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Northmont has opted to move up to Division I for the upcoming 2026 football season.
The full list of eight schools moving up to compete in the state’s largest enrollment division was announced Monday by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. All eight programs were slated to compete in D-II.
The initial list of division assignments were unveiled by the OHSAA in April. Northmont’s football competitive balance enrollment of 561 would have been the ninth most of D-II schools. Northmont last competed in D-II in 2023.
“We already play a D-I schedule,” Northmont athletic director Micah Harding said. “We got the projections from the state of what region we would be in, I think there were 19 teams in D-I and 26 teams in D-II, and we just felt like this gave us the best opportunity to try and make a playoff run if we can make some improvements this year.”
The move was the idea of second-year head coach Ben Rulli. Harding said they recognize the difficulty going against some schools with more than double their enrollment numbers, but they plan to continue evaluating each year if moving up to D-I is what they feel is the best move for the program.
“I think D-II really is a solid fit for us. Our enrollment has declined and we have some smaller classes coming up, so I think we will be D-II legitimately for a while now,” Harding said.
The upcoming 2026 season will be the first time since 2022 all eight Greater Western Ohio Conference members will compete in D-I for football. The eight were last in the same region together in 2021.
Northmont went 0-10 in the 2025 season and has a 17-game losing streak spanning two seasons.
The other schools choosing to opt up into D-I were Austintown-Finch, Cleveland Heights, Elyria, Euclid, Hudson, Dublin Scioto and Toledo St. John’s Jesuit.
No schools already placed into D-I will be moved down to D-II as corresponding moves by the OHSAA. The eight opt ups will increase the number of D-I teams to 80, and decrease the total of D-II teams to 98.
Northmont will compete in Region 2 with all other GWOC members except for Springboro, which was reassigned to Region 4 along with Lebanon and Middletown.
Perrysburg and Toledo St. John’s Jesuit were added to Region 2 and Upper Arlington moved to Region 3.
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