After years of dominance displayed by Aliquippa football, the PIAA has decided that action needs to be taken. Aliquippa has an extremely small school size in terms of population with under 300 students throughout the entire high school. This size is similar to — and even smaller than some — schools in the 1A PIAA classification. However, the Quips football team has played at the 2A level or higher for decades. In fact, since 2020, they have played in Class 4A due to their success in the lower sections. Not only have they had to play against many larger schools, but the Quips have continued to be a powerhouse in this section, making appearances in the past three state championships and winning two of them. In January, due to the competitive-balance rule, the PIAA decided that Aliquippa will be moved up a section yet again, this time competing in Class 5A. The rule states, “If a team reaches a certain point in the postseason in consecutive years and has three transfers into the program, the school would be bumped up in classification.” This has been their third time being moved up a section since 2016, when they were moved from 2A to 3A. Because they are such a small school being forced to compete against much larger schools, the Quips filed an appeal to this movement. However, this appeal was denied, solidifying Aliquippa’s spot in Class 5A for the 2024 football season.

“I think it’s unfair because you have to look outside just what Aliquippa has done as a team. You have to look at their numbers. Suppose they are injured and only playing with 21 kids, that’s a disadvantage against a 5A school that’s rostering 60,” Freedom Athletic Director David Badamo said.

Reasonably, many Quips fans, coaches and players were upset by this decision, some claiming that it is unfair. Schools with similar or more student populations are playing at much lower levels than Aliquippa. For example, Freedom, with even more students than Aliquippa, plays in Class 2A. Of course, with the addition of the competitive-balance rule in 2018, it is expected that Aliquippa may play at a slightly higher level than a team like Freedom, but many believe that moving them this much is simply unnecessary and unreasonable.

“I don’t think [the movement] is fair because the population of their school is just about the same as ours. They just keep producing athletes and have a great program,” Freedom football senior Tyler Welsh said.

Although, there are many other factors at play in a decision such as this. For example, even though they have a small student population, a large percentage of their students are on the football team. With only around 150 boys in the high school, 44 of them are rostered on the team. Transfers are also a variable in this decision. According to the aforementioned competitive-balance rule, the number of transfers at a school will be used as reasoning to bump a team to a higher classification. One issue with this section of the rule is that PIAA’s transfer rules may impact this. The Postseason Transfer Rule states, “Students who transfer after playing a sport in their 10th grade year or thereafter, are eligible to participate in all regular season contests, but will be ineligible for postseason contests.” This means that if a team finds success in the postseason while having transfers, even those who are not allowed to compete in postseason affairs, they may face promotion to a higher classification. This can be found unjust because the transfer player had no impact on the team’s postseason success.

While these rules are in place for good reason, some people believe that there must be more rationality when it comes to specific cases like this. Some members of the Aliquippa community feel as though they are being punished for having success.