Gone are Bentonville’s Tearris Wallace and Fayetteville’s Austin Allen, the two state championship offensive game leaders.

Gone are Bentonville’s Garrett Kaufman and Fayetteville’s Alex Brignoni and Brooks Ellis, the two state championship game leaders on the team’s defenses.

Gone are quarterbacks Jacob Eason of Van Buren, Nick Wary of Rogers, Will Whatley of Springdale and Hayden Lessenberry of Bryant, which is placed in the West for playoff purposes.

Will that be enough for a 7A/6A-Central team to finally break through and place a team in the Class 7A state championship game next year for the first time since 2005?

The top two teams in the West for the past three years — Bentonville and Fayetteville — will take major graduation hits from two of the most impressive senior classes in conference history with a combined 69-11 record and three straight championship game appearances.

North Little Rock, Fort Smith Southside and Conway are the likely teams to battle the West’s supremacy.

Springdale Har-Ber returns quarterback Kyle Pianalto, Rogers Heritage returns quarterback Josh Qualls and Springdale High returns running back Deandre Murray.

Those three teams could be counted on to carry the West banner, but don’t count Bentonville and Fayetteville out just yet. As long as they remain one-school cities, Bentonville and Fayetteville are the teams to beat regardless of who graduates.

STAR POWER

Saturday’s state championship game featured two of the most prolific offensive players to ever come through the conference.

Bentonville running back Tearris Wallace led the conference in rushing with 1,777 yards and 26 touchdowns. For his career, he rushed 721 times for 4,689 yards and 67 touchdowns. Wallace’s career rushing touchdowns tied him with West Memphis’ De’Arrius Howard and Little Rock Central’s Dedrick Poole for most career rushing touchdowns in the state’s largest classification.

“We’re really proud of him,” said Bentonville coach Barry Lunney. “He would have had it by a landslide if he would have played full games. For two years, he’s played about half the number of games; we pulled him out. I’m disappointed we couldn’t get one more, but people have to understand there were a lot of games that he didn’t play but one half. He’s a warrior. He’s a great competitor.”

Fayetteville’s Allen led the conference in passing with 3,565 yards and 29 touchdowns. For his career, he passed for 7,813 yards and 77 touchdowns. This season, he completed 228 of 362 passes for a completion percentage of 62.98, and during his career he completed 511 of 811 passes for 73 percent, so he was also extremely consistent.

CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT?

This was the first year of the customary two-year cycle for conference alignments after reclassification.

The conference will remain the same for the 2013 football season. After that, though, even if the classifications stay the same, the 7A/6A-West could change back to the 7A-West.

Nothing official has been submitted to the Arkansas Activities Association, but Fort Smith Northside and Southside will likely petition to go back to the conference with Fayetteville, Springdale High, Har-Ber, Rogers High, Heritage and Bentonville like it used to be.

Siloam Springs and Van Buren would join the 7A/6A-Central with Greenwood, Russellville, Conway, Little Rock Hall and Little Rock Parkview, along with Alma, which is expected to be elevated to Class 6A for the next cycle.

“They can petition to do that,” said Lance Taylor, executive director of the Arkansas Activities Association. “They’re just trying to get a system that works better for them.”

While geographically the current alignment is better, the possible proposal would put schools of similar size together for the two conferences consisting of schools in this part of the state. The longest conference trip for Siloam Springs now is to Fayetteville. Under the new proposal, the longest trip would be to Little Rock. However, the Panthers would be more competitive in the Central while also competing against four 6A schools instead of seven 7A schools, some of which are double their size.

The sticking point will likely be Van Buren, which experienced the travel and poor visiting attendance of the Central teams for four years. Now back in the West, opposing crowds increased dramatically, and Van Buren likes it. Visiting fans from Parkview and Hall are nonexistent. Likewise, Van Buren didn’t want to travel to Parkview or Hall.

Randy Loyd, Van Buren athletic director, stood on the sideline at the Pointers’ home game against Rogers High, enjoying the huge crowd.

“It’s huge to our community and our student body,” Loyd said. “We missed that part of it and the atmosphere.”

Northside and Southside figured that out this season in their first year in the Central, and they want back in the West.

“They haven’t done anything yet officially,” Taylor said. “Everybody is just discussing it.”

A proposed change in the realignment could also result in the move back to one conference made solely of 7A schools and another made solely of 6A schools. Two other conferences would be mixed conferences, but that would eliminate the need to take all 16 teams to the playoffs in 6A. Currently, because of the points rating system, the 6A takes all 16 teams to the playoffs because it is difficult to determine which teams should go to the playoffs and which teams shouldn’t with teams spread across four conferences.

Taking all 16 teams has created a couple of ridiculous mismatches.

This year, for the first time ever the playoffs featured a first-round game involving an undefeated team against a winless team when 10-0 Greenwood hosted 0-10 Little Rock Fair. Greenwood ran 22 plays for 295 yards and eight first downs just in the opening quarter to take a 35-0 lead on the way to a 56-14 win.

In the first round of the girls’ basketball state tournament in February, Little Rock Parkview beat 0-22 Little Rock Fair, 83-11. Parkview led 49-7 at the half.

“With four mixed conferences you have to take them all, but the 6A doesn’t want to take them all,” Taylor said. “Those teams really don’t want to be there.”

ALL-STATE, ALL-CONFERENCE

Coaches have met to decide players who were selected to the all-star, all-state and all-conference teams.

This year was like no other, however.

This was the first year with four conferences made of both 7A and 6A teams. When the coaches met, they first joined coaches from the conference in which they played during the regular season to pick the Outstanding Back and Outstanding Lineman, who are automatic qualifiers to the Arkansas Coaches Association All-Star game in June. They also chose the all-conference performers.

Then they had to switch rooms for the 7A coaches to meet with each other and 6A coaches to meet with other to select all-state players. So coaches had to decide on all-state players that they never saw play during the season due to the conference alignments. Of course, this isn’t the coach’s fault but it does put them in a very unfortunate situation.

Also, because of the East and West players being decided solely based on conference alignment and not actual geographical location of schools, players chosen for the all-star game from Greenwood, Southside and Northside will play with the East teams. Greenwood’s school district actually borders Pocola, Okla., at one point while the Fort Smith school district can look across the Arkansas River at Oklahoma. While the three schools are about as west as it gets in Arkansas, their players will play for the East.

Van Buren’s players the last four years have played on the East roster although the school also borders Oklahoma.

As one coach told Loyd, “the only thing you’re east of is Oklahoma.”

