New Hampshire high school football will have a new look in 2013, and the changes made by the NHIAA are anything but subtle.

After the 2012 season the number of divisions will be reduced from six to three, and there will be four conferences in each division. Each conference will have either four or five teams.

In addition, eight teams will qualify for the playoffs from each division. In the current six-division alignment, there are four playoff teams from each division.

“We thought this is what was best from a competitive standpoint, in terms of teams making the playoffs and being competitive every week when they get off the bus,” said Merrimack coach Joe Battista, who is a member of the NHIAA football committee. “The way it is now, there are teams that go into a season knowing they have no shot of making the playoffs.

“The other thing is now we’ll have three true state champions. The champion will be the best of 20 teams, not the best of nine or 10 teams, and you won’t always be playing teams in the playoffs that you’ve already beaten during the regular season.”

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Here’s how the teams will break down by division:

DIVISION I (20 teams)
East: Dover, Exeter, Spaulding, Timberlane and Winnacunnet.
West: Alvirne, Bishop Guertin, Keene, Nashua North and Nashua South.
North: Bedford, Concord, Manchester Central, Manchester West and Manchester Memorial.
South: Goffstown, Londonderry, Merrimack, Pinkerton and Salem.

DIVISION II (20 teams)
North: Hanover, Kennett, Laconia, Lebanon and Plymouth.
South: John Stark, Milford, Souhegan, Trinity and Windham.
West: Con-Val, Hollis/Brookline, Kearsarge, Monadnock and Sanborn.
Central: Kingswood, Merrimack Valley, Pembroke, Portsmouth and St. Thomas.

DIVISION III (19 teams)
South: Bow, Campbell, Pelham and Somersworth.
Lakes: Franklin, Gilford, Inter-Lakes/Moultonborough, Newfound and Winnisquam.
West: Bishop Brady, Epping-Newmarket, Farmington-Nute and Raymond.
East: Fall Mountain, Mascoma, Newport and Stevens.

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Battista said each team will play every team in its conference, plus every team from one other conference in its division. All games will count in the standings.

“We won’t know what conferences will play each other until the schedules come out in December,” he said. “I think it will be set up on a rotating basis, so after a three-year span you’ll have played every other team in your division.”

The first- and second-place finishers from each conference will qualify for the playoffs. Teams from the same conference will meet in the first round of the playoffs. The four remaining teams will be seeded using a point system and will meet in the semifinals, with the No. 4 seed playing at the No. 1 seed, and the No. 3 seed playing at the No 2 seed.

A team could play as many as two playoff games against teams they did not meet during the regular season.

“I don’t have a problem with the travel, because no matter who we play we’re gonna travel,” Keene coach John Luopa said. “My concern is it’s set up for the big schools in each division. We’re at about 1,500 students and all of the calculations say that number will probably go down in the next four years. What’s Pinkerton? About 3,300? It’s tough when you have to play a school twice your size. That’s something they would never do in the lower divisions.”

After the NHIAA adopted the six-division format for the 2012 season, the football committee was told to come up with a proposal that featured no more than five divisions for 2013. The three-division proposal was approved during the spring.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Timberlane coach Kevin Fitzgerald said. “I’m of the mind that they give you a schedule and you go play it. Some of these teams may be better than us on paper, but you have to find a way to win. It shouldn’t be easy to win a state championship.

“The one issue I see is that three of the best teams in a division may be in the same conference, and only one of those teams will be moving on. That’s an issue they may have to deal with, but I like playing good teams. I like the challenge.”

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Roger Brown may be reached at rbrown@unionleader.com.