North-and-south runners are a valuable commodity in football. In the Campbell Conference, they’re willing to accept entire teams that move from east to west.

The Class C wing of the rapidly-growing football conference will expand from 10 to 14 teams next fall. Oak Hill and Maranacook, former members of the Pine Tree Conference Class B, are dropping down to Class C due to declining enrollment and moving from eastern Maine to western Maine. The league is also adding two new varsity programs, Freeport and Sacopee Valley.

With the additions, the Campbell Conference will be split into two seven-team divisions. Dirigo, Jay, Livermore Falls, Madison, Maranacook, Oak Hill and Winthrop will make up the North. Boothbay, Freeport, Lisbon, Old Orchard Beach, Sacopee Valley, Traip and Yarmouth form the South.

Team will play everyone in their division once, plus two crossover games in the regular season. Teams will also have two other crossovers for preseason scrimmages.

The conference playoff format will also be expanded from four to eight teams, which means the regular season will be cut from nine to eight games. At the end of the regular season, teams will be ranked by Crabtree points, 1-14, with the top eight teams making the playoffs.

The new format will be in effect for at least the next two years. The exact schedule is still being drawn up.

“The advantages are more teams for the playoffs and more all-stars recognized,” Lisbon co-curricular director Jeff Ramich said.

“The drawback might be that the North will be a stronger division than the South, so a team from the South might not be able to earn as many Crabtree points as a team from the North and might not get in the top eight, but that happens every year,” he added.

Oak Hill is returning to the Campbell Conference after a seven-year absence. It moved to the PTC after stepping up to Class B in 2002. Now the school’s enrollment for 2009, along with Maranacook’s, is projected below the Maine Principals’ Association cutoff of 505 students for Class B.

“We were one of the originals (in the Campbell Conference) and then Leavitt, Morse and us got bumped up,” Oak Hill athletic director Bill Fairchild said. “We then became the smallest one on the block and now we turn around and become the big boys on the block.”

That worries some of the smaller schools in the conference.

“It’s very tough to compete against bigger schools like that,” Livermore Falls coach Brad Bishop said.

Bishop said he likes the expanded playoff format, but it is going to be difficult for schools such as his Andies and their rival, Jay, which could have somewhere around 200 fewer students than the four new schools, to advance deep into the postseason.

“We can compete, make the playoffs like we have, but I don’t know if we can contend for a championship with the kids we have,” he said.

“There should be a fourth classification, a Class D,” Bishop added. “We should have a class for schools with under 400 kids. I just think the balance is unfair.”

The only drawback to the new schedule Bishop sees is that the weaker teams will lose one game. He would like to see the teams that don’t make the playoffs still get a ninth game against each other.

“The only way for kids to improve is to play, and they’ll get one one extra week of practice and one extra game, even though it doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

The division setup should help schools save money on travel, Ramich said. Other conference loyalties were considered, but the divisions ultimately had to make the most geographic sense.

“I tried to keep the MVC teams together and the WMC and KVAC newcomers in the other division, but if we did this, we wouldn’t be following the directive from the superintendents and principals to save on travel,” Ramich said.

Crossover games will also be based primarily on geography. Although, according to Ramich, the conference athletic directors were only concerned with keeping the Jay/Livermore Falls rivalry intact, the crossover matchups could maintain or re-establish some rivalries, such as Lisbon and Oak Hill.

“We’re going to have to wait and see how we redevelop rivalries, but we definitely need to have a crossover with Lisbon,” Fairchild said. “The amount of money it costs us to lose (ticket sales for) Leavitt and Gardiner (every other year) … Any year you had both of them at home was a pretty good year.”

The loss of Oak Hill and Maranacook could have a ripple effect in the PTC, which includes Leavitt. Next year, the league will officially add Camden Hills, which played an exhibition schedule with the PTC in 2008. But the drop-off to 10 teams may force the conference to cut its playoff bracket in half, from eight to four teams.