Football 2026 & 2027 NSAA Football Classifications

[Alum-Ni]

Classifications for the next two-year cycle have been released by the NSAA

CLASS A (425 Boys and above)

1	Grand Island	1,023
2	Millard South	1,019
3	Millard North	976
4	Omaha Central	865
5	Millard West	859
6	Omaha South	830
7	Papillion-LaVista South	811
8	Omaha Creighton Prep	769
9	Omaha Westside	764
10	Lincoln Southeast	749
11	Lincoln North Star	734
12	Papillion-LaVista	697
13	Lincoln High	689
14	Lincoln Northeast	688
15	Lincoln East	680
16	Lincoln Southwest	678
17	Omaha Westview	658
18	Kearney	649
18	Omaha North	649
20	Omaha Burke	648
21	Fremont	618
22	Bellevue West	596
23	Omaha Buena Vista	576
24	Omaha Bryan	563
25	Omaha Northwest	560
26	Elkhorn South	552
27	Omaha Benson	510
28	Columbus	500
29	Bellevue East	499
30	Norfolk	470
31	North Platte	460
32	South Sioux City	454
33	Bennington	451
34	Lincoln Standing Bear	447
35	Lincoln Northwest	441
36	Elkhorn North	437

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS B (Boys Enrollment 160 to 424)

1	Scottsbluff	418
2	Gretna East	411
3	Ralston	397
4	Lincoln Pius X	387
5	Hastings	385
6	Lexington	384
7	Gretna	379
8	Elkhorn	303
9	Norris	283
10	Omaha Skutt	279
11	Crete	274
12	Waverly	271
13	Grand Island Northwest	268
14	Beatrice	240
15	Blair	225
16	Seward	208
17	Gering	196
18	McCook	188
19	York	184
20	Omaha Gross	167
21	Plattsmouth	166
22	Aurora	161
22	Platteview	161

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS C1 (Boys Enrollment 159 and below)

Schools that declared for 11-man football with enrollment of 159 boys or below will be split evenly into Classes C1 and C2

1	Alliance	174 (CEC approved - eligible)
2	Nebraska City	162 (ineligible)
3	Omaha Roncalli	151
4	Wayne	147
5	Ashland-Greenwood	129
6	Sidney	127
6	Wahoo	127
8	Holdrege	125
8	Omaha Concordia	125
10	Elkhorn Mt. Michael	123
11	Columbus Lakeview	120
12	Douglas County West	117
13	Fort Calhoun	111
14	Syracuse	101
15	Boys Town	100
15	Milford	100
17	Chadron	98
18	Arlington	97
19	Broken Bow	94
19	Cozad	94
19	O'Neill	94
22	Minden	93
23	Auburn	91
23	Central City	91
25	Raymond Central	88
26	Adams Central	87
26	Ogallala	87
28	Lincoln Christian	86
29	Pierce	82
30	Kearney Catholic	81 (80.3333)

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS C2 (Boys Enrollment 159 and below)

Schools that declared for 11-man football with enrollment of 159 boys or below will be split evenly into Classes C1 and C2

1	Schuyler	217 (CEC approved - eligible)
2	Omaha Brownell-Talbot / Cornerstone Christian	116 (ineligible)
3	Chase County	81 (83.6667) (ineligible)
3	West Point-Beemer	81 (77.6667)
5	Battle Creek	80
5	Columbus Scotus	80
7	Gothenburg	78
8	Grand Island Central Catholic	77
9	Lincoln Lutheran	76
9	Logan View	76
11	Boone Central	75
12	Louisville	73
12	North Bend	73
14	Bridgeport	72
14	Palmyra	72
14	Wilber-Clatonia	72
17	Mitchell	70
17	St. Paul	70
19	Malcolm	69
20	Doniphan-Trumbull	66
21	Yutan	65
22	Summerland	64
23	Norfolk Catholic	63
24	Valentine	60
25	H & H (Heartland / Hampton)	59
25	Plainview / Osmond	59
25	Wood River	59
28	Fillmore Central	58
29	Ord	57
30	Hershey	53
30	Wahoo Neumann	53
32	Fremont Bergan	52
33	Hartington Cedar Catholic	51