7A/6A-WEST FINAL STATISTICAL LEADERS

TEAM OFFENSE

TEAM RUSH PASS TOTAL AVG/GM

Rogers Heritage 1840 2400 4240 385.5

Fayetteville 1314 3592 4906 377.4

Springdale Har-Ber 2271 2024 4295 357.9

Bentonvillle 2454 2146 4600 353.8

Van Buren 1529 1903 3432 343.2

Rogers High 3520 225 3745 340.5

Springdale High 2238 945 3183 318.3

Siloam Springs 1254 2220 3474 315.8

TEAM DEFENSE

TEAM RUSH PASS TOTAL AVG/GM

Bentonville 1486 1220 2706 208.2

Fayetteville 1720 1831 3551 273.2

Springdale Har-Ber 1801 1563 3364 280.3

Springdale High 1589 1869 3458 345.8

Rogers High 2061 1920 3981 361.9

Rogers Heritage 2011 2195 4206 382.4

Siloam Springs 2454 1953 4407 400.6

Van Buren 2367 1820 4187 418.7

OFFENSIVE SCORING

TEAM RUSH PASS DEF SPEC TOTAL

Bentonville 37 26 3 1 67

Fayetteville 25 29 5 0 59

Rogers Heritage 25 26 2 1 54

Rogers High 44 2 0 1 47

Springdale Har-Ber 19 28 0 0 47

Van Buren 18 19 2 0 39

Springdale High 26 8 1 2 37

Siloam Springs 20 15 0 0 35

DEFENSIVE SCORING

TEAM RUSH PASS DEF SPEC TOTAL

Bentonville 8 3 4 1 16

Springdale Har-Ber 16 13 2 0 31

Fayetteville 18 16 1 2 37

Springdale High 20 21 0 0 41

Rogers High 25 23 1 1 50

Rogers Heritage 28 21 0 1 50

Van Buren 38 17 0 0 55

Siloam Springs 37 26 5 1 69

TURNOVER RATIO

TEAM TAKEAWAYS GIVEAWAYS TOTAL

Bentonville 35 10 +25

Fayetteville 33 17 +16

Rogers Heritage 29 23 6

Rogers High 10 9 1

Springdale High 17 23 -6

Van Buren 16 22 -6

Siloam Springs 17 27 -10

Springdale Har-Ber 11 23 -12

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

PASSING

PLAYER, SCHOOL PC PA INT YDS TD

Austin Allen, Fayetteville 228 362 5 3565 29

Josh Qualls, Rogers Heritage 162 297 10 2371 27

Reese Dollins, Bentonville 150 213 7 2071 25

Kyle Pianalto, Springdale Har-Ber 125 213 8 1882 26

Austin Van Poucke, Siloam Springs 134 250 16 1846 13

Jacob Eason, Van Buren 155 274 12 1712 15

Will Whatley, Springdale 75 145 10 945 8

Chris Lampton, Siloam Springs 34 78 4 374 2

Nick Wary, Rogers High 9 24 1 209 2

RUSHING

PLAYER, SCHOOL ATT YDS TD

Tearris Wallace, Bentonville 297 1777 23

Deandre Murray, Springdale 189 1421 17

Tucker Lee, Springdale Har-Ber 211 1321 10

Brandon Gates, Rogers Heritage 211 1251 14

Nick Wary, Rogers High 143 1120 22

Jacob Eason, Van Buren 178 816 11

Scout Alexander, Siloam Springs 160 798 10

Ty Galyean, Rogers High 93 768 8

Will Whatley, Springdale 115 490 3

Braydon Cook, Fayetteville 101 433 6

Austin Van Poucke, Siloam Springs 115 432 9

Preston Young, Rogers High 74 400 5

Dylan Smith, Bentonville 66 399 5

Brice Gahagans, Fayetteville 88 392 5

Deverick Fimple, Van Buren 84 358 2

Kyle Pianalto, Springdale Har-Ber 88 356 6

Brandon Workman, Rogers High 30 315 3

Jacquille Franklin, Van Buren 62 303 4

Stokes Wenzler, Rogers High 24 256 1

Forrest Johnson, Rogers Heritage 36 243 3

Austin Allen, Fayetteville 95 200 10

RECEIVING

PLAYER, SCHOOL NO YDS TD

Forrest Johnson, Rogers Heritage 72 1396 15

Cole Harris, Fayetteville 68 1255 6

Jordan Dennis, Fayetteville 64 1000 10

Chandler Gregory, Siloam Springs 45 631 6

Bradley Eversole, Van Buren 45 463 3

Nick Byrne, Springdale Har-Ber 44 715 10

Scout Alexander, Siloam Springs 36 616 2

Bronson Tucker, Siloam Springs 34 472 4

William Walton, Van Buren 34 382 5

Trey Perkins, Bentonville 33 572 6

Wayce Connor, Van Buren 32 530 4

Gus Vitt, Springdale Har-Ber 29 464 8

Brice Gahagans, Fayetteville 25 299 1

Carlos Hernandez, Rogers Heritage 24 385 3

Wyatt Whatley, Springdale 24 309 2

Cody Scroggins, Bentonville 24 264 4

Jimmie Jackson, Bentonville 22 341 2

Jeremy Spickes, Rogers Heritage 22 236 5

Chadd Holmes, Fayetteville 19 284 3

Jack Kraus, Bentonville 19 242 3

Matt Garrison, Springdale Har-Ber 18 239 3

Edwin Magana, Siloam Springs 17 145 1

Brandon Gates, Rogers Heritage 17 86 2

Garrett Tallman, Springdale 16 236 3

Jordan Herring, Siloam Springs 16 199 0

Jacquille Franklin, Van Buren 16 169 2

Anthony Gibbons, Van Buren 14 85 1

Deandre Murray, Springdale 13 132 0