Kentucky High School Football Realignment Will Shuffle Defending Champions Ahead of 2027 Season

Changes in Kentucky high school football

There have been changes in Kentucky high school football.

Most notably, in realignment.

The KHSAA issued the final approved team alignments in May for the 2027 and 2028 seasons.

A handful of programs have been affected. Three are defending state champions, and a 2025 state runner-up.

Kentucky Country Day Pushes Back

Kentucky Country Day (13-1), the 2025 1A state champion, will be moving up to 2A.

While understanding the somewhat difficult task of aligning schools to proper classifications, KCD coach Matt Jones isn’t exactly thrilled with the outcome of the latest realignment.

"I look at this alignment not just as a head coach trying to win next week's game, but through the lens of someone who has dedicated decades to Kentucky high school football…Moving to Class 2A creates a severe operational and competitive strain on our program that textbook enrollment numbers simply don’t reflect,” Jones said in an email sent to High School on SI.

He said the methodology is flawed and doesn’t take into account several factors, including the challenges specific to small private schools and unrestricted enrollment for Kentucky’s 51 independent public school districts.

The KHSAA applied a 1.35 multiplier to football-playing private schools in the realignment process. Jones and former NFL quarterback and Sayre head coach Chad Pennington pushed back against the use of the multiplier for small private schools. Jones said the multiple doesn’t recognize the reality of small privates.

“While our school has 155 boys enrolled, our actual football roster has averaged just 33 players over the last 16 years,” the 1A state champion coach explained. “Our tuition is $32,000 per year, and our academic standards are exceptionally rigorous; we are a highly specialized environment, not a sports academy. We do not have an open-enrollment draw, yet we are being penalized by an artificial multiplier based on a generalized drawing area.”

Jones said the multiplier is arbitrary and not based on supporting data in relation to Kentucky.

“It is also deeply concerning that the KHSAA has anchored Kentucky's future to an arbitrary 1.35 multiplier pulled directly from a 2000 Alabama high school study regarding athletic participation rates,” he said. “Applying a 26-year-old metric from a different state to modern Kentucky high school football is not data-driven policy—it is arbitrary guesswork.”

As for open enrollment, Jones expressed that it puts schools like KCD at a real disadvantage.

“If the goal of this rule is truly to address 'competitive balance' regarding geographic boundaries, the logic is deeply flawed,” Jones noted. ”The multiplier ignores independent public school districts, which operate with open enrollment and no tuition barriers, allowing them to draw student-athletes from across county lines completely unpenalized. True competitive balance cannot be achieved by selectively applying rules to one set of schools while giving a free pass to others with identical geographic advantages.”

Other Private Schools on the Move

And continuing in the private school realm, Class 2A state champion Lexington Christian (12-3) will depart to 3A, and Christian Academy-Louisville (15-0), the defending 3A state champion, heads into 4A in 2027. Covington Catholic (9-4) will be reassigned to 5A, while Bethlehem (5-7) moves up to 2A from 1A.

CAL coach Hunter Cantwell told High School on SI that he’s basically rolling with the punches and is focused on the school’s mission.

"CAL looks forward to competing in what I believe to be Kentucky's strongest classification,” Cantwell said in an email. “Our main focus, though, is on using youth sports to grow young men and point them to Jesus. It is a blessing to always be able to work towards that end, regardless of what classification we find ourselves in."

Public Schools See Changes, Too

Franklin County (14-1), which lost to Boyle County in the 2025 4A title game, is 5A-bound in 2027.

Elizabethtown (8-4) will move down to 3A after spending a two-year cycle in 4A.