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS D1 (Boys Enrollment 55 and below are eligible)

Those with boys enrollments of 55 and below are playoff eligible for 8-man unless waived by the CEC or receive a waiver from the NSAA. The largest 32 schools will be placed into Class D1, the remaining 8-man declared schools are split evenly between Classes D2 and D3

1	Falls City	92 (ineligible)
2	Conestoga	89 (ineligible)
2	Fairbury	89 (ineligible)
4	David City	78 (ineligible)
5	Johnson County Central	77 (ineligible)
6	Tri County	60 (eligible - wavier)
7	Wakefield	59 (eligible - CEC)
8	Centennial	58 (eligible - waiver)
8	Freeman	58 (ineligible)
10	Tekamah-Herman	57 (eligible - CEC)
11	Gibbon	55
11	Pender	55
11	Ponca	55
14	Atkinson West Holt	54
15	Alma	52
15	Elkhorn Valley	52
17	Sutton	51
17	Thayer Central	51
19	Cedar Bluffs	50
19	Johnson-Brock	50
19	Sandy Creek	50
22	Kimball	49
22	Stanton	49
24	Arcadia / Loup City	48
24	Centura	48
24	Crofton	48
24	Cross County	48
24	Elm Creek	48
24	Elmwood-Murdock	48
24	Hartington-Newcastle	48
24	Ravenna	48
24	Wisner-Pilger	48
33	Gordon-Rushville	47
34	Hastings St. Cecilia	46
34	Lutheran High Northeast	46
34	Twin River	46
37	Amherst	45
37	Homer	45
37	Nebraska Christian	45
40	Exeter-Milligan / Friend	44 (46.0000)

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS D2

Those with boys enrollments of 55 and below are playoff eligible for 8-man unless waived by the CEC or receive a waiver from the NSAA. The largest 32 schools will be placed into Class D1, the remaining 8-man declared schools are split evenly between Classes D2 and D3

1	Madison	57 (eligible - CEC)
2	Fullerton	44 (37.0000)
3	Laurel-Concord-Coleridge	43
3	Superior	43
5	Arapahoe	42
5	David City Aquinas	42
5	Humphrey / Lindsay Academy	42
8	Bancroft-Rosalie	41
8	Creighton	41
8	East Butler	41
8	Newman Grove / St. Edward	41
12	Hemingford	40
12	Maywood / Hayes Center	40
12	Neligh-Oakdale	40
15	Nebraska City Lourdes	39
15	Oakland-Craig	39
15	Perkins County	39
15	Shelby / Rising City	39
15	South Loup	39
15	Tri County Northeast	39
21	Hi-Line	37
21	Howells-Dodge	37
21	Lyons-Decatur Northeast	37
21	North Platte St. Patrick's	37
25	Ainsworth	36
25	Bertrand	36
25	Bloomfield	36
25	Loomis	36
25	Niobrara/Verdigre	36
25	Omaha Christian	36
31	Franklin	35
31	Hitchcock County	35
31	Kenesaw	35
31	Shelton	35
31	Wilcox-Hildreth	35
36	Bruning-Davenport / Shickley	34 (34.6667)

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS D3

Those with boys enrollments of 55 and below are playoff eligible for 8-man unless waived by the CEC or receive a waiver from the NSAA. The largest 32 schools will be placed into Class D1, the remaining 8-man declared schools are split evenly between Classes D2 and D3

