Vestavia Hills William Hurt (#60) makes the stop at Vestavia vs Montgomery Catholic on October 30, 2025 at Thompson Reynolds Stadium. Photo by Lindsay Handey.
The countdown to the high school football season is on, with July 17 marking 34 days until the season kicks off.
Vestavia Hills will play on the first day of AHSAA competition, as the Rebels will take on Parker on Aug. 20.
As kickoff approaches over the coming weeks, Vestavia Voice and Under the Lights will be counting down the days until the season begins.
The Alabama High School Athletic Association's Central Board of Control approved expanding the playoff field in the state's largest football classification from 16 teams to 24 qualifiers at its winter meeting . The new format begins this season.
“We thank our coaches from the AHSAA's largest classification for diligently working on this new playoff format,” AHSAA Executive Director Heath Harmon said. “These changes will give more schools a chance to host playoff games in the future.”
The other five public school classifications will continue to advance 32 teams to the playoffs. There were no changes to the independent school playoff divisions, which were addressed at December's meeting.
Vestavia Hills head coach Robert Evans has been anticipating a change along these lines. Evans was directly involved in discussions around reworking the format alongside other coaches in the classification.
“Really proud of the co-working with Coach [Bart] Sessions on that, getting that, we had a lot of input, and it was universal agreement among the coaches,” Evans said. “I really do hope that we can continue working to the point one day where we get the best bracket.”
Evans said Vestavia Hills hasn't hosted a home playoff game in 13 years, and a top-four regional finish under the new format would put the Rebels back in position to do so. He said the wider playoff field should also better reflect which teams have actually earned a spot in the postseason.
“There was so much work and research that went into our presentation to the AHSAA," he said. "It was well vetted and eventually passed by the Central Board. We didn’t get the seeded version that most coaches wanted, but this is a drastic improvement from years past. It guarantees that the best teams will be in the playoffs and has also added an offseason layer of strategy [schedule building] that has never existed before. No one knows right now if they have taken the right off week. I really like that."
