A new look to Blue Pony football

Many members of the Havre High football team put the helmets and pads on for this week's Blue Pony Football Camp, which wraps up tonight. And over the course of the summer, head coach Ryan Gatch's team will participate in other camps and workouts to get ready for the 2017 season.

That season, however, is still a full two months away. But, when the fall finally arrives, Blue Pony fans will be treated to a schedule unlike anything they've seen since Havre first dropped from Class AA all the way back in 1987.

Class A has continued to shuffle the decks in recent years, and this coming football season will be the first in which there will be some major changes in that sport.

The Eastern A and Central A are now combined for football, while the Southwest A and Northwest A will remain two separate divisions. Browning has moved to the Northwest A, something the school has wanted to have happen for some time, and, for a brief period, that move was going to create two 10-team divisions for Class A football, with the Northwest and Southwest set to combine in the same manner the East and Central are. However, the Montana High School Association re-did its enrollment numbers for all classifications recently, and that pushed Libby and Ronan back up to Class A for the 2017-18 school year. Both schools had dropped to Class B recently.

So, the Northwest A will now be composed of Polson, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Libby, Browning and Ronan, while the Southwest A will have Hamilton, Butte Central, Stevensville, Corvallis, Dillon and Frenchtown.

For many years, the 12-team Class A playoff format was decided by conference standings in the four conferences, but for the last two years the playoff format had changed, with the top two teams from each conference reaching the playoffs automatically, while the rest of the bracket was filled out by wildcard berths, based on a ranking system.

However, Class A once again decided to make some modifications to the landscape, and in particular, the East and Central, and those changes should make for a much more balanced and exciting football season come this fall, just as it has for the gym sports. Basketball, volleyball and wrestling have all gone to a combined postseason format, and in the East and Central at least, it's been a big hit. Now, football is going in the same direction.

"The last two years, we've used a power-rankings system to seed the last two teams from the East, and the West was doing the same," longtime Havre High Activities Director Dennis Murphy said. "But with Browning moving to the West, we (East/Central) had the opportunity to have a 10-team division, and the opportunity for everybody to play each other. And with that, we don't have to use the power-ranking system anymore to seed our side of the playoffs."

The power-ranking system was put in place two years ago, and while it seemed like a more fair and balanced way to qualify teams for the playoffs, it was also more complex than just who beat who during the regular season.

"An example of that was last year," Murphy said. "We beat Miles City, but, because of several factors in the power rankings, Miles City qualified for the playoffs. In the scenrario we are in going forward, we would have made the playoffs last year. So now, it's all going to be based on head-to-head, because we all play each other. With Browning moving to the west, inititally, they were going to do the same, but with Libby and Ronan coming back up, they'll still use the power rankings to seed their side of the playoffs."

New Schedule

With the changes to football in Class A, the Blue Ponies will now play all three traditional Central A rivals, as well as the entire Eastern A each season. Games against Miles City, Sidney and, recently, Hardin are games Havre has traditionally played as non-conference games, but those will now be conference affairs.

Havre's new-look schedule begins with a trip to Hardin to open the season Aug. 25, and, in this, the first season of the new 10-team division, the Blue Ponies will play just four home games and five on the road. That schedule will flip for the 2018 season.

The Ponies' first game inside Blue Pony Stadium will come in week two when Havre takes on Lewistown Sept. 1. The Ponies stay home to host Laurel Sept. 8, followed by road trips to Glendive Sept. 15 and Belgrade Sept. 22. Laurel is making its first trip to Blue Pony Stadium since the epic 2002 Class A state championship game. Havre closes out the month of September with Sidney coming to Havre Sept. 29.

October starts with the Ponies visiting powerhouse Billings Central Oct. 6. It will be the first meeting between the Ponies and Rams in nearly a decade. Havre closes out its home schedule Oct. 13 against Livingston before wrapping up the regular season Oct. 20 at Miles City.

And while the Ponies' schedule features a much different look this coming fall, the 10-team East Division did force HHS to lose some traiditonal games. The most notably absent game from the Ponies' schedule is the annual season-opener with Whitefish. Over the years, the Ponies and Bulldogs have developed an incredibly exciting football rivalry, and with the BNSF Trophy always at stake it was a great way to kick off each season. Now, and for the forseeable future, the Ponies and Dawgs will only get to continue that rivalry if they meet in the playoffs.

Of course, Browning is also off Havre's schedule. The Ponies and Indians have been playing football against each other for nearly three decades. Havre also loses its crossover, non-conference games with the Northwest A. In recent years, Havre has been playing Polson in a late-season, non-conference game to fill out a nine-game schedule. At one time, the Ponies also had a long-running non-conference series with Columbia Falls. In the new East Division though, those games will not be possible. Instead, however, Havre will carry on old rivalries with the likes of Lewistown, Sidney and Miles City, while also getting a chance to build new ones with the likes of Laurel and Billings Central.

The Future

One of Havre's biggest football rivals is Belgrade, but that rivalry may soon go away, too. Belgrade's enrollment has risen to the point where the school will likely move up to Class AA in just two more school years. And that will leave Class A once again facing change.

But Belgrade's growth isn't the norm anymore. In fact, if Class A faces more changes down the road, it's possibly due to more schools with shrinking enrollments, and that's something Murphy, who is also the MHSA's Class A representative, says they are looking into.

"We're putting together a committee to look at that this fall," Murphy said. "Not just to look into what happens with Belgrade potentially leaving, but also with schools that might be going down because of enrollment.

"Back in 2004, we created the four, six-team conferences in Class A," Murphy continued. "And we always had a plan in place for expansion in Class A. But we didn't really plan for shrinkage back then. Now, though, we have to go back and really plan and prepare for both. We have to take a look at what might happen with both growth and shrinkage, and we're really going to take a look at that this fall. We have some things on the table, and we'll just have to come up with a plan that has us really prepared for whatever happens with Class A in the future."

No matter what the future might hold for Class A, though, one thing is for certain - when football season rolls around, it's definitely going to be a new and interesting time for the Havre Blue Ponies.