1	Omaha Nation	66 (eligible - CEC)
2	Southern	42 (ineligible)
3	Southern Valley	36 (eligible - CEC)
4	Blue Hill	34
5	North Central	33
5	Osceola	33
5	Weeping Water	33
5	Winside	33
9	Boyd County	32
9	Central Valley	32
9	Chambers / Wheeler Central	32
9	Guardian Angels Central Catholic	32
9	Sutherland	32
14	Bayard	31
14	Burwell	31
14	Cambridge	31
14	Dundy County-Stratton	31
14	Maxwell	31
14	Palmer	31
20	Lawrence-Nelson	30
20	Twin Loup	30
22	O'Neill St. Mary's	29
22	Randolph	29
24	Anselmo-Merna	28
24	Axtell	28
24	Pleasanton	28
24	Wausa	28
28	Deshler	27
29	Overton	26
30	Archangels Catholic	25
31	Sandhills Valley	24
32	Brady	23
32	Clarkson	23
32	Leigh	23
35	Sandhills / Thedford	22
36	Wynot	21
37	Wauneta-Palisade	20
38	Elgin / Elgin Pope John	19
38	Mullen	19
40	Falls City Sacred Heart	18
41	Hyannis	15

 

[Alum-Ni]

CLASS D6

Those with boys enrollments of 27 and below are playoff eligible for 6-man unless waived by the CEC or receive a waiver from the NSAA.

1	Humboldt-Table Rock-Steinauer	38 (ineligible)
2	Diller-Odell	31 (eligible - waiver)
3	Mead	30 (ineligible)
3	Morrill	30 (eligible - CEC)
3	Southwest	30 (eligible - waiver)
6	Hay Springs	29 (eligible - waiver)
6	McCool Junction	29 (ineligible)
8	Harvard	28 (eligible - waiver)
9	Ansley / Litchfield	27
9	Minatare	27
11	Garden County	26
11	Pawnee City	26
11	Red Cloud	26
14	Leyton	25
14	Meridian	25
14	South Platte	25
17	Dorchester	24
17	Paxton	24
17	Sumner-Eddyville-Miller	24
20	Cody-Kilgore	23
20	Grand Island Lutheran	23
20	Silver Lake	23
23	Creek Valley	22
23	High Plains	22
23	Stuart	22
26	Medicine Valley	21
26	Parkview Christian	21
26	Riverside / Spalding Academy	21
29	Crawford	20
29	Giltner	20
29	Potter-Dix	20
29	Sterling	20
29	Wallace	20
34	Arthur County	19
34	Lewiston	19
36	Nebraska Lutheran	18
37	Santee	15
38	Banner County	13
38	Scribner-Snyder	13
40	Elba	12
41	Sioux County	7

 

[Alum-Ni]

NO DECLARATION

Not participating in NSAA Football

1	Winnebago	62
2	Walthill	36
3	College View Academy	35
4	Quest Forward Academy	19
5	Omaha Street School	17

 

[LooseCannon]

Quick takes:

-I have been saying it for years, but Class A needs to be smaller, not larger. Cap it at 24 teams.
-Wild not seeing Bennington in B anymore, even if it is just for a cycle or two.
-Pierce being 2 kids away from being C2 is pretty eye opening.
-C2 has so many changes. Scotus and Gothenburg being in C2 will be interesting to follow. That western district will be intriguing to see.
-D1: Whoever gets Kimball and Gordon in their district, get those podcasts ready.
-D2: NPSP, Oakland-Craig, Aquinas all fall into this group. Lots of tradition
-D3: Hyannis, Mullen EPPJ and FCSH playing 8 man with under 20 kids will be something to witness.
-D6: Not a big 6 man follower.

 

[o_GI Husker]

Quick takes:

-I have been saying it for years, but Class A needs to be smaller, not larger. Cap it at 24 teams.
-Wild not seeing Bennington in B anymore, even if it is just for a cycle or two.
-Pierce being 2 kids away from being C2 is pretty eye opening.
-C2 has so many changes. Scotus and Gothenburg being in C2 will be interesting to follow. That western district will be intriguing to see.
-D1: Whoever gets Kimball and Gordon in their district, get those podcasts ready.
-D2: NPSP, Oakland-Craig, Aquinas all fall into this group. Lots of tradition
-D3: Hyannis, Mullen EPPJ and FCSH playing 8 man with under 20 kids will be something to witness.
-D6: Not a big 6 man follower.