2027-28 KHSAA Football Alignment

CLASS 1A

DISTRICT 1

Ballard Memorial

Crittenden County

Fulton County

Russellville

DISTRICT 2

Campbellsville

Caverna

Fort Knox

Holy Cross (Louisville)

WEB DuBois

DISTRICT 3

Bellevue

Dayton

Holy Cross (Covington)

Newport Central Catholic

Newport

DISTRICT 4

Bracken County

Eminence

Ludlow

Trimble County

DISTRICT 5

Berea

Frankfort

Nicholas County

Paris

Sayre

DISTRICT 6

Harlan

Lynn Camp

Middlesboro High School

Pineville, Williamsburg

DISTRICT 7

East Ridge

Hazard

Phelps

Pikeville

DISTRICT 8

Betsy Layne

Fairview

Paintsville

Raceland

CLASS 2A

DISTRICT 1

Henry Clay

Lafayette

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Tates Creek

DISTRICT 2

Edmonson County

Hancock County

McLean County

Owensboro Catholic

DISTRICT 3

Clinton County

Green County

Metcalfe County

Monroe County

Somerset

DISTRICT 4

Bethlehem

Danville

Kentucky Country Day

Washington County

Western

DISTRICT 5

Beechwood

Bishop Brossart

Gallatin County

Owen County

Walton-Verona

DISTRICT 6

Jackson County

Lewis County

Morgan County

Powell County

West Carter

DISTRICT 7

Breathitt County

Knott County Central

Leslie County

Magoffin County

DISTRICT 8

Belfry

Martin County

Pike County Central

Prestonsburg

Shelby Valley

CLASS 3A

DISTRICT 1

Butler County

Murray

Union County

Webster County

DISTRICT 2

Adair County

Casey County

Glasgow

Hart County

McCreary Central

DISTRICT 3

Carroll County

Central, DeSales

Henry County

Shawnee

DISTRICT 4

Bardstown

Elizabethtown

LaRue County

Thomas Nelson

DISTRICT 5

Bourbon County

Estill County

Lexington Christian

Mercer County

Western Hills

DISTRICT 6

Bath County

Fleming County

Lloyd Memorial

Pendleton County

St. Henry District

DISTRICT 7

East Carter

Floyd Central

Lawrence County

Letcher County Central

Russell

DISTRICT 8

Bell County

Clay County

Knox Central

Perry County Central

Rockcastle County

CLASS 4A

DISTRICT 1

Calloway County

Hopkins County Central

Madisonville-North Hopkins

Paducah Tilghman

DISTRICT 2

Allen County-Scottsville

Franklin-Simpson

Logan County

Ohio County

Russell County

Warren East

DISTRICT 3

John Hardin

Marion County

Nelson County

Spencer County

Taylor County

DISTRICT 4

Breckinridge County

Christian Academy-Louisville

North Oldham

Shelby County

Valley

Waggener

DISTRICT 5

Boyle County

Garrard County

Lexington Catholic

Lincoln County

DISTRICT 6

Corbin

Harlan County

Wayne County

Whitley County

DISTRICT 7

Grant County

Harrison County

Highlands

Holmes

Mason County

DISTRICT 8

Ashland Blazer

Boyd County

Greenup County

Johnson Central

Rowan County Senior High School

CLASS 5A

DISTRICT 1

Apollo, Graves County

Marshall County

Muhlenberg County

Owensboro

DISTRICT 2

Barren County

Bowling Green

Grayson County

Greenwood

Warren Central

DISTRICT 3

Bullitt Central

Butler

Doss

Iroquois

North Bullitt

DISTRICT 4

Atherton

Jeffersontown

Moore

Seneca

South Oldham

DISTRICT 5

Boone County

Conner

Cooper

Covington Catholic

Dixie Heights

Scott

DISTRICT 6

Anderson County

Collins

Franklin County

Scott County

DISTRICT 7

East Jessamine

Madison Southern

Montgomery County

West Jessamine

Woodford County

DISTRICT 8

North Laurel

Pulaski County

South Laurel

Southwestern

CLASS 6A

DISTRICT 1

Christian County

Daviess County

Henderson County

McCracken County

DISTRICT 2

Central Hardin

Meade County

North Hardin

South Warren

DISTRICT 3

DuPont Manual

Fairdale

Pleasure Ridge Park

St. Xavier

DISTRICT 4

Bullitt East

Fern Creek

Male

Southern

DISTRICT 5

Ballard

Eastern

Oldham County

Trinity (Louisville)

DISTRICT 6

Campbell County

Great Crossing

Larry A Ryle

Simon Kenton

DISTRICT 7

Henry Clay

Lafayette

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Tates Creek

DISTRICT 8

Bryan Station

Frederick Douglass

George Rogers Clark

Madison Central

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