Prep Football- The Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) has released the district assignments for the 2025 and 2026 football seasons after the IHSAA updated the classification breakdown for the upcoming two-year cycle. Here’s where our local teams will be place.
Eight Player
District 5 will house our local teams in WACO and Winfield-Mt. Union as the two have each claimed one district title in the past three years. They will be joined by last year’s district champion in Iowa Valley and returning members of Lone Tree, HLV, and English Valleys.
New London’s move to Class A ushered in Belle Plaine to fill in the open slot.
Class A
Different class but same district number, District 5 will contain all our local matchups. The returning members include Columbus, Danville, Highland, Pekin, Van Buren County, and Wapello. The new kid on the block will be New London.
Class 2A
Mid-Prairie will attempt to reclaim its district championship for District 6 as fellow member West Burlington/Notre Dame will look to keep the momentum of their program’s first postseason victory from last season.
Joining these two teams will be Wilton, West Liberty, Central Lee, and Mediapolis.
Class 3A
After several years of having to play against fellow Southeast Conference rivals in non-district showdowns, the conference will be together in District 4—sans Burlington. Fairfield had been the odd man out for the past couple of years, but they will join Fort Madison, Keokuk, Washington, and Mt. Pleasant in the district.
The one team not belonging to the SEC but in the district is Solon.
Class 4A
Burlington will have to stick with its non-district matchups to take on the Southeast Conference as they sit in District 3 of Class 4A. The Grayhounds will take on familiar foes of Clinton, North Scott, Davenport North, Davenport West, and Western Dubuque.
More
The schedules for the 2025 and 2026 seasons will be released as soon as possible but no concrete date has been announced. Week one will officially kick off on Thursday, August 28th.
The playoff breakdown will see Classes 4A and 3A with 16 playoff qualifiers with the top two teams from the six districts plus four at-large bids making the playoffs.
Classes 2A, A, and 8-Player will have 32 playoff qualifiers. The difference for 8-Player, only the top three per district will be automatic bids with two at-large bids, while Classes 2A and A will qualify the top four per district with no at-large bids.