Interesting that schools like Fairbury and Falls City opt for 8 man which pushes a school like Kearney Catholic up to C1 and keeps Pierce in C1

 

[LooseCannon]

What is wild is out of all the 8 man schools that are ineligible. The majority of them are all within the same four county stretch of Jefferson, Gage, Johnson, and Richardson.

Falls City (Richardson)
Fairbury (Jefferson)
JCC (Johnson)
Freeman (Gage)
Southern (Gage)

Conestoga (Cass)
David City (Butler)

IMO, they should all be in their own district together.

 

[nenebskers]

Kudos to the NSAA membership for pushing 8 man cutoff to 55. Unfortunately it should have been there about 10 years ago. Now it should be more around 62 or so IMO.

 

[pajans01]

I technically had the numbers and ordering correct, but when I was trying to figure out the classifications, I had West Point-Beemer in C1 instead of C2. The way I read the rules for classification, they would divide C1 and C2 evenly and give any odd number to C2. Teams that are not playoff eligible do not factor into the number. So Nebraska City, Chase County, and Brownell Talbot were non-factors. Both C1 (Alliance) and C2 (Schuyler) have teams opting down to their respective classes that are playoff eligible, so that evens out. Then they gave 28 of the remaining teams to C1 and 30 to C2, which is what bumped WPB down compared to what I had. So the way it works out, C1 will have 30 teams, 29 of which will be eligible for the playoffs. C2 will have 33 teams, 31 of which will be eligible. It's obviously not a huge difference (29/31 vs. 30/30), but did I have some fundamental misunderstanding how they divide the teams for C1 and C2?

 

[rufuller]

It gets tricky, you have to put all the teams in their natural classification split first. Then start the moving parts. So essentially you can’t count the CEC or ineligibles right away. Go through the classes exactly how they should be if you aren’t allowed to move up or down and have a waiver. Hope that makes sense?

 

[SpaghettiSlayer]

What is wild is out of all the 8 man schools that are ineligible. The majority of them are all within the same four county stretch of Jefferson, Gage, Johnson, and Richardson.

Falls City (Richardson)
Fairbury (Jefferson)
JCC (Johnson)
Freeman (Gage)
Southern (Gage)

Conestoga (Cass)
David City (Butler)

IMO, they should all be in their own district together.

Could easily do that for D1. Wymore-Southern being the lone ineligible in D3 probably doesn't hurt so much. Johnson-Brock might literally be the only eligible team for the district created for the southeast corner of the state!

 

[Sean Callahan]

Quick takes:

-I have been saying it for years, but Class A needs to be smaller, not larger. Cap it at 24 teams.
-Wild not seeing Bennington in B anymore, even if it is just for a cycle or two.
-Pierce being 2 kids away from being C2 is pretty eye opening.
-C2 has so many changes. Scotus and Gothenburg being in C2 will be interesting to follow. That western district will be intriguing to see.
-D1: Whoever gets Kimball and Gordon in their district, get those podcasts ready.
-D2: NPSP, Oakland-Craig, Aquinas all fall into this group. Lots of tradition
-D3: Hyannis, Mullen EPPJ and FCSH playing 8 man with under 20 kids will be something to witness.
-D6: Not a big 6 man follower.

Could we see this someday? - 121 total 11-man teams. I'm not sure what the answer is. They need to kick some of C-1 up to B and some of Class A needs to move down to B. Gretna East, Scottsbluff and Pius all could easily find their way back to A numbers, too in the next few years.

A-1 - 24 teams
A-2 - 32 teams
B - 32 teams
C - 33 teams

 

[rufuller]

What is wild is out of all the 8 man schools that are ineligible. The majority of them are all within the same four county stretch of Jefferson, Gage, Johnson, and Richardson.

Falls City (Richardson)
Fairbury (Jefferson)
JCC (Johnson)
Freeman (Gage)
Southern (Gage)

Conestoga (Cass)
David City (Butler)

IMO, they should all be in their own district together.

Not a bad thought putting them all in one district, only downfall is Freeman could be midcycle eligible and would get an automatic bid the second year to the playoffs. I don't see those others being midcycle eligible.

 

[hailvictors2]

Could we see this someday? - 121 total 11-man teams. I'm not sure what the answer is. They need to kick some of C-1 up to B and some of Class A needs to move down to B. Gretna East, Scottsbluff and Pius all could easily find their way back to A numbers, too in the next few years.

A-1 - 24 teams
A-2 - 32 teams
B - 32 teams
C - 33 teams

And expand what is already the largest enrollment gap from top to bottom? Sounds like a pretty bad idea to me. Scottsbluff is 418, Platteview and Aurora are 161, which is 38% the size of Scottsbluff. Why would we raise the ceiling and drop the basement to increase that gap? B is already the largest gap (in terms of percentage) in all classes.

 

[LooseCannon]

And expand what is already the largest enrollment gap from top to bottom? Sounds like a pretty bad idea to me. Scottsbluff is 418, Platteview and Aurora are 161, which is 38% the size of Scottsbluff. Why would we raise the ceiling and drop the basement to increase that gap? B is already the largest gap (in terms of percentage) in all classes.

I respect your opinion a lot, so I am curious your thoughts on how to fix the enrollment gap in B when it comes to classifications?

 

[Amadevil]

Success rate and the European Soccer promotion/relegation system. Would have to do a study on how many years to use for success rate but I know some states use 3. This doesn't work with our current scheduling cycle but maybe that needs to change as well. Handles the parochial school argument as well.

 

[Sean Callahan]

I respect your opinion a lot, so I am curious your thoughts on how to fix the enrollment gap in B when it comes to classifications?

My thing is there are teams in Class C-1 that easily could play B and still win B. Omaha Gross, for example, opted up to B and nearly won it a couple years ago. In C-1, they were a playoff team, but struggled against the top C-1 teams. I think there are a group of 6-8 C-1 teams that would be just fine in B.

You need more than 22 teams. I don't know what the best way to do it is, but there has to be a way to get Class B closer to 28-30 teams.

 

[GoSkers3]

My thing is there are teams in Class C-1 that easily could play B and still win B. Omaha Gross, for example, opted up to B and nearly won it a couple years ago. In C-1, they were a playoff team, but struggled against the top C-1 teams. I think there are a group of 6-8 C-1 teams that would be just fine in B.

You need more than 22 teams. I don't know what the best way to do it is, but there has to be a way to get Class B closer to 28-30 teams.

So, are you basing who moves up from C-1 to B by success? Because the top end of C-1 schools, enrollment wise, aren't always the ones that are competing for championships.

 

[Fourverts_18]

So, are you basing who moves up from C-1 to B by success? Because the top end of C-1 schools, enrollment wise, aren't always the ones that are competing for championships.

Sure you would get some C1 teams every year that could make the playoffs in class B, but I think it would be rare to get a team that could actually compete for a championship with teams 3 or 4 times their size.

 

[Sean Callahan]

Sure you would get some C1 teams every year that could make the playoffs in class B, but I think it would be rare to get a team that could actually compete for a championship with teams 3 or 4 times their size.

York, Aurora and Omaha Gross are really the only ones in recent years that you could make a case for that have won big in Class B with smaller numbers. And really, everything changed once Elkhorn South, Bennington, etc., got going in Class B. They had max numbers with very high participation rates. The smaller community Class B schools did not have the depth to match-up when they had to play guys two ways in most cases.

 

[LooseCannon]

Sure you would get some C1 teams every year that could make the playoffs in class B, but I think it would be rare to get a team that could actually compete for a championship with teams 3 or 4 times their size.

Eh, I’d bet Wahoo would make deep playoff runs in the past few years in Class B

 

[hailvictors2]

I respect your opinion a lot, so I am curious your thoughts on how to fix the enrollment gap in B when it comes to classifications?

I'm not sure that there is a true fix to this without creating a different set of problems. If you fix one classification it likely creates a problem in another classification. The foundational issue is that Nebraska has 122 teams playing 11-man football next cycle (4 classes), 117 teams playing 8-man (3 classes), and 41 playing 6-man (1 class). That doesn't include the two 9-man schools we have in the All-Nations league. Mix that with the shear land size of our state - 430 miles east-west and 210 miles north-south - and it makes classification pretty difficult. An overwhelming majority of our state's population resides in a 30-40 mile radius.

The quantity of teams playing each style of football (11-8-6) makes it impossible to have equity in the # of teams per class. We could make 11-man 3 classes and go about 40 per class, but that broadens the gap from the top of A (Grand Island-1,023) to the bottom (Pius X-397), and it makes the gap in B insanely large (Hastings-385 to O'Neill-94). Positive = we get 3 classes of 11 man football with about the same number of teams in each class. Negative = the gap from the bottom of the class to the top is 4:1 (25%) in some cases.

In my opinion (and it is just that, opinion), we have to decide what are we looking for in classification? Do we want to have the same quantity of teams in each class, or do we want the bottom enrollment number of each class to be within ___ % of the top enrollment # of the class. To me, the latter makes more sense. The negative to doing it like this is it often means less teams in a classification and more classifications. The fewer teams in a classification, the less meaningful success becomes (to a degree). If you shrink the # of teams in a class I think you have to shrink the playoff size to match. Class B should be 8 teams (I could be convinced of 4).

When the topic of classification comes up there are a few ideas that frequently resurface that I don't believe are good for Nebraska or kids in general.
1- The multiplier for non-public schools
***Seems to be a large contingency in our state that believe because a kid comes from money they are automatically better at sports. There is not a direct correlation between money invested and success. And if this is a suggestion that private schools recruit and we should count kids as 1.33 for that reason, that now needs to apply to every public school with open enrollment. The fact of the matter is there has been and will always be "recruiting" going on in the metro....its even made its way to the panhandle. But the biggest recruiting tools are kids recruiting their friends and program reputation recruiting for itself. If you were a football player growing up in Norfolk would you want to go to Norfolk Senior High, Norfolk Catholic, or Lutheran High Northeast? Ask the same questions about a kid in Hastings, Fremont, Grand Island, North Platte, Columbus, Falls City, David City, etc...

2- The divider for F/R lunch students
***Nobody will ever convince me that a student should count as less than a whole person just because their family doesn't have a certain income. This notion that F/R lunch students should only count as .66 or .75 towards the enrollment count is inhumane. A kid is a kid, whether they are F/R lunch, have an IEP, or are a general education student.

3- English Premier League style Relegation
***Nebraska schools are so small that this is unrealistic in every class but A. Look at Seward and Elkhorn in class B. Elkhorn won a state title in 2020, they went 0-9 this year. Seward was 3-6 in 2020, they took the state champs to Overtime on the road in the playoffs this year. Athletes in small towns are so cyclical that it isn't justified or "right" to relegate a team based on how the classes 3 grades above them faired. Its why this "Emerging" district in class B is so illogical. Blair is 6-3 in 2020, now they will play in the emerging district. Make it make sense. Sandy Creek was a 3 win team in 2019, 2020, and 2021. They are back to back state champions now.

I don't have a perfect answer. If I had to pick 1 thing I think I would say we need to shrink the # of teams in each class to lessen the enrollment gap from top to bottom of each class, then shrink the playoff size to 25-33% of the total classification size. Might mean we have 10 classes of football. Fine with me.

 

[HuskerO58]

I'm not sure what the official name was, but back in the 90s (maybe 80s too), they had the Gridiron Playoffs.

I know it was NSAA sanctioned, but who cares. Being that back!