The entire high school football scene is in for a change when the 2015 comes around and some of those changes are now official after the MSHSL unveiled what schools will be in what Districts on Monday.

Starting in the fall of 2015, football teams will no longer play a conference schedule and they will instead play a District schedule during the regular season. Those same District teams will face off against each other in the postseason. The state was divided into 18 Districts, with some being much larger than others.

For the Packers, there is one glaring omission in the 12-team Big Southeast District — Albert Lea is absent. The Big Southeast includes every Big Nine Conference team besides Albert Lea, which was replaced by New Prague.

Although Austin could still drop a District game and play the Tigers, that may not happen and you may see the Packer-Tiger rivalry come to an end on the football field. In two years the Districts will be re-aligned and Albert Lea could be moved to the Big Southeast District, but there’s no guarantee that will happen.

That means when the Packers play at Albert Lea Sept. 5 this fall it could be the last time Austin plays against its I-90 in football in awhile, if not ever. The Packers beat Albert Lea 37-25 this past season.

It would be a shame if the Packers and Tiger no longer met on the football field as the game usually brings out plenty of emotions on both sides of the ball. But there’s not much that can be done about it.

“It kind of stinks that we can’t play Albert Lea and we’ll have to change our whole schedule if we want to play them,” Austin head football coach Brett Vesel said. “We’ll play them this year. Then who knows after two years of districts when they’ll re-do it again.”

Vesel said it could be tricky to schedule the Tigers once District play begins, because Austin would have to figure out which game it would drop from its District schedule and that opponent would have to agree to give up the game as well.

Other than losing the Tigers, Vesel doesn’t mind the switch from conference football to District football.

“It doesn’t matter to me. It’s good to get something going so we know what were doing,” he said.

The change could be a bigger one for the Blooming Prairie, Southland and Hayfield football teams. All three of those schools are in the 16-team Mid-Southeast District.

Depending on whether the District divvies up its schedule by East and West or North and South could have a big impact on how much it affects teams.

“If they go East-West it won’t be too different for us,” BP head football coach Chad Gimbel said. “If they go North-South, we would probably be playing all different teams. It will definitely change some of the things that we do during the regular season as coaches. It’s something we just haven’t had to concern ourselves with in the past.”

The Awesome Blossoms have won the last 11 Gopher Valley Conference titles, but after this season they won’t have a chance to win another one. Gimbel said the team will still be able to chase after a Sub-District title and he thinks the move to the District format is a good one.

“Change is always good,” Gimbel said. “I think this is what’s best for everybody throughout the whole state.”

Lyle-Pacelli, Grand Meadow and LeRoy-Ostrander will all be placed in the South 21-team South District that contains all of the Southeast Conference schools, so they shouldn’t see much of change.