A visual look at what division each team will be in for the upcoming football season. ScoringLive photo illustration

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The Oahu Interscholastic Association will use a three-tier format for its upcoming football season, league football coordinator Harold Tanaka confirmed Monday night.

Six teams comprise the topmost division while the other two tiers will have eight teams each, said Tanaka.

The teams in each division is listed below (in alphabetical order).

Open: Campbell, Farrington, Kahuku, Kapolei, Mililani, Waianae

Division I: Aiea, Castle, Kailua, Leilehua, Moanalua, Radford, Nanakuli, Waipahu

Division II: Kaimuki, Kaiser, Kalaheo, Kalani, McKinley, Pearl City, Roosevelt, Waialua

Tanaka is hoping that the move to three tiers will lead to more competitive games during league play.

"Bottom line is hopefully now, we avoid forfeitures, the lopsided scores. I think the idea is to make the games more competitive in each division."

Tanaka added that moving to three tiers makes more sense since the Hawaii High School Athletic Athletic implemented a three-tiered system in the state tournament. He also said that the OIA wants to have its teams participating in the tournament on all three levels.

The decision to split the teams into three levels also gives the OIA some flexibility in terms of scheduling.

The OIA schedule the past couple years only had room for one game of non-league play, but Tanaka said teams will likely be able to schedule multiple games before the start of the regular season.

For league play, Tanaka said Division I and Division II will use a single round-robin format with each teams playing each other once. The top four teams after the regular season in both Division I and Division II will advance to a two-week playoff, Tanaka added.

The format for the Open Division will be slightly different however.

The current option is a double round-robin schedule with each team playing each other two times during the regular season, but Tanaka said the OIA is looking at other possibilities.