A 4A Conference proposal to remove its teams from Open Division football consideration was approved Thursday during a special Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Board meeting.

The emergency meeting was scheduled after the 4A Conference met on Monday and forwarded the proposal to the AIA. Next week, the first football power rankings for 4-6A schools of the 2024 season will be posted. 

The power rankings are used primarily to seed the state tournaments. The conversation to potentially keep 4A football schools from participating in the Open Division started two years ago, said AIA Executive Director David Hines. 

That conversation picked up steam during the 4A Conference’s meeting at the Arizona Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association’s (AIAAA) September conference in Prescott. A survey was sent to 4A schools, and 59 percent of them said they didn’t want to play in the Open if their football teams qualified. 

The schools were also asked if 4A football programs should still be considered for the Open Division. Sixty-eight percent responded no to that question, said AIA Board President Matt Belden, the 4A Conference representative on the Executive Board. 

“The process that we have had for the last many years has worked, and the teams that needed to move up have been successful after being moved up,” Hines said. “But as we anticipated about six years ago, we are starting to get to that saturation point. We don’t have a dominant team now. Those 4A teams should be competing within their conference now.”