By Jim Walker

jim.walker@irontontribune.com

College football has its preseason poll to see how teams might stack up for the new season.

Ohio High School football has the release of division and region assignments for the playoffs this fall.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association released its tentative assignments for one of the seven divisions and thee consequent region.

Schools will have until Oct. 1 to make changes to their tournament participation. In addition, multi-high school district that restructure their high schools are required to have their enrollment reclassified by Sept. 10 which could change their assigned tournament division.

A majority of local schools will be in Division 5 and Region 19. Those schools include:

Ironton, Chesapeake, Fairland, South Point, Portsmouth, Portsmouth West, Minford, River Valley, Meigs, Wellston, Northwest, Piketon and Wheelersburg.

Others teams in the region are Aleander, Amanda-Clearcreek, Barnesville, Columbus Academy, Harvest Preparatory, Heath, Liberty Union, Johnstown Northridge, Belmont Union Local, Utica and West Muskingum.

Shifting to Division 6 Region 23 the area teams are:

Rock Hill, Coal Grove, Oak Hill, Trimble and Nelsonville-York.

Other teams in the region are Bellaire, Belpre, Berne Union, Buckeye Trail, Cardington-Lincoln, Crooksville, East Knox, Marion Elgin, Columbus Grandview Heights, Grove City Christian, Loudonville, Malvern, Martins Ferry, Mount Gilead, Newcomerstow, Northmor, Shenandoah, Tuscarawas Valley, West Jefferson and Worthington Christian.

Symmes Valley and Green will be in Division 7 Region 27 along with area teams Portsmouth Notre Dame, Sciotoville East, South Gallia, Racine Southern, Meigs Eastern, Federal Hocking, Manchester and Miller.

Completing the region will be Bealsville, Zanesville Bishop Rosecrans, Bridgeport, Caldwell, Fairfield Christian, Lancaster Fisher Catholic, New Matadors Frontier, Millersport, Woodsfield Monroe, Newark Catholic, Hannibal River and Waterford.

The playoffs are set to begin the weekend of Oct. 28-29. The OHSAA will again allow the top 16 teams of each region qualify for the postseason although teams may opt out due to the disparage of the top teams and the lower teams.

The Ohio High School Football Coaches Association voted two years ago to have an experimental 12-team playoff with the top four teams getting a first-round bye, but the OHSAA ignored the vote and increased the total to 16 teams in an effort to recover lost funds due to the COVID-19 panicdemic.