UHSAA releases first draft of realignment proposal beginning with 2025-26 high school sports school year

The UHSAA Board of Trustees met Tuesday and released its first draft for high school sports realignment for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years. The UHSAA realigns schools into new regions and classifications every two years based on changing enrollment numbers.

The UHSAA has two different alignments, one for football and one for all other sports.

Within each classification, there are teams at the top and teams at the bottom that are considered bubble schools. The UHSAA can decide to place those schools up or down a classification. The schools can petition to go up or down as well.

The UHSAA will hear those requests from schools on Dec. 4, followed by a public hearing via Zoom on Dec. 11.

The UHSAA will finalize the new classifications and regions during the Board of Trustees meeting Dec. 19. The number of teams that will be in each classification has not been finalized.

Between now and then, the UHSAA will use a new criteria to help it evaluate which classifications to place bubble schools into. It’s a formula that was created by Nate Marshall, the executive director of Providence Hall.

Each school now has a Member School Profile that evaluates the competitiveness of each school based on RPI rankings and state tournament performances. After factoring success multipliers, each school is assigned a Z score number that can help the Board of Trustees with its decisions.

Each school has two Member School Profiles, one for football and one for all other sports. This number can only be used to move bubble schools, no other teams.

Corner Canyon is fully expected to appeal to move up to 6A for all sports just as it did in the last realignment. Individual sports can also appeal to move up or down a classification.

Ben Lomond and Ogden are both expected to be placed in 3A, as it meets the 50% or higher free-and-reduced lunch rates.

Deseret Peak, a new school in Tooele that will open in 2025, wasn’t included in the first draft by the UHSAA. It won’t have seniors during its first school year, and said it expects to be a 4A school during the first two years.

Below are the working graphics that the UHSAA used in the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday. Enrollment numbers shown in red on the graphic are those schools that are bubble schools.