How will Class 4A district football look?

CEDAR RAPIDS - With the Mississippi Valley Conference's final consent, there will be Class 4A district football throughout the state in 2014. It's the Iowa High School Athletic Association's job now to make sense of it all.The IHSAA will be in charge of configuring districts and creating entire nine-game schedules for each 4A school, as it already does in every other class.Assistant Executive Director Todd Tharp said Tuesday afternoon there will be six six-school districts in 4A (three on each side of the state) and two five-school districts (one each). Two schools that played district football on the other side of the state this past season will be moved to this side for 2014, likely among a group of Marshalltown, Ottumwa, Fort Dodge and Mason City.Four teams in each district will qualify for the playoffs.Districts will not be determined strictly by geography. Tharp said other factors include past success, recent past success and prospects for the upcoming season."I'm going to send e-mails out here shortly," Tharp said. "Next week, we'll have representatives from the schools come to our offices to discuss those aspects with us. We'll talk about how we're going to put all of this together ... We'll try and balance some things out when it comes to districts."Schools are afforded the opportunity to send non-district game requests to the IHSAA, in an attempt to keep rivalries alive. Tharp said if the number one non-district request is the same for two schools, they will be guaranteed to play.The IHSAA hopes to announce districts for all classes January 23 or 24. Schedules should be announced by the end of February or early March.