
Schulte likes a good fight, but he prefers a fair fight. That's why Xavier voted in favor of district football in a statewide survey of Class 4A schools and why the Saints undoubtedly would prefer playing 3A football next year.
"I don't offer any apologies to anybody if we do play 3A, because that's what we are," Schulte remarked. "We're a 3A school."
Under the current rules, Xavier is a 3A school by student enrollment but a 4A school in football because it plays in the Mississippi Valley Conference and agreed to play 4A football when it joined the league in 1998, but that could change.
There's a strong movement toward adopting a district format for Class 4A football for 2012, which would eliminate the MVC as a football league and allow Xavier and Dubuque Wahlert to play 3A football against schools their own size.
Xavier could make a request to remain a 4A school in future years, even if 4A districts are adopted, but it appears likely the Saints would drop to 3A.
"In the long run, it's better for Xavier," Schulte said. "The bottom line, it's just better for our kids. And I don't think you can say it's not, because we're a 3A school.
"Even though we've had some success over the years (in 4A), it's monumental week to week to play some of those teams. If we do play 3A, we're just playing where we're supposed to play."
Regis High School won the Class 3A state football title in 1978, and LaSalle High School won Class 2A titles in 1982 and 1983. Those schools merged to former Xavier High School in 1998.
"Alumni that look back at those years, they're not unhappy with what happened," Schulte said. "They're still happy with their state championships.
"Nobody sits back and goes, 'Oh, that was just a 3A or 2A state championship, it doesn't mean anything.' Hey, it means a lot."
Schulte doesn't buy the argument that Xavier would dominate Class 3A football, just because it's been successful at the 4A level in recent years.
"I'm not saying we're going to win the state championship, because 3A football has some good teams in it," he said. "There's no guarantee you're going to do anything in 3A, and especially if Wahlert and Assumption go down (from 4A to 3A), not to mention programs like West Delaware, Solon, Marion.
"That ain't easy, either. So we'll see what happens."
Xavier won the Class 4A football title in 2006 and is headed to the 4A playoffs again this year, regardless of whether the Saints win or lose Friday night against Linn-Mar. Xavier beat steep odds when it won the 4A title, because it routinely plays against schools twice its size in the Mississippi Valley Conference.
Xavier is listed with 578 students in grades 9 through 11 in the BEDS document on the Iowa High School Athletic Association website. Linn-Mar, by stark contast, has 1,285 students in those three grades, more than twice as many.
The numbers for the other MVC schools in grades 9-11 are Iowa City West (1,426), Kennedy (1,320), Hempstead (1,285), Waterloo West (1,246), Dubuque Senior (1,212), Jefferson (1,209), Cedar Falls (1,107), Washington (1,070), Iowa City High (1,044), Prairie (984), Waterloo East (825) and Dubuque Wahlert (423).
Wahlert faces a 3-to-1 deficit against some MVC schools, while Xavier regularly battles a 2-to-1 deficit in student enrollments.
"Is that fair?" Schulte asked.
Wahlert and Xavier are parochial schools, but Schulte doesn't buy the argument that private schools have an advantage over public schools in terms of their student body.
"We still get the kids who walk through the door," Schulte said. "Just like if you're in a public school district, you get the kids who walk through your door.
"That's all we get, despite what people think. We don't go out and recruit everybody and have all kinds of scholarships to give. It doesn't happen. We get the kids who walk in. If the parents are interested in a Catholic education for their kids, that's the ones we get."
It will be Xavier's kids against Linn-Mar's kids Friday night, with both teams advancing to the Class 4A playoffs that start next Wednesday night.
Xavier has compiled a 5-3 record this season against MVC opponents. The Saints have defeated all the unranked teams on their schedule, but they've lost to all the top-10 clubs on their calendar with setbacks against Cedar Falls (27-7), Iowa City High (52-24) and Iowa City West (49-19).
Linn-Mar has won eight straight games, including a 17-12 victory over Iowa City High last week. Linn-Mar won Class 4A state titles in 1989 and 1990, and Schulte sees similarities.
"This group might be just as good, if not better," he said. "It's going to take a miracle for us to win, but we'll play the game and see what happens."
