High school football players who lose their helmets during play in the 2012 high school season must leave the field for one play according to a rule change adopted by the National Federation of State High School Association Football Rules Committee.

The NCHSAA has figured out how it will seed its boys and girls basketball playoffs. It was first reported last night by Phillip Gardner of the Gaston Gazzette. Today, the N&O has also obtained a copy of the email, and here are three main bullet points:

• Nothing changes as far as the number of teams in the bracket (64) or how teams qualify (number of automatic bids, wild cards, process of a conference tournament champion earning a 2-seed are still the same).
• Unlike in years past, the qualifying teams are split by geography into four pods (West, Midwest, Mideast, East). The fourth and fifth rounds are the regionals - and unlike in years past teams will not be reseeded for it.
• The 1-seeds are ordered by overall record (ties can be broken by head-to-head or draw), and then the same with the 2-seeds, 3-seeds, 4-seeds, 5-seeds and wild-cards. Each pod will then have its own 16-team bracket where the 1-seed hosts the 16-seed and so on.

Just like with football, knowing where your team is located east-to-west will be important. But unless you've got a handy map of every high school's longitude coordinate, figuring out pods can be difficult.

Let me help.

Attached is a spreadsheet that I've created of every NCHSAA team. The list includes the school name, its current classification, its ADM number at the time of last year's football playoffs and -- yes -- it's longitude coordinate.

Green Hope and Panther Creek made requests to the N.C. High School Athletic Associaton on Tuesday to place the schools in a league with other current Tri-Nine 4A schools.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association clarified at least one part of its new playoff format for the boys and girls basketball playoffs.

While the NCHSAA is switching from its old playoff structure to one much that looks much like how the football brackets are decided, it will not be changing how teams qualify for the playoffs.

A state audit of an unusual public pension arrangement for an N.C. High School Athletic Association official is recommending a criminal investigation for possible fraud.

The audit said the association sought to help an associate commissioner stay on the state pension system by shifting his position over to the Chatham County school district. The association had been converted from a state agency into a nonprofit in early 2010, which meant its employees were no longer eligible to belong to the state pension plan.

The Chatham district's school board approved the arrangement, which allowed the associate commissioner, Rick Strunk, to be identified as a school employee while continuing to work for the association, which would give the district the money to pay Strunk his salary and benefits. The district had no control over Strunk's duties.

The audit found that the arrangement, which lasted roughly a year, did not cost the school system any money. But it meant that Strunk would continue to be considered a public employee accruing more money for his pension. Auditors found that the N.C. Retirement System was misled by the arrangement, which came to an end once it was discovered.

The audit said the arrangement could violate a state law forbidding the receipt of benefits through false pretenses. It said that Strunk, who had 26 years of eligible service, could have received more than $100,000 in improper pension benefits had he retired after 30 years in the system and had been collecting a pension for 14 years.

The audit also said that the association had tried a similar arrangement with the Orange County school district, but the state retirement system said it would have been improper.

The audit can be found here.

Johnston County's Cleveland High, which looked headed for the 2A classification, is expected to remain a 3A school in the N.C. High School Athletic Association's next alignment.

NCHSAA schools are arranged in conferences every four years. The next alignment begins in the fall of 2013.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association released a preliminary realignment plan earlier this week that had Cleveland dropping. After checking projected enrollments, however, Cleveland is expected to remain a 3A school.

The NCHSAA staff knew the first draft would have to be adjusted and is preparing a second option for the schools.

The NCHSAA finalized the boys and girls lacrosse conferences for this year. There were no changes in the area from the NCHSAA's first draft, which can be found by clicking here.

Since their inception last year in the N.C. High School Athletic Association football playoffs, the "pods" used to form a bracket to cut down on travel has been a hot-button topic.

I'll leave my opinion out of it.

I couldn't begin to form an opinion until doing some number-crunching, which is what I'll present to you in this blog.

Pods exist to save schools mileage and money through the first three rounds. If, for whatever reason, this study does not find the pods to have saved mileage, then there is no reason for them.  Looking into re-matches caused is another topic for another time.

The NCHSAA has posted preliminary brackets for volleyball, boys soccer and girls tennis playoffs. All of these fall sport playoff brackets have a particular slot associated with each team's finish in the conference standings. There are also a limited number of wild-card spots.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association has released its first draft of this spring's boys and girls lacrosse conferences. Since less than a fourth of NCHSAA schools have either program, new conferences are made bringing together those that do. Finalized conferences will be released later.

Among the proposed changes: