It came as no surprise Tuesday when the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission’s autonomy in managing high school sports.

The first round of the West Virginia State High School Football Championships will kick off on Friday, with the season now set to reach its finale in Charleston on Dec. 13-14 when the championship games are held.

“It is beyond question that the WVSSAC had the authority to reclassify under West Virginia Code of State Rules 127-3-10,” the Supreme Court’s order states. “Upon our review, we find that the circuit court’s entry of injunctive relief was not based on the WVSSAC’s lack of authority to reclassify, but rather on the timing and manner of that reclassification. We have repeatedly held that the manner in which the WVSSAC applies its rules is not subject to judicial review.”

This puts the issue to rest, at least for now. The football playoffs will move forward and then winter and spring sports will have their seasons. In the meantime, though, the WVSSAC and its leadership has work to do to ensure this type of situation doesn’t happen again.

Let’s be clear: while judges in Wood and Mason counties overstepped their authority in granting the initial injunctions that led to Tuesday’s ruling, those matters did in fact have some merit. The SSAC had a terrible, unorganized approach throughout this entire process. Schools were reclassified — and then essentially allowed to reclassify themselves again right before the season started in August. The wayward, totally subjective formula utilized by the SSAC for classification purposes included a school’s distance from a city, socio-economic factors and more. That allowed 22 schools to drop in class just before the season began.

There’s also this: West Virginia does not need four classifications for any sport! Having 16 teams in Class AAAA, when all 16 automatically qualify for the playoffs, is plain foolish. In a state with a shrinking school-aged population, this approach will never work. The time to fix this is now.

What the SSAC, its board of directors and the board of control need to do now is go back to the drawing board and come up with a system that works — for the kids.

It’s clear that the cockamamie plan that was allowed to come about this year turned into a total disaster.

Both schools and students deserve better.