Change greets each high school football season, but some years more than others.

And 2005 is one of those years.

Here’s a refresher course on some of the changes greeting the state’s high school football world this fall:

Eastern A: This division switches from a 14-team, two-division format to an 11-team, single-division alignment due to the shift of Windham from Eastern A to Western A and the decisions of Gardiner and Waterville to drop to the Class B ranks.

Teams will now play an eight-game regular-season schedule over nine weeks, with each team having one bye week.

Because of the 11-team set-up, one team will have a bye each weekend, except for the weekend of Sept. 30-Oct. 1, when three teams – Lawrence of Fairfield, Lewiston and Skowhegan – all will be idle.

One additional result of the new alignment is that just four teams will qualify for postseason play based on the Crabtree Point Ratings, down from eight a year ago.

Three new head coaches will man the sideline this fall, Dan Cooper of Brunswick, John Hersom of Lawrence of Fairfield, and Bob Austin of Oxford Hills of South Paris.

Eastern B: While in Eastern A there is a reduction in forces, in Class B there is growth in numbers.

Not only has the drop of Gardiner and Waterville to the Pine Tree Conference B ranks added to the depth at the top of the division, Maranacook of Readfield makes the move up from Class C in accordance with its Class B enrollment level.

The PTC B ranks now has 12 teams divided into two six-team divisions. The North consists of Belfast, Brewer, Hampden Academy, Mount Desert Island, Old Town and Winslow. In the South are Gardiner, Leavitt of Turner Center, Maranacook, Morse of Bath, Oak Hill of Wales and Waterville.

Each team will play the other teams in its division, as well as three interdivisional games, leading to an eight-team playoff format – up from four teams a year ago.

Harry McCluskey of Hampden Academy, Jason Libby of Morse and Greg Lynch of Maranacook are new head coaches in the division.

Eastern C: The LTC has one less team this year, but the same number of programs eligible for postseason play.

Maranacook’s move to the PTC Class B ranks means there are just nine teams left in the division.

But Rockland, which has played in the LTC in recent years as it rebuilt but has not been eligible for the playoffs due because its enrollment was at a Class B level, is now a Class C-sized school for football and now will be able to compete for one of the division’s four playoff berths.

Because the LTC is down to nine teams, each of the teams will play a crossover game against a team from Western Maine Class C.

There’s just one “new” head coach in the division this year, as longtime Stearns of Millinocket head man Art Greenlaw has taken the reins at Mattanawcook Academy at Lincoln.

Western Maine is not without changes of its own.

Western A is up to 16 teams in two eight-team divisions with the moves of Windham from Eastern A and Gorham from Western B.

Gray-New Gloucester is a new program playing its first year of varsity football, while Cape Elizabeth has moved up from Class C to give Western B 10 teams.

And in Western C, the loss of Cape Elizabeth has dropped that division to nine teams. Dirigo of Dixfield, which for the last two years shared a team with Buckfield, is now fielding a team on its own.

Hoop tourney taking shape

The schedule for the 2006 Maine high school basketball tournaments is expected to be formalized when the basketball committee of the Maine Principals’ Association meets in October.

But tentative schedules for the Eastern B, C and D tournament at the Bangor Auditorium and the Eastern A and Western C and D tournaments to be held at the Augusta Civic Center are set, according to MPA executive director Dick Durost.

A reworking of the schedule was made necessary last year when the MPA’s general membership voted to move the Eastern A tournament from Bangor to Augusta and the Western B tournament from Augusta to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, as well as advancing the Eastern and Western A tournaments from early March to February vacation week to coincide with the B, C and D regional tournaments.

Durost said the Eastern A tournament is likely to inherit the dates and times in Augusta formerly used by the Western B tournament. That means quarterfinals would be held during afternoon and evening sessions of the first Friday and Saturday of tournament week, or Feb. 17 and 18, 2006. Semifinals would be held the following Wednesday afternoon and evening, Feb. 22, with regional championship games to be held two nights later, on Friday, Feb. 24.

Specific seeding matchups for the quarterfinal and semifinal matchups have not yet been determined, Durost said.

The Western C and D tournaments would follow the same schedule they have used in recent years at Augusta, Durost said, while the Eastern B, C and D tournament schedule in Bangor likely would be unchanged.

In that case, there would be no overlap among Eastern Maine championship contests, with the A finals on Friday in Augusta and the B, C and D title games on Championship Saturday – Feb. 25, 2006 – that has become a recent tradition at the Bangor Auditorium.

The Western A and B schedule in Portland has not been worked out yet, Durost said, though he added there is more flexibility since there is only two classes being contested at the Cumberland County Civic Center compared to three classes in both Bangor and Augusta.

Durost said television coverage of the 2006 tournament still is being worked out. Proposals from prospective broadcasters were due Aug. 26, and he said MPA officials expect to act on those proposals “certainly within the next couple of weeks.”

Also set are dates for the 2006 state championship games. The Class B finals will be played on Friday, March 3, while championship games in Classes A, C and D will be played Saturday, March 